11/23/05 | Turkey Time
[ Currently Eating: Lays Potato Chip (Just One) ]
Be afraid. Be very, very afraid. Famous words from Alton Brown on his Good Eats show. Why should you be afraid?
Well, to make a short story long: Every year for the last 30 or more years, I’ve relied upon parents and other family members to provide the main dish at Thanksgiving. The piece de la resistance to mangle a French phrase or two. The TURKEY!
We usually had Thanksgiving at my parent’s house or grandma’s house, and though there were many turkey ups and downs (overcooked, dry, undercooked, and soggy) there always WAS a turkey to be had. A full fledged, brown bird. I can’t remember for sure, but I believe I’ve always had The Bird on Thanksgiving without fail. Just like you see on TV, Turkey with all the Trimmings.
Well, this year the task of preparing the Turkey has fallen to ME for the first time ever. I’ve taken on the task in order to give my parents a bit of a break since their home is currently being remodeled and is in poor shape to host a Thanksgiving.
Cooking a turkey… where to start? Well, I guess I’ve passed the first test which is actually buying a frozen turkey ahead of time in order to let it defrost. I didn’t realize that everyone is thinking the exact same thing: buy the turkey on the weekend before Thanksgiving. So I thought I had plenty of time when I headed over there this past Friday night to look for one.
But the turkey icebox at the supermarket was a graveyard! Of gigantic 20-22 pound gargantuan birds. I wanted a 14-16 pound turkey just like the rest of the civilized world. As we pawed through the frozen carcasses looking for the ideal sized bird, I made a resolution to go earlier next year if I got the chance again. Finally, we found a stray 16.6 pound turkey hiding out under its bigger brethren. Whew!
I’ve never had occasion to shop for turkeys, Thanksgiving or not, so I didn’t really know what the prices would be like. They always have some sort of sale going on at all the major supermarkets on frozen turkeys. The three biggies near me are Albertson’s, Ralph’s, and Vons. I can’t remember the exact details, except that Vons was the most reasonable.
For all the supermarkets, you have to buy a certain amount of groceries in order to get the deal on the bird. For Vons, it was: Buy 25 dollars worth of groceries and then get an under 16 pound bird for $5 or an over 16 pound bird for $7. Unfortunately, our bird tipped the scales at 16.6, so we had to fork over the extra $2. I believe Ralph’s was, buy $25 of groceries and then get 2 turkeys for the price of one, while Albertson’s was buy $75 of groceries and get a free turkey? Not sure…
Now, since it’s still Wednesday and we haven’t yet done the deed, I won’t be able to post any pictures of the roasted turkey that we’re attempting to make. However, we have decided on a plan of attack and it’s going to be the “Brined” turkey recipe from Alton Brown’s Good Eats show. I’ve made brined roast chickens before which turned out pretty fabulously, so we picked the brining method for our first try. Plus, I’ve never had a brined turkey (parents weren’t into the idea) so this’ll be a fun test.
Brining is an extra step and is a bit trickier than a chicken because the Turkey is so darn large! I actually went to Home Depot to get a clean 5 gallon bucket in order to do it.
Well, in case you are wondering, here is the recipe taken straight from the Food Network site. We’re skipping the allspice berries and candied ginger, but we’re planning on following the rest of the steps pretty much to the letter. I’ll report back on the results after the holiday!
1 (14 to 16 pound) frozen young turkey
For the brine:
1 cup kosher salt
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 gallon vegetable stock
1 tablespoon black peppercorns
1/2 tablespoon allspice berries
1/2 tablespoon candied ginger
1 gallon iced waterFor the aromatics:
1 red apple, sliced
1/2 onion, sliced
1 cinnamon stick
1 cup water
4 sprigs rosemary
6 leaves sage
Canola oilCombine all brine ingredients, except ice water, in a stockpot, and bring to a boil. Stir to dissolve solids, then remove from heat, cool to room temperature, and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled.
Early on the day of cooking, (or late the night before) combine the brine and ice water in a clean 5-gallon bucket. Place thawed turkey breast side down in brine, cover, and refrigerate or set in cool area (like a basement) for 6 hours. Turn turkey over once, half way through brining.
A few minutes before roasting, heat oven to 500 degrees. Combine the apple, onion, cinnamon stick, and cup of water in a microwave safe dish and microwave on high for 5 minutes.
Remove bird from brine and rinse inside and out with cold water. Discard brine. Place bird on roasting rack inside wide, low pan and pat dry with paper towels. Add steeped aromatics to cavity along with rosemary and sage. Tuck back wings and coat whole bird liberally with canola (or other neutral) oil.
Roast on lowest level of the oven at 500 degrees F. for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and cover breast with double layer of aluminum foil, insert probe thermometer into thickest part of the breast and return to oven, reducing temperature to 350 degrees F. Set thermometer alarm (if available) to 161 degrees. A 14 to 16 pound bird should require a total of 2 to 2 1/2 hours of roasting. Let turkey rest, loosely covered for 15 minutes before carving.
Price: $7.00 for just the Turkey
Bought at: Vons
Cheap Eats Score: 7/10
November 23rd, 2005 at 7:19 pm
Good luck to ya! Hope it turns out well. I’m making dressing (or stuffing as it’s sometimes called.)
November 23rd, 2005 at 9:40 pm
shawn - I have my brother’s help so I think it will come out edible. I like stuffing / dressing! My favorite thing about stuffing is the day after Thanksgiving leftovers. I usually make an open faced Turkey, Stuffing, Mashed Potato and Gravy Sandwich with a side of Cranberry. Man, I could eat that every week. Actually a lot of diners sell a sandwich like this year round I think…
November 28th, 2005 at 4:41 pm
So how was it?
November 28th, 2005 at 5:24 pm
Aaron - it went pretty well actually! I was planning on writing up a full report in a post soon. Basically, we used alton’s method to the letter. The only difference was that we had a 16.6 pound bird instead of one 14-16. I believe it shouldn’t have mattered, but when we took it out, and let it rest, cutting into it we found the dark meat wasn’t 100% done especially at the leg joints. The white meat was perfect. The time to 161 deg F was almost exactly what he said.
I think there are 2 possibilites: first, we didn’t get the probe into the correct place in the turkey breast. It was sort of difficult… we jabbed it around before getting it right. Second is that the “turkey triangle” foil was too loose or too small, so that the breast cooked quicker, triggering a shorter cooking time on the probe, and thus the dark meat didn’t have enough time. I believe this is the most likely scenario…
I would actually be interested in finding out a way to have the probe be in the DARK meat, perhaps the thigh, instead of the white meat. I mean, you KNOW the white meat is going to be done either way, so why not monitor the dark meat at an appropriate temperature. I think he chose the breast meat to probe (haha…no jokes, please) because he thought it’s easier to stick the probe into it.
November 30th, 2005 at 3:48 am
Well I’m glad it turned out well. My dressing was mighty good too.Twas the first time I cooked anything for the gathering.
I’m suprised there weren’t more comments on this one… Anyways I have 2 family gatherings to attend every year, at the other they fried a turkey - just made me a leftover fried turkey and mayo sandwich, slapped some dressin in there too - is that legal for breakfast? Owell i got a long day - protien and carbs and calories and such - maybe itll get me to lunch when i slam down a few krystal burgers…
BTW - speakin of cheap eats - I buy krystal burgers (white castle if yer up north) by the boatload and freeze em in ziplock bags. No worry about freezer burn cause they aint in there long enough! Just get em plain - with onion only - the mustard and pickle dont nuke well…
November 30th, 2005 at 8:35 am
I’m totally brineing my turkey next year. Everyone who does it swears by it, so next year is this is my goal. LOL
If you cook a turkey again, stick the probe between the leg and the body, not touching bone. This should give you a better cooking temp.
November 30th, 2005 at 10:26 am
Shawn - sort of my fault there aren’t more comments, because I was supposed to report back with a full post on how it went, but I got lazy and haven’t put up pics yet (too much turkey will do that to you!) I made my usual open faced turkey sandwich this year afterwards. It is like a Thanksgiving Loco Moco, haha. Re: the White Castle burgers, I think Marvo reviewed those awhile back on Impulsive Buy. I haven’t tried them yet though I’ve been meaning to. How much are they?
Andie - Oh yeah, the brining was great. I had heard from numerous people this is the way to go. I thought it might be too salty because I brined it for about 10 hours, but it was ok. For the probe, yeah my parents had also questioned putting it in the breastmeat and suggested the thigh or leg. The only thing is that we wanted to try follow his recipe to the letter, and he said put the thermometer in the breastmeat and gave an exact temperature for taking it out.
So we would have to come up with a correct temperature for dark meat then… does anyone know what temperature that is? I know it is a bit tricky because the temperature continues to rise after taking the turkey out of the oven. So the temperature has to be slightly UNDER in order to compensate for that… I actually was wondering… what if we used TWO probes, one in the leg and the other in the breast meat, so we could know whether or not the breast meat was overdone but also make sure the leg meat was cooked?
December 1st, 2005 at 12:48 pm
If you have two probes then I would totally use them. Turkey is done at 180 degrees. So I would take the turkey out at 165-170 and let it rest for 20 minutes. Covered in foil. It should rise up to 180 while resting.
This is just my guestimate though. LOL
On one of the food network shows, the chef cooked his turkey on a regular cookie sheet. His reason for this was because when in a roasting pan all the heat goes to the breast first and strongest and the legs last. But on a cookie sheet the heat is able to rise up and distrubute over the entire bird evenly. Who knows, maybe that does work better and will yield a more evenly cooked bird.
December 1st, 2005 at 1:13 pm
andie - i don’t have two probes unfortunately so i would probably try your method. So, i put the probe into the meat where the leg is attached to the body? We did cover it with foil, but not very tightly… that could be another reason why it was underdone.
Regarding using a cookie sheet… HEY, yeah my brother and I had discussed this right before cooking, as well as afterwards! Alton used a cookie sheet but he didn’t say WHY. My mom had said to use a roasting pan because afterwards she said it’s easier to make gravy in, and it was. I was almost going to use the cookie sheet but didn’t. Later, my brother said he thought that the cooking distribution might have been affected by the pan. Dang, that might just be it. I will definitely think about that as the first variable to change the next time we cook it.
November 22nd, 2007 at 12:51 pm
Turkey is not done at 180 it is over cooked, 165 is the recomdation now. If you pull it out at 161 it will go up to 165.