Simple Thanksgiving Turkey with Gravy
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If you're looking for an efficient way tomake a classic roast turkey with gravy, this
is how I do mine. I use only one vaguely unusualcooking technique, I keep dishes to a minimum,
my white meat is juicy, my dark meat is fallingapart, and my gravy is rich and flavorful.
I'll show you how I carve, which is optimizedfor efficiency and ease of eating, and also
how I serve hot turkey to everyone withoutputting myself under any real time crunch.
I can relax and let dinner happen when itwants to happen.
I'm starting with a 12-pound frozen turkey.Frozen turkeys are usually a lot cheaper,
and it's usually easier to get the type andsize that you want frozen. I think 12 pounds
is the prefect size — it feeds a lot ofpeople, but it's small enough that it cooks
pretty quick and evenly. I'm speed-thawingby submerging the turkey in cool water from
the sink. It's gonna float a little; you'llbe fine as long as the breast side is facing
down. The density of water sucks way morecold out of the meat than air can. That said,
this is a pain, compared to thawing somethinglittle, like a steak, in trickling water.
That takes 20 minutes. This is gonna take6-8 hours, at least an hour for every two
pounds, and I'll have to change the waterevery half hour or so to keep it moving and
keep it from getting too cold. That's a lotof babysitting and it really is a lot of water.
If I had the time, I'd just thaw it in thefridge — a day for every four or five pounds.
Anyway, when it's thawed in sink, you canmove it back to the fridge for a day or so,
or roast it straight away. I like to openup my turkey right in my roasting tray, A)
because I have to open it up somewhere, andI don't want to have to clean another vessel,
and B) I want all that juice in my gravy.There's no reason to waste it.
Take the giblets out — that's the gizzard,the heart — no liver, WTF? There's the
neck. All of that can just go on the bottomto flavor the gravy. I do like to score the
legs. Deep cuts, straight down to the bone.This makes turkey legs so much more, frankly,
edible. It helps them cook quicker, whichsoftens them up, and it also severs some of
those really stringy tendons and ligamentsor whatever those are in there. It just makes
the turkey leg edible.
Enough pepper to coat the whole bird, samedeal with salt. Lots of salt. And then I'll
go with the official dried herb combinationof Thanksgiving, which is sage and thyme.
Easy on the sage, it's very strong. InstantThanksgiving flavor right there. You could
use oil but I actually think the ideal turkeyroasting fat is clarified butter. I have a
jar of ghee from my local Indian grocery.Gonna use lots of it. This gets you a nice
milky flavor, compared to oil. You could usemelted whole butter, but the milk solids would
be likely to burn — on the turkey or morelikely down on the pan, which would hurt your
gravy. Also the water inside whole butterwould make the skin a little bit gummy.
Alright, everything is smushed around, don'tforget about the underside. And this is when
I will turn the burner under my roasting trayon medium heat, and get my oven pre-heating
to 350 F convection roast, if you've got it.And watch what happens on the burner. This
brings a ton of heat right into the dark meatonly, because the dark meat is on the bottom.
Speaking of which, I'll put a probe thermometerinto the deepest part of the thigh right there,
and a second probe into the deepest part ofthe breast. A dual probe thermometer is a
nice thing to have at Thanksgiving. Some oldcarrots go into the pan. Gravy is a great
usage of aromatic vegetables that are a littlelong in the tooth. Celery, a couple white
onions, just cut in half. If you cut the onionsinto smaller chunks than that, there's a good
chance they're gonna burn. And then I'll keepcooking it on the stovetop for at least 15
minutes, or even a half hour if I have time.Just don't let anything burn. Play it safe
with the heat. You smell something burning,that's burned flavor that's gonna be in your
gravy. In then oven it goes, and look: Thebreast is still refrigerator temperature,
but the thigh is 144 F — it's almost cooked.This totally solves the problem of the white
meat always being done before the dark meat.
About an hour later, here's where I'm at.Breast is about 15 degrees from being done,
dark meat is getting "overdone," which ishow I think it's best. It's gonna fall apart
like barbecue. This is where I'll jack thetemperature up to 500 to really brown the
skin. 15 minutes later, breast is 162 — pasttime to get it out of there.
Witness the power of carryover heat. A coupleminutes later we're at 165, even though the
bird's been out of the oven. That's heat that'sstored in the outer laters of the meat still
working it's way into the core, and you'vegotta account for that.
165 is the temperature that kills pathogensinstantaneously. I consider it a little overcooked,
though. If I'm in a situation where I don'tneed to play it really safe, I'll pull the
turkey at 155 and let it coast to just 160.That'll be noticeably juicier.
Here's how I get the turkey out of the pan.Use a metal spatula to make sure nothing is
stuck to the bottom, then stick said spatulainto the cavity, and use a clean towel to
hold the outside of the bird at the breast.Pick it up, and drain whatever juice is in
the cavity back into the pan. Since we pre-cookedthe bottom, there actually probably won't
be much juice in there.
Now there's our gravy foundation. If you roastwith the bird right on the bottom instead
of up in a rack, and if you cover the restof the tray surface with vegetables, you shouldn't
need to add any water to this tray duringcooking to keep your fond from burning. I
want the contents of this tray as dry as possible.If you see lots bubble-like objects floating
around in there, that means you still havea lot of juice mixed in with the fat. At this
point, I'll turn the burner on high to boiloff as much of that water as possible. If
you just use one hot burner instead of two,you can position the tray so that the part
with the deep liquid is over the heat, andthe part that's drier will be off the heat
and therefore will not burn.
When the liquid in the pan seems to fizz morethan boil, that means you've gotten most of
the water out. You can reduce the heat toa bare simmer and mix some flour straight
in to make a roux. This makes gravy so mucheasier. If you had tons of water in your pan
drippings, you would need to skim off thefat or run it though a gravy separator to
get some pure fat in which to brown your roux.By keeping your pan dry to begin with and
boiling off the water, we can do everythingright here in the tray without dirtying more
dishes. Enough flour to make a thick pasteis in, and I can see that the roux starting
to brown on the bottom there. If we stillhad a lot of water in the pan, that browning
would not be possible, and the browning tastesgood. But now we need to deglaze before it
burns. In goes a carton of stock. Do it littleby little and it's easier to integrate into
that thick paste. You also want to focus onscraping the fond off the bottom with a wooden
spoon. This right here is why a stainlesssteel roasting tray is best, if you can afford
one. You can really see what you're doing.There's color contrast between the fond and
the pan, unlike with those dark non-sticksurfaces that are common on other, usually
cheaper pans these days.
When you bring this to a boil, you can seehow thick it's really gonna be, and I can
see that I've got enough thickener in thereto handle another carton of stock, easy. Again,
doing it little by little, mostly just tomake sure I don't surpass the thickening capacity
of my roux. I like thick gravy.
Hey, it's a skin thief. Get away!
Look at how glossy that is. That's from thefat that we left in there, and the starch
from the flour keeps it emulsified into thegravy — it will not split. I just let this
sit and simmer for as much time as I've got,to extract flavor and color from the solids.
Make sure to pour in the resting juices fromthe turkey.
And I don't worry about flour lumps or anythinglike that when I make my gravy, because I
strain it at the very end. Big bowl, sieveon top, just pour everything in. It's nice
to have another person there to scrape thelast bits out of the tray. Luckily at Thanksgiving
there's usually a lot of people around tohelp. Then you just need to work the gravy
through the sieve — gentle smushing andit'll go through, trust me. And there you
go, smooth, squeaky-clean gravy. Taste itfor seasoning. I think that you want it a
little too salty, because its salinity willbe diluted by the bland interior meat in most
mouthfuls.
Time to carve. Your best friend here is agiant cutting board. I've got one that's too
big to fit into my dishwasher so I don't useit very often, but it saves my life at thanksgiving.
You can absolutely do this with a normal chef'sknife, but it's really nice to have one of
these very long, thin carving knives. You'llsee why. I cut the skin between the legs and
the breast, and rather than negotiate thevery complex anatomy in there with my knife,
I just rip the leg quarters off like a caveman.Yes, the tissue right around the hip joint
is still pink. It always will be, and it'sfine. Do you remember how hot the thighs got?
180. And they were at pathogen-killing temperaturesbefore we even put the turkey in the oven.
We have pasteurized the crap out of anythingin the lower regions of this bird. Forget
the color.
Now, to get the leg off go the thigh, I'lljust cut down into that crook between them
until I hit bone, then I'll pry them apartto fully expose the joint. You can now easily
see and cut through the little sinew connectingthe joint. Do the same on the other leg quarter.
Cut to the bone, pry them apart, there's thatlittle sinew, it should take no force at all
to cut through it. Now let's turn to the breastthere. I think that it makes no sense to carve
slices straight off the carcass. Total pain.Way easier to start just to the side of the
keel bone in the middle and lop off the entirebreast. I don't care if I'm leaving behind
a lot of meat on the carcass there. I willtear that off later and make leftovers pie
with it. Whoops, spoiler alert!
Same deal with the other breast. Take thecarcass away, we'll pick the scraps off it
after dinner. My mom and I always do thattogether. With the breast off we, can look
at the underside and observe the directionof the meat fibers. If you slice perpendicular
to those, you will get noticeably more tenderslices. And I like to slice very thin. I just
like that texture. Or may I just like thatit increases my gravy-to-meat ratio on the
plate.
The advantage of the long, thin carving knifeis that it creates less drag on the meat and
it allows you to use longer motions — there'sless sawing back and forth. This gets much
cleaner cuts. And I'm making an effort toleave the slices up against each other, to
keep each other warm and to prevent evaporationfrom their cut surfaces.
The fact that I rested this bird uncoveredfor like an hour before slicing means that
I can handle it easily — it's not burningme — and well-rested meat spills way less
juice when it's cut. Ok, the thigh. Turkeythighs are big enough that you can slice meat
off of them. But I prefer to tear off chunkswith my hands. With your hands, you can feel
what is meat and what is cartilage and othergross bits that you don't want. Then, once
I've got all the chunks off, I will line themall up, and then cut them into bite-size pieces.
We're going against the grain like this, whichis perfect. These chunks might not look pretty
on the plate, but they are easy to eat.
Here's another secret Thanksgiving weapon— this is an oven-safe decorative metal
serving platter that we got at our wedding.Thanks, Faye! All the meat goes on there,
in big piles, again to discourage evaporation.Now this whole thing can go back into the
oven right before you want to eat, wheneverthat may be. Whenever your sides are ready,
whenever the rest of your family shows up.There's just no urgency with this method.
If you don't have the fancy platter, you coulddo the same on a sheet pan. And after five
minutes in the oven, this meat is hot again,and it will stay hot on that now-hot platter.
I'll get myself some breast slices, some ofthose sticky, falling apart dark meat hunks,
and one of those delicious scored legs tognaw, Henry VIII-style. Drench everything
in gravy, because simple roast turkey is aperfectly elegant binary system in which the
meat provides the substance and the gravyprovides the moisture and the flavor, and
I am thankful for that.
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Now, what do you do with all these leftovers?I'll give you one idea a week hence, when
this trilogy of Thanksgiving recipe videoscomes to its thrilling conclusion. Pew pew,
pew pew!
Juicy white meat, falling-apart dark meat, rich gravy — no stress. Thanks to Squarespace for sponsoring this video! Go to Squarespace.com for a free trial, and when you’re ready to launch, go to http://squarespace.com/ragusea and add code “RAGUSEA" at checkout to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. ***RECIPE*** 1 turkey, 12-15 lbs is the best size for even cooking clarified butter (or oil) salt pepper dried sage dried thyme a couple onions a couple sticks of celery a few carrots flour any poultry stock (I usually have 2-3 32 oz cartons on hand for this) If using a frozen turkey, thaw it. You can do that by leaving it in the fridge for 24 hours for every four pounds of raw weight. If you don't have time for the fridge, you can submerge the still-wrapped turkey in the sink under cool tap water for an hour for every two pounds of raw weight. Change the water every half hour and keep the breast side facing down into the water. If you don't have time for either of those options, you can throw a frozen turkey straight into the oven, using my recipe here: https://youtu.be/mZCWLVmeq48 Get a big roasting tray, and open up the turkey's packaging right in the tray, so as to preserve all of the juice that comes out for your gravy. Take the giblets out and put them in the bottom of the tray to flavor the gravy. Score the legs by making several cuts all the way to the bone. Coat the turkey in clarified butter (or oil), salt, pepper, dried thyme and dried sage. Turn the largest burner under your turkey on medium heat, and cook the underside of the bird for 20-30 minutes. If you smell anything burning, turn the heat down. While you're doing this, you can position some carrots, celery and onion halves around the turkey. You can also preheat your oven to 350 F, convection if you have it. Roast your turkey until the deepest part of the breast reads 135-140 F. For an unstuffed 12-15 pound bird, that'll probably take 1-2 hours; a little longer if you don't have convection. Take the oven up to 500 F to finish cooking and brown the skin, maybe 30 more minutes. If the turkey looks like it's going to burn before the breast temp reads 160, turn the oven down. If anything on the bottom of the pan looks or smells like it's going to burn, pour in a little water. Take the turkey out when the breast reads 160 — carryover heat will take it to 165. Remove the turkey to a plate and let it rest, uncovered, for up to an hour. If there's still a lot of juice mixed with the fat in your roasting tray, boil the tray on the stovetop until most of the juice is gone — when the boiling turns into something more like fizzing. Reduce the heat to medium and mix enough flour into the pan to make a thick paste — probably a cup or so. Stir and brown the resulting roux for a few minutes until you're afraid it's going to burn, then deglaze with stock, little by little, until you've achieved a gravy-ish consistency. When you bring the gravy to a boil, the roux will be at its full thickening capacity; add as much stock as you can while still getting the thickness that you want. Remember that gravy thickens as it cools. Simmer the gravy for as much time as you can spare, to extract flavor and color from the solids — I usually do about a half hour. Strain and discard the solids and taste for seasoning — I think you want it a bit too salty, since it will be diluted by the meat. When the turkey is cool enough to handle, tear the leg quarters off the carcass with your hands. Cut the legs off of the thighs, and cut the breasts off of the carcass. Slice the breasts against the grain, being sure to leave the slices piled up against each other. Tear the meat off of the thighs with your hands, and slice it into bite-size pieces. Pile the dark meat, breast slices, and whole legs onto an oven-safe serving tray and reheat in the oven for five minutes. After you eat, tear any remaining meat off the carcass (including the wings) and use to make Thanksgiving leftovers pie (recipe forthcoming).