I'm blessed to have this amazingly talented brother, Chef Craig. It's a joke around our family that if you have a cooking emergency or a need to know a random piece of culinary trivia...you call your chef hotline operator, Chef Craig!
Well, I sent him an email last week because I was only slightly (ahem) freaking out about cooking a Thanksgiving turkey...that's right, forget the fact that I'm 31, married with children, a mortgage and a professional career...it's cooking my first Thanksgiving turkey that really makes me a grown-up! Who do I turn to for help for everything from what type and where to buy a turkey to what to put it in/on (bag? rack?) to gravy tips...Craigery, of course. My inquiry was answered with the most entertaining and educational email I've ever received...I'm seriously thinking I need to send this baby in to Food Network insisting that they give my bro his own show!
Here is that email:
Welcome to Turkey 101
First of all....Bird Selection.
I like to buy organic Kosher Turkeys. The reason I like organic is not nearly as important as the reason that I like Kosher Turkeys. I prefer Kosher because they have already been salt brined, therefore there is no reason to have to soak your turkey in a saltwater solution. This can be really messy and since you have a two year old, better to just skip it and pay a slight bit more for the convenience.
Secondly....Bird Prep.
Since you've purchased a Kosher bird, there is no need to brine the turkey....but we've already covered that. So now on to flavor selections. The key to having a really moist turkey is adding some sort of fat. I know I know, fat is bad, but hey, it's Thanksgiving not New Years, so bring on the fat, we'll diet later. My fat of choice for this application is regular old unsalted butter. Butter is great, but it's not all that flavorful on its own, the French are going to kill me if they ever got their hands on this email, so I like to make an herb compound butter. Soften two sticks of butter at room temperature, plop your butter in your wonderful Kitchen Aid and add to that the zest from one lemon and about two tablespoons of fresh thyme leaves. A little bit of salt and pepper and you're ready to flip the switch and make some yummy butter.
Now then, we're going to stuff a good bit of that butter under the skin of Mr. Turkey. So, hoist him up on the counter with what's left of his neck facing you. Put your hand under the skin and make a pocket between the skin and the breast. Put half of the butter on either breast. Now that the sort of gross part is done, Take your lemon that you zested and cut it in quarters and throw it in the bird along with some of the thyme or thyme stems. Now for the outside of the turkey, drizzle Mr. Turkey with some olive oil to help brown and crisp the skin. Salt and pepper and some more fresh thyme and some fresh parsley or sage, whatever you like. Or you can use the Simon and Garfunkel recipe, Parsley Sage Rosemary and Thyme. That does it for flavoring, how much do you know about trussing a bird. If you don't even know what trussing is, just tie his legs together so he's not flayling about in your oven. If you know how to truss a chicken or turkey....Bravo, get to it.
Part the third.....Cooking the Bird (hey that rhymes)
Forget the bag. Foget the rack. Neither of those things add any flavor to your turkey or to the ensuing gravy. I like to cook on mirepoix, what is mirepoix you ask, its a combination of 50% onions, 25% carrots and 25% celery. Just cut all that up into big chunks, enough to cover the bottom of your roasting pan. Once you have enough put that in the bottom and put the bird on top of that, breasts up. As for cooking times and temperatures go, it really depends on the size of your turkey, but I'd say 325 degrees for a couple of hours until a thermometer put into the thigh of the bird reached 165 degrees. Then make sure you let the turkey rest for a good while before slicing him, let those juices settle back. But while he's resting you can make some yummy gravy. Take all of the stuff you have in the bottom of that roasting pan and put it in a sauce pan with some store bought chicken stock. Let that simmer for a little while then thicken with a cornstarch slurry and then strain and skim and adjust the seasoning.
I hope this helps, I know it's a lot of information to try and digest. But, if everything works out, you'll be a turkey hero. One of the most important things is to not overcook the turkey, he'll dry out real fast. So please don't use that little pop up time that they sometimes shove in the bird. Ideally is one of those contraptions that you can put in the meat and leave and the alarm outside the oven goes off when it gets to a certain temperature. They sell them at Walmart and all of the fancy kitchen stores too, like Williams Sonoma and Viking.
Good luck, Let me know how it goes
"For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb." Psalm 139:13
