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Traditional Cooked Turkey?

arcticchibi

I was wondering if there is an awesome way to cook the ole Thanksgiving bird in the traditional way, but slightly better. I don't have access to joule yet, since I just ordered it yesterday, so I am looking up different ways to do it. Will there ever be a class or video on the way you guys cook a turkey using the traditional method, or not using joule?

Also if anyone in the community has a good way of cooking turkey, please share! I'm not too familiar with doing it since I only did it once.

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Comments

wolfiegirl

If I'm cooking a turkey in the oven, I start by brining the whole dang bird. Yeah, it's a bit of a chore, especially fitting a GIANT round lexan into the beer fridge. Yikes. But once that's done (takes about three or four days), it's time to rinse and dry the bird and prep it for roasting. Mind, I don't care if it looks like a Norman Rockwell painting. What I'm after is juicy and tender. I put a few cut up carrots and celery stalks in the bottom of the roasting pan, put the turkey directly into the pan (no rack) crown side (breast) down, lightly covered with foil. Then it's a low and slow for hours. Usually about 250° until it is nearly fall apart tender. Keeping the crown side down does not do much for the skin of the bird but by jove, the breast meat is as juicy as it can be. Out of the oven it cools down for a couple hours or until it's easily handled to pluck the meat off the bones. And the bones, skin and anything that doesn't make it to the serving plate goes into a big arse container for turkey stock. No waste whatsoever. It's a thing of beauty.

meyer8863

If you're willing to go just slightly outside of traditional, I would suggest spatchcocking the turkey. Serious Eats has a recipe for that. They take a very scientific approach to cooking, so you can trust a pretty consistent result.

If you insist on being SUPER traditional, I would at the very least check out the chefsteps video on the proper way to truss a chicken in their ultimate roast chicken recipe. That will make a huge difference in how the bird cooks. Good luck! The community loves pictures.

arcticchibi

Great, thanks a bunch! I forgot about this method until now haha. I think I might go with this since my family doesn't really care about having the whole turkey as the centerpiece aestethic.

arcticchibi

Thanks a bunch! I think I will go with the spatchcock method on the comment by Michael, but all the tips you gave me is still very useful

tshewman

Brine the whole bird (injection), remove the wish bone and leg tendons (esp if carving at the table). For the cook part it depends on size. I did a 12 lb last year using 170F (for ~8 hours) until it came to 140 and then took it out for 45 minutes (temp went up). Poured LN2 on it, coated it with clarified butter and finished in a 55Deg oven. Skin was like glass. So, that's how I would d it again, if doing one whole. If bigger simply add time.

fisher23

What is your method to remove the leg tendons? Please!

fisher23

I read an article recently that suggested placing ice packs for a few hours on the breast meat to lower it's temperature by about 15 degrees prior to cooking. This is supposed to help so that the white and dark meat are cooked at about the same time. Edit: I found it, good article at Thermoworks.

tshewman

Trim the skin at the ankle and french the tendons and push down on the skin (be careful you don't turn the blade toward the skin), Cut the tendons (with knife or scissors) and pull with pliers. There are a couple that are always tough, but doable. Below is a pic from this morning 5am so not perfect (getting ready early - this one's brining and I'll trim the skin to clean it up before cooking).

Matthew_Zoglmann_560487

Brine that beast in a cooler - just add ice as needed to maintain temp range.