- [Host] This episode is sponsored by ButcherBox.
With ButcherBox, you can get high quality meat
delivered directly to your door.
Choose from 100% grass-fed beef,
free-range organic chicken and more,
sourced from farmers and fishermen
dedicated to doing the right thing.
Today I'm using ButcherBox turkeys
to demonstrate the different ways to prepare your bird.
Once you've had enough turkey for the season,
order a ButcherBox.
For a limited time, new members will receive
two 100% grass-fed New York strip steaks
in their box for a whole year.
For more info, head to the link in the video description.
(upbeat theme music)
All right, so once you've allowed your turkey
to fully defrost, that's 24 hours in the fridge
for every five pounds of bird,
it's time to debag it and remove its included accessories.
Usually a nice neck and some giblets.
These are great for making or fortifying your gravy.
Next up, we're going to pat the bird dry inside and out.
If you plan on using an oven thermometer,
you can go ahead and pull this thing out,
making sure not to tear the skin any more than is necessary.
And then it's time to talk
some general turkey best practices.
First up, using your fingers
to separate the skin from the meat.
This not only aids in crisping up the birds,
but opens up the opportunity to stuff
delicious things under there, like butter and herbs.
Matter of fact, that sounds really pretty good,
why don't we do that?
To make compound butter, we're simply combining
eight ounces of room-temperature unsalted butter
with the herbs and spices of our choice.
I'm going with some freshly chopped Sage, Rosemary and Thyme
and a hefty pinch of kosher salt
and freshly ground black pepper,
which is going to help more deeply season
the meat under the skin.
Go ahead and tiny whisk that together until it's homogenous
and then we can introduce it to our bird.
One little gob at a time, we're going to shove
and massage it into every corner that we can get it.
Most of this is going to melt away,
but it's going to deeply flavor the meat before it goes.
Still got some leftover?
Go ahead and just rub it all over everything.
Next step, we're going to talk brining.
Now, if you're going with a wet brine,
you want to do that first, before any of this other stuff,
but I prefer a dry brine of about a half cup of kosher salt
mixed with one teaspoon of baking powder.
Which, once liberally applied to every nook
and cranny of the exterior of the bird,
can then hang out uncovered in the fridge for 24 hours.
Now, one of the advantages of a wet brine
is that it gives you very, very moist meat,
but most of that moisture just ends up being salty water.
It also doesn't really penetrate very deeply into the meat.
Two problems that we can fix in one go,
I've got one cup of concentrated turkey stock
that I've made by boiling down
about two quarts of turkey stock to one cup.
And one cup lightly melted butter,
which I'm going to tiny whisk together
into a rich, buttery, turkey flavor-emulsion of your dreams,
and administer to the turkey by virtue of a flavor injector,
a giant scary meat needle that I'm going to insert
repeatedly and joyfully in every part
of the white and dark meat.
Now, before doing this, you want to know
your turkey's commercial brining status.
If the ingredients say anything more than turkey,
in other words, salts, flavors, water added,
then that means that it was probably commercially brined.
And you want to make sure that your injection liquid
doesn't have any added salt.
Next up, we're going to truss the legs.
In other words, just tie them together
and tuck the wings underneath the front of the turkey.
You'll notice that there is no stuffing in this bird.
That's because by the time the stuffing
reaches a safety temperature,
the rest of the turkey is going to be dried out.
If you really want to stuff things in there,
go with a quartered onion and a half lemon.
Since you're not going to eat them,
they don't need to come up to temperature.
And they're going to introduce
a whole bunch more flavor into this situation.
So now that our turkey has been prepped
and prodded in all manner of ways,
it's time to talk method of cooking.
First up, we're going to go with
just a classic oven-roasted turkey.
I'm lining the bottom of my roasting pan with aluminum foil
and tossing a whole roughly chopped onion in there.
One whole head of garlic,
cloves separated, no need to peel.
A few chopped carrots and a few ribs of chopped celery.
All these vegetables are going to do two things,
prevent the drippings from your turkey,
from evaporating and burning
and add even more flavor so you get a bonus shot
of concentrated stock to add to your gravy
once you're done cooking.
Turkey goes in a rack set over top,
and then the classic method is to loosely tent with foil
and pop into a 325 degree Fahrenheit oven
for about two hours.
This is going to bring the turkey up to temperature
in a nice moist environment.
This is great for keeping the meat moist
and cooking the turkey evenly,
but not so great for browning.
After two hours or once the thickest part of the breast
registers about 150 degrees Fahrenheit,
we're uncovering the turkey,
cranking the oven up to 450 degrees Fahrenheit,
preferably with convection.
We're crisping up the bird for anywhere
from 15 to 45 minutes,
until the breast meat registers about 155
and the dark meat, 175.
Then we're letting it rest, uncovered for 20 to 30 minutes.
Don't worry, it won't cool off.
But not before we first retrieve
all those delicious drippings.
Let this stuff settle for a few minutes,
skim the fat off the top and you've got
some hyper-concentrated stock to add to your gravy.
Once the turkey has rested,
you can go ahead and carve as desired.
Next up, the ever-popular oven bag method.
These are available at your local grocer
and is basically the same as the foil method,
but the bag traps a whole lot more moisture.
Even after cutting a half dozen ventilation slits
in the top of the bag,
we're still cooking the turkey in an extremely humid
environment, which helps keep it moist.
Same deal, 325 for about two hours
or until the thickest part of the breast registers 150.
Then we're going to liberate the turkey
from the bag so it can crisp up.
We're gonna place it on a rack
so that it is elevated above all the drippings.
And look at all the drippings that that bag preserved.
And then no matter how you're cooking your turkey,
when it comes time to crisp it up,
it can help to brush it down with fat.
You can use clarified butter, oil, chicken, or duck fat
before plopping it back into a 450 degree
Fahrenheit oven, preferably with convection,
for anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes until thoroughly brown.
And I learned a valuable lesson from this bird.
Don't brown your turkey over the drippings.
As you can see, I think the bottom
browned much worse than the top
because of all the steam coming off the liquid.
Still, it's going to make for good eating.
After it's 30 minute rest,
I'm going to carve it up by carefully removing
the breasts and slicing them across the grain.
And not only is this turkey delicious and juicy,
you can actually see the butter in the meat.
Those flavor injectors are like $15 online
and they're worth every penny.
Next up, we're going with spatchcocking.
Definitely my favorite method for making a turkey.
Not only because you get uniformly crispy skin,
but because it cooks in less than half the time.
We're going to start by using some sharp kitchen sheers
to remove the turkey spine.
Then you can optionally remove the wishbone
for easier slicing down the line.
You have to place shallow cuts down the sides of the bone
until you can pull it free.
It's kind of a pain in the ass,
but you have to ask yourself,
do you want your pain in the ass now
or later when you're actually serving your guests?
Once you got that out of there,
it's time to press the turkey flat.
This is a little bit easier
if you place a little snip at the base of the breastbone.
Flip the turkey over and press down hard
between the breasts.
This gives you a sort of flat, splayed out turkey
that is going to cook more evenly.
You can prepare it however you like.
I like to go with a dry brine,
lightly coating in the salt and baking powder mixture
before resting in the fridge uncovered for 24 hours.
Doing the usual thing of separating the skin from the meat
so the fat can render out more effectively.
And if you're not injecting flavors into the meat,
you can still help to poke the skin a number of times,
particularly in the thicker fat deposits,
you can use a safety pin or a cocktail pick like this one.
This is going to help the fat render out even further.
We're placing this on a rack set over our vegetables
and a foil lined rimmed baking sheet
before begging at 450 degrees Fahrenheit,
preferably with convection, for only like 45 minutes
until the thickest part of the breast
registers 155 and the dark meat, 175.
It comes out looking a little strange
and dare I say inappropriate,
but you're not going to have
a jucier bird with crispier skin,
especially in only about 45 minutes.
Now let's take a crack at a smoked turkey,
which I'm going to make
an optional butter and spice rub for,
inspired by amazingribs.com.
I've got a half a cup of melted clarified butter
to which I am adding one and a half teaspoons kosher salt,
one teaspoon each, dried Sage, dried Rosemary, dried Thyme.
Three quarters of a teaspoon dried oregano,
half teaspoon black pepper, half teaspoon onion powder,
one teaspoon paprika, and two tablespoons of brown sugar.
I'm injecting the meat with melted and cooled salted butter
and rubbing the splice and butter mixture
all over and under the skin.
We're also not trussing or stuffing our bird
before placing it in a 325 degree Fahrenheit smoker
for about two hours.
Once again, increasing the heat to about 450
to crisp up the bird in the last half hour of cooking.
This produces a smoky, spiced bird
with crispy skin and juicy meat.
Don't forget that little nugget of meat in the back.
This is called the Pope's nose,
and it is recognized the world over
as a snack exclusively for the chef.
Last but not least, the scariest, most difficult
and most delicious way to prepare your bird, deep frying.
We've got our butter injected and dry brined bird
threaded onto the grappling hook,
which we're going to start by lowering
into an empty deep frying pot.
We're then going to add cold oil
until it's just covered and pull it back out.
This is the best way to determine
how much oil you need in your deep fryer.
Once the turkey's out in the oil's in,
it's time to activate the jet engine.
Apply heat-proof gloves and goggles.
Not only because it's stylish, but because it's safe.
And once your oil reaches 325 degrees Fahrenheit,
it's time to kill the flame.
This will prevent a fire from breaking out
in the event of an accidental overflow.
And with the flame off, very, very, very,
very, very slowly lower in your turkey.
You don't want oil to say,
rush into the cavity and cause a big splash
which burns your arm off.
Then we're letting a deep fry for anywhere
from half an hour to 45 minutes,
about three and a half minutes per pound.
Trying to maintain the oil temperature at 325 as best we can
and starting to check the temperature
of the white meat after about 30 minutes.
Once the turkey has reached its target temperature,
it's time to once again, turn off the flame,
and just about as slowly as we put it in
very, very slowly, take it out.
That turkey's full of hot oil and you don't want
it dripping all over the place.
Deep frying a turkey can cause severe injury,
house fires, premature hair loss
and all manner of terrible things.
But it produces, far and away,
the juiciest meat, crispiest skin
and the most anxiety that you'll get during Thanksgiving.
We actually ended up over cooking this turkey
by 10 degrees and you can still see it's very juicy.
And of all the turkeys that we've made,
it's the one we ended up eating the most of.
And that's after having eaten nothing but turkey all day.
Thank you again to ButcherBox for sponsoring this episode.
With ButcherBox, you can stock your freezer
with high quality meat and seafood,
making cooking and meal planning easier.
You choose your box type and frequency
and they'll ship your order for free
in an eco-friendly box.
Viewers of the channel of getting early access
to ButcherBox's Black Friday deal.
For a limited time only, new members will receive two,
100% grass-fed New York strip steaks for free
in every box for a year.
This will definitely sell out so order yours now.
Head to the link in the video description.
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