So, Thanksgiving turkey is on the horizon; a million ways to cook it. You can smoke it, stuff it, deep fry it using half of America's peanut oil supply, you can spatchcock it, half it down the middle, roll it, add duck and chicken and turn it into turducken (though, why the hell would you do that), you can slow cook it, crank the heat up to 500 for a while, or roast it gently. And, of course, you can ruin it by cooking it too long. Pre-cook prep: you can brine it, wine it, spice it, salt and pepper it, olive oil it, leave it uncovered in the fridge for 24 hours.
Two weeks before each Thanksgiving, I haul out my saved turkey prep magazines and leaf through them while my wife laughs. She has tried at least a dozen of my various preparation and cooking methods and professes that the turkey comes out tasting exactly the same, whether or not I bathed it in herbs, submerged it in brine, cooked it high or roasted it low.
The noble American bird — well, that's a little exaggerated — holds a special place in my memory. My dad had a small grocery store, run somewhat indifferently from a profit margins standpoint, but one of his most lucrative (word used guardedly) profit margins, he said, was the raising, killing, and selling of turkeys on Thanksgiving. His mother lived on a small plot of land which we generously called a farm, on which my dad built a pen into which he deposited unknowing turkeys. From time to time, I would help him feed the birds, keep them fat, before we chopped their heads off a few weeks before Thanksgiving. I don't remember if I felt bad about the ritualistic, savage nature of this enterprise in the name of small market capitalism, but I did it.
So, my turkey emergence is long and real, and much looked forward to. I will not prepare a full roast turkey throughout the year just to save it for Thanksgiving. Alas, a family trip to Berlin will keep me from preparing the turkey this Thanksgiving, but upon returning on Friday, I shall swing into action. Who exactly will be consuming my bird is uncertain at this point, but my wife knows it's going to happen.
Anyway, a few things I've learned; feel free to ignore them. First, cooking, and more to the point, carving, a huge bird is a monumental undertaking. Consider buying a smaller turkey as well as a turkey breast. If oven space is a problem, cook the turkey breast halfway through the night before, or better yet, buy an air fryer and cook it in there. What a great device that air fryer is. Sure, you can brine the bird, provided you have a container big enough to hold a baptism in, but I never found it quite worth it. I like leaving the bird in the fridge uncovered for at least 24 hours, which helps the skin get crispy.
I don't think starting the bird at a high temperature for 20 minutes, which is often recommended, is necessary, particularly if you did that leaving it uncovered thing. I think you can roast a turkey as low as 325 and get it done. My experience is that, unless your oven is truly defective, subtract a couple minutes from the recommended cooking time for a bird, which is around 13 minutes per pound.
You know how cooking shows always tell you to let the turkey rest before cutting it? They're correct. At least a half hour, if everybody can stand it. Meaning put the damn bird in a half hour earlier than you think so it can rest.
I'm generally anti electric knife, but I pull it out on Thanksgiving. It's easier to carve the legs, but be careful not to shred the breast.
That's all I got. I can tell you this: turkeys taste better than when I ate them from my father's store, maybe because I had nothing to do with the getting them ready.
