My lovely bride's traditional oven baked turkey dinner was another smashing success. I'm so lucky.
After a 24 hour dry brining, she rubbed it up with a compound butter with herbs she grew herself.
Oven at 325F/165C, tented in foil for the first couple of hours.
Temps in the mid 160sF/mid 70sC, lovely crispy skin.
Sides of mashed taters & gravy, stuffing in the bird, and from-scratch green bean casserole (except the french fried onions on top). Served with a Ponzi (Oregon) pinot noir. Spectacular!
Last edited by DaveD; November 25, 2022, 06:58 AM.
John "JR"
Minnesota/ United States of America
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I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We were supposed to have a visit from our daughter and family (grand children included), but due to several of them getting a bug they couldn't make the trip. So, my DW and I teamed up and worked over a 13+ lb turkey and all the fixings.
The turkey was cut into sections to fit in the sous vide bath. I followed Guga's "Sous Vide Everything" video, except I did not sous vide for 24 hours - just 4 hours with white meat at 140F and dark at 150F. The 4 hour sous vide time was perfect - the meat was so tender and juicy; I even enjoyed some white meat, which never happens with traditional roasted turkey. I also made up a batch of Guga's BBQ rub and it worked really well for this. Pictured is one leg and thigh section, and one breast and wing; the other half was sous vide and then frozen without final searing - put away for another day.
Happy Thanksgiving to all. Pieced up our home grown turkey that dressed out to ~48lbs since he was too big to handle whole. Smoked breasts and legs/thighs, didn’t really have room for the wings, so will do tomorrow probably. Pulled the breasts just a smidge too early so had to throw in oven to bring up to temp further. It was so big, thinking I didn’t get down into it enough for accurate temp, but who knows. Put herbed compound butter under skin and citrus & herb salt from free side on skin. Mashed potatoes, stuffing, green beans and bacon, sweet potatoes, loaded cauliflower bake, deviled eggs, ham, rolls, and cranberry sauce.
Spatchcocked Turkey! Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!
Brined for 24 hrs…Dried, injected, seasoned and placed in the smoker. Cooked at 325° for just under 3 hrs before reaching 165°F in the breast…rested, sliced and dug in! Extremely juicy & tender bird!
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I hope you all had a terrific Thanksgiving. I took one picture all day, of the cornbread sage dressing I made, seen below. Honestly, cornbread dressing is the essence of Thanksgiving for me, not turkey. Cooked 2 12 lb turkeys that were wet brined 24 hours and then rubbed down with Cattleman's Grill Ranchero. Highly recommend that rub. Leeza made the rest of the food and all of our kids and grandkids were there for a wonderful time.
Spatchcocked a 14-lb turkey Wednesday morning and dry-brined in the fridge for 24 hours. Smeared under the skin with an herb-butter blend. Smoked with cherry wood in my Cookshack SM25 at 225 for a little over 4 hours, until the temp probe reached 165 degrees. Rested for 30 minutes and dug in!
Smoked Butterball turkey breast. I used Char-Griller’s chicken rub and hickory. I’ve never grilled nor cooked a turkey breast before. I was quite surprised to see that the breast bone was cut through. Next time I think I will finish and split it down the back into two pieces. Still the result was outstanding. Grilled at 350 till 170 internal and flipped every 30 minutes till done.
We are celebrating Thanksgiving at a place that doesn't allow combustion at all. So, I decided I was going to try to knock the turkey skin out of the park if I could.
Cboss had the opinion that turkey skin could not be made *truly* delicious. She and some classmates in culinary school had experimented with turkey skin and a deep fryer, trying to get that crisp, delicious skin you can get on a perfectly roasted chicken.
The Chef running it told them that they were wasting their time and turkey skin just wasn't delicious in the same way chicken skin could be.
Challenge accepted.
Separated skin from meat by hand. Scalded skin with boiling water. Seasoned with salt underneath the skin. Uncovered in the fridge for 24h. Super-Spatchcock and season the bottom side/formerly the cavity with Bell's Poultry seasoning and salt. Turned the bird back over and scalded again, this time with water, ACV, and barley malt syrup. Back in the fridge uncovered, spatchcocked, for ~18h more. Went directly from the fridge to a 500F preheated oven. 20min at that temp, then kicked down the temp to 375F for the remainder. Pulled when the breast read ~150F and it carried over the rest of the way.
I knew I had won the "turkey skin can't be delicious" challenge when cboss was putting more skin-only pieces on her plate.
Coloring is all maillard; no seasoning/spices were on the skin. The barley malt syrup helped a lot and that's pretty much pure maillard.
I was very pleased with the results. Certainly going to riff on this again in the future.
Dry-rubbed and smoked a 17-lb turkey Thanksgiving day. Used my own self-prepared blend of ingredients for the rub - not too sweet, not too spicy. Used apple wood in my CookShack SM25 at 225 tapering back to 210 degrees for a little over 6 hours to hit our 3 pm lunch; used a FireBoard 2 for adjustments on the rheostat until the temp probe reached 165 degrees. After covering with foil and resting for 45 minutes we dug into this bad boy. Man was it good! Amazing how juicy it was without any added brine or moisture. Even though there were only four of us, we demolished about half of the Turkey.
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