I believe this conversation may have just gotten started in another thread on Monday. So we should revive it!
Another way to put it, of course, is where do you purchase your Thanksgiving bird?
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I asked for advice on another thread–where to buy a bird for a traditional oven-roasted stuffed turkey. I wondered if it was worth it to go to a specialty meat market. Or maybe, with the whole farm to table, backyard chickens movement, I should be asking around whether my neighbors had any. (But the whole neck chopping thingy is a deal killer for me.) The wise advice from Smalltown Girl was fresh, rather than frozen, supermarket or price club just fine.
I’m with Alton Brown on this: stuffing is evil. Far better to make a turkey stock the day before and use that to make your dressing in a caserole dish.
As for the turkey itself, I’ve bought them from Whole Foods and YDFM, with no noticeable difference between the two. Which is to say, both were pretty good.
Ok, intellectually I know that stuffing is a bad idea both in terms of food safety and efficiency of cooking the turkey. BUT, it seems to me that stuffing cooked inside the turkey tastes way better than doing it as dressing outside the turkey. Does using turkey stock achieve the same thing? I’m doubtful but want to learn.
Close enough. The idea of stuffing the turkey is for the stuffing to absorb the juices thrown off by roasting the turkey. If you make a good, concentrated stock, you achieve much the same effect while avoiding the perils of stuffing the turkey.
And where is that stock from? Last year?
No, best to make it fresh the day before. Go to YDFM, buy a few turkey wings. They’re cheap and make an excellent stock.
what DEM said. Or, the day before, boil down the neck (and the giblets if you like using them) and use that stock.
I can’t believe that I’m agreeing with the conservative lawyer here, but this is the one thing that anyone making a large turkey for Thanksgiving who doesn’t cook large turkeys often should learn. It’s way too easy to undercook the stuffing or overcook the meat and it’s way hard to get both cooked correctly.
You NEED to cook the stuffing in the bird? Fine. Go get a $7.00 frozen turkey from Kroger and roast it a day or two before Thanksgiving. Stuff it with whatever porky/bready goodness you want and over-roast it to get that stuff completely cooked. The meat will be mostly inedible, but salvage what you can. Then use the carcass to make a stock that you can use for gravy and/or soup to go with your Thanksgiving meal.
You’re welcome…
Not surprising at all — you and I agree pretty often on food. But it does surpirse me that you can be so right about food, yet so wrong about everything else. 🙂
Ditto to you!
Now let’s hope that not too many people end up hospitalized from frying birds or eating 130 degree stuffing just over a month before their Obamacare goes into effect!
Well, now that I have gone this far is showing my turkey preparation ignorance, can you share with me how you make stock, especially how dilute/concentrated it should be for it to replace the cooking of stuffing in the turkey carcass? My method of making “stock” (in quotes because I never really aimed at stock as an outcome, I aimed at soup) is to put the pieces of the turkey carcass in a huge, huge, huge pot with giblets, turkey neck, unusable pieces of meat, and whatever vegetables are sitting around (onions, celery, cauliflower, carrots, broccoli, green beans), especially if wilted and unservable as is, sea salt, and peppercorns. Then I fill whatever room is left in the pot with water, bring to a boil, and then simmer for hours. Then I strain the liquid, chill and remove fat layer, and then use for soup or freeze to use later for soup.
Critique of this made-up method of making stock, based on no theory or instruction, is welcomed. One problem is that the concentration of the stock is quite variable, all depending on how much water is added to whatever random stuff I have put into this huge pot.
You have two stock/broth opportunities here. I’m not an expert, but have had success following a combination of what I remember my mother doing, and general principles picked up from professional sources including Alton Brown, Lynn whats-her-name (the talking table radio show lady), and my 1970s edition of Joy of Cooking.
Stage I: (Thanksgiving Eve or early T’giving morning, depending on dinner schedule) I boil the neck (and giblets if using them) in a big pot of water until all falling apart, then strain it. (What gets strained out–everything but bones–goes to whatever lucky dog happens to be in the vicinity because I don’t care about cooking with “parts” although am sure there are many delicious things one could do with that stuff.) I don’t season this with vegetables or anything else, so it’s pure turkey essence for use in the dressing, gravy, and/or freezing for later.
Stage II: (Days later, when I’ve run out of patience picking meat off the carcass) Boil the carcass in a big pot of water for part of a day, until it falls apart. I don’t usually season this may toss in uncooked (or at least unseasoned) veggies that are otherwise bound for the compost (onion, carrot, celery, mushrooms). Strain and set aside, and pick as much meat out of the resulting bones/skin pile as you have patience for. If the broth is fatty, let it cool enough to skim some of that off. But don’t be too fastidious about that, fat is flavor! Use it for soup now and/or freeze for later.
That’s a perfectly acceptable way to make a stock. For extra clarity you can strain through cheesecloth, but it’s not necessary, especially for making dressing.
Personally, I like to roast the turkey parts first in a pan and get them dark brown. As stated above, I like wings, which are full of collagen. Then transfer to large bowl. Then de-glaze your roasting pan, and add the liquid to the stock pot, along with your choice of herbs and veggies, and simmer away.
Take 2 turkey necks and 2 turkey wings, and hack them into a few pieces with a cleaver. Brown well in a large stock pot in a little olive oil. When browned, remove to a bowl.
Toss a large onion (quartered), 2 large carrots (cut into 2-3 pieces) and 2 celery ribs (cut into 3 pieces), a garlic clove (don’t need to peel, but do smash it a bit), 2 bay leaves and 6 thyme sprigs into the pot. Salt generously, stir, cover and “sweat” the vegetables until a slight glaze develops and some are a little browned.
Add the turkey pieces back to the pot and 10 peppercorns, plus 4 quarts of water (this should just cover all the meat & veg). Bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer. Simmer 2 hours.
Remove the turkey pieces, then strain through a colander lined with cheesecloth. Press on the vegetables to express most of the liquid. If you want more concentrated turkey flavor, simmer the strained stock until reduced to the right concentration.
Why: the single turkey neck that comes with your turkey isn’t enough to flavor a substantial amount of stock; flavor comes primarily from the meat, not the bones, and wings and necks are cheap sources of turkey meat; browning the meat adds color to the stock and a better roasty flavor; browning the vegetables also adds color and deeper flavor. I wouldn’t add green beans, broc, random vegetables because they alter the flavor of the stock away from the flavor profile I’m looking for.
Yeah, I’d especially avoid using cruciferous veggies (broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, cabbage) since they could impart a distasteful note to the stock (especially for those sensitive to that family of veggies). Keep it simple: carrot, celery, onion.
Fresh bird from Shields, butterflied, every year. Cost be damned.
Do you go to Shields just because they butterfly it for you, or is the turkey they sell also better in some way than what is available at the supermarket?
The turkeys are fresh, dependably excellent and unbrined, so I can do it myself. Having them butterfly it is merely self defense.
And I’m firmly in the no stuffing camp. Dressing all the way.
We always get our bird from YDFM & have never been disappointed!
+1
My Publix storebrand frozen turkey (usually breasts only) always turns out great – good flavor, color and juicy, too in addition to a great price. My one and only experience with a fresh turkey (not from Publix) resulted in a spoiled bird when packaging was opened to prep it.
Trader Joe’s has very nice turkeys at nice price.
+1 on Trader Joe’s. We’ve gotten their Kosher birds the last two years.
What about precooked turkeys? I am coordinating T-givingakuh dinner at my church and have to buy the birds, ham, etc. We bought from Kroger last year, but the price for the dinner includes sides, and we still have to reheat the birds. Wondering if I have alternatives out there. Anybody? Only have two ovens at the church, and one oven at home, and don’t really have the capacity to cook the whole thing ahead of time.
We have bought a pre-cooked bird from Community Q BBQ the past 2 years, and will be doing it again this year. They aren’t necessarily cheap, but my they are fantastic. You can pick it up Thanksgiving AM either warm or to be reheated. I do not cook turkeys well, nor do I enjoy the process, so I don’t mind paying a bit more to outsource:-).
How is the turkey cooked and prepared? Barbecued? Deep-fried? Traditional? Do you receive it as a whole bird or deboned or what? This is tempting although I was going in another direction….
It’s a whole bird that is smoked. And as I recall, it’s anywhere between 12-15 lbs. We pick it up cold with simple directions on heating it up, since we tend to eat later in the day. Their cranberry sauce is to.die.for. And I don’t really even like cranberry sauce.
Good tip on cranberry sauce. I detest the kind from the can and want whatever style is as far from that as possible.
You are dead to me. Everything for Thanksgiving must be made from scratch with the best ingredients. Except for the cranberry sauce. You want to make some kind of cranberry/orange fancy pants sauce? Great, have at it. But there better be a can of Ocean Spray jellied cranberry sauce for me!
I still have nightmares about being forced to eat that stuff in the school cafeteria. 🙂
Homemade cranberry sauce is dead easy. Buy a bag of cranberries and follow the instructions on the back of the bag. Berries, sugar, water. It’s a great assignment for a junior chef.
Completely agree with AHID. J_T and I agree on most things but in this case, he is so far off base. I too have nightmares about that gelatinous can-shaped horror in the middle of the table. For many years I thought I didn’t like cranberries but what I really didn’t like was the Ocean Spray. Making real cranberry sauce is VERY easy; trust me, I’m no chef. Get your turkey wherever you want, but please stop the gelatin-ing of innocent cranberries!
You remind me of the time the English pea and asparagus casserole was a disaster. This dish was on the table every Thanksgiving that my mother or paternal grandmother ever hosted or contributed to dinner (so that was the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s). One year, in the fabulous ’80s, my sister decided to take it up a notch and use fresh peas and fresh asparagus, and I think she even made a bechamel with fresh mushrooms from scratch. It did not turn out well and the lesson was learned: 2 cans condensed mushroom soup (and no getting fancy w/ the Progresso or portobello kinds), 2 cans of English peas, 2 cans of asparagus spears. And crushed soda crackers on top.
Sounds like a recurring theme at my house. Every couple of months my wife tries to improve a dish we like (generally with healthier or fresher ingredients), and almost without fail, it never turns out as good. Sometimes you just need to leave an old staple alone.
Confucius says the woman who cooks asparagus and peas in the same casserole is very unsanitary.
You are a very silly person.
I’m with you J_T — all that fancy, schmancy, half melted fruitcake jelly stuff my aunts and grandmother used to put on the table….BLECH!!! The only cranberry sauce allowed on my plate has ringed indents from a can. 🙂
I was always in charge of slicing the cranberry sauce when it came out of the can. And I loved the little thwerp sound that it made when it slid out and plunked onto the fancy cut glass dish. 🙂
So I guess you don’t want my killer recipe for Grand Marnier and port wine cranberry conserve?
But I do!
Google Grandma Erma’s Spirited Cranberry Sauce. I add the zest of an orange to the mix.
Jeepers, that sounds good. Somebody finally found a way to make cranberry sauce interesting. Thanks!!
How much orange zest? And do you add it before or after the food processor?
I add the zest with the Grand Marnier and stir in. Oops 1 orange zested fine.
Bad news … Community Q has sold out of turkeys. Unfortunately hubby found out when he called to place OUR order. So, back to the turkey drawing board for the Julesag family. Anyone want to cook our turkey for us???
Community Q is not taking any more Thanksgiving orders.
I’m waiting on a price quote from Fox Bros. on a smoked turkey. Never had their whole smoked Thanksgiving turkey before, but I’m thinking if it’s Fox Bros. it’s gotta be good.
Let’s us know how it turns out if you get it (maybe on the FFFA the day after Thanksgiving?). Does seem like it would have to be good coming from Fox Bros.
I just placed an order for a 12-14lb. smoked turkey, $60 from Fox Bros. I will be back on FFAF to let you know how it is. (Note: to be picked up chilled on Wednesday, and there’s a three hour re-heat….. so…… yeah…..)
I’m doing this for a CHURCH dinner, friends, so I can’t go spending $60 on a turkey! So many responses, and not a single one that really understood my question or answered it. Sigh. Kroger still leads the pack for a price-conscious meal.
Sorry, but every pre-cooked turkey I’ve ever seen is more expensive than what I would think is reasonable for a church dinner. I know for the Feast at Paideia that they assign a family in every grade to roast a turkey at home.
My husband smokes a turkey from publix. It is delicious. Smoking is the way to go!
How does he get it to fit into one of those little rolling papers?
I’m so ashamed that I laughed at this.
Like Sharron, I’ve turned out some scrumptious birds that began in the freezer section at Publix. Be sure it’s thawed completely (I thaw in the refrig for 2-3 days and then let it sit on the counter for a couple of hours before cooking.)
The key to tasty turkey is keeping the breast from drying out. Cooking the whole bird upside down in a cradle and turning it right side up for the last hour or so does that, but it’s a tricky operation without a set of turkey lifters. My current preferred method is to rub outside of the turkey liberally with olive oil, put a quartered onion along with chunks of carrot & celery and a few sprigs of fresh rosemary in the cavity and close it up (no stuffing). Preheat the oven to about 500, put the turkey in and turn the oven down to whatever temp the turkey wrapper or your cookbook indicates. Cook it for however long you’re supposed to. There will hardly be any juice in the bottom of the pan to baste with and that’s OK — means the searing hot oven you began with did its work, and the meat is staying moist. If the top of the breast seems in peril of drying or browning too much, put a little tent on it (crease a piece of foil and lay it on). For peace of mind, use a meat thermometer to check the thickest part of the drumstick (but stay away from the bone). Have some good broth or stock on hand to make the gravy because there won’t be much liquid in the roasting pan. (My mother used to boil the neck and gizzards while the turkey was roasting, and use that to make gravy. But none of us like giblets, so we don’t.)
This public service announcement is offered because turkey is one of the few things I know how to cook really well. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!
Your cooking method is almost exactly like mine. Same vegetables, same temp, everything.
The one thing I’d do as well is to dry brine it. The day before, mix salt – like a lot of salt, between 1/4 and 1/2 cup – with the same herbs you are going to roast the turkey with. Rub it all over, inside and out. Refrigerate an entire day. Then rinse, dry, and do exactly what you did above. The skin is absurdly crispy, and the texture of the meat a bit different, both moister and firmer.
I like the giblets and neck for gravy, but then both my kinds and I love organ meats, so we’re weird.
Will definitely try a brine next year (not cooking this year). I didn’t know you could do it with a rub, the recipes I’ve seen before called for actually submerging the bird in the brine for a day or two. Getting that organized in the refrigerator was always the obstacle. But doing a rub makes sense and is so much simpler.
Smalltown girl and BethB: I have been stressing for a week because it is my turn to make the turkey but I’m much more of a yummy sides gal. Thank you!
You can brine in a large cooler too, just pack it with ice. They now sell these really cool brining bags for the turkey itself so your cooler doesn’t get all nasty with raw turkey juices.
Brining bags are are KEY if you wet brine and don’t have a large cooler that you use for nothing other than brining and are willing to wash it really good immediately before and after each use!
That said, I’ve been converted to dry brining for both turkey and chicken. Salt it good, sit it in the fridge uncovered for 12-24 hours (or more), then season it with whatever you want to season it with and you’ll never tell the difference between the wet and dry brine if you cook it on the hotter/faster side rather than the lower/slower way.
The brining bags are the way to go. We have an old fridge in the basement, and we stick the turkey in the brining bag in the produce drawer overnight. Works great and cleanup is easy enough.
Does one need an official “brining” bag or will a Husky contractor bag (or double-bagged Decatur Pay-as-you-throw arrangement, for that matter) work just as well?
“Trash Bag Turkey”? Sounds like a distant cousin of “Beer Can Chicken”.
Don’t waste a pay-as-you-throw bag on it. Those things are too expensive!
Any bag will do as long as you can seal it. I have a bunch of 2 gallon freezer bags I got on sale just for brining. They fit a large breast (or brisket for corned beef) but, unfortunately, not a whole turkey.
Not sure if you’re joking or not, but DO NOT use anything but a very strong SEALABLE brining bag. Contractor/trash bags are more than likely going to leave you needing a new fridge after you saturate the thing with raw turkey juice.
The one year we were responsible for procuring and brining the turkey, the only free range ones left at Whole Foods were monsters. We ended up with a bird on the order of 24 lbs. (not totally ridiculous since we had ~ 20 people to feed). We have a counter depth fridge, so it was a tight fit, but we got it in there. But even with the proper brining bag, it was still a sleepless night imagining a catastrophic trickle. But it held strong.
We use what I call the soccer mom cooler. One of those made to dispense water or gatorade at a soccer game or construction site. It’s great because you just pack some ice into the brine and you don’t have to waste fridge space.
I have been buying fresh, already brined turkeys from Trader Joe’s for the past several years and they always turn out great.
Anyone have any thoughts on the pre-brined turkeys from Trader Joe’s?
I love Trader Joe’s pre-brined turkeys! I have been buying them for several years now.
Seriously considering getting the Popeye’s Turkey this year.
Does that sound crazy?
Does anyone have any experience or is this the first year they’ve done this?
Is this really a thing? If so, I’m getting one tomorrow and will let you know!
Usually purchase frozen publix turkey and use directions I found in a Everything Food (martha stewart) magazine from 2004. But instead of basting – I have switched to using an oven roasting bag (decided on this short cut so I am not exhausted and can enjoy the meal/holiday). Many successful thanksgiving dinners! We also have purchase from Community Q – those turkeys are awesome! Good to know they are sold out – will be going to publix soon to pick up a turkey.
Agreed on the oven bag. My Mom stumbled upon this solution a few years ago and has never gone back to the basting method. Turkeys have been fantastic every year since. I recently saw a Thanksgiving meal competition show on The Food Network and the “Traditional Meal” lady covered her bird with cheese cloth. It looked gorgeous when it was done. Might try that someday that’s not a major holiday.
Bottom line in all of this is that “for the money” has no meaning or relevance here. It’s much more about who makes the turkey and how. I’ve turned out awesome $0.49/pound frozen birds and I’ve destroyed fresh, free-range high priced hippie fowl.
No pressure for me this year, though. Mother-in-law is roasting the turkey and we are bringing sides, including a few racks of Patak baby back ribs I’ll be smoking on the Egg Thanksgiving morning.
“free-range high priced hippie fowl”
So glad my mouth wasn’t full when I read that. I’m completely going to find someplace to use that line within the next week. I’ll give full attribution if it gets a good response.
Plagiarize away. I won’t even call you Rand Paul for doing so.
What about turkeys from Oakhurst Market? Anyone have experience with them?
+1
I’ve gotten my turkeys from them the past two years. They are fabulous: pre-brined, and easy to prepare.
Is anybody besides me getting really hungry?!!! Anticipation and the fact that we only cook them a couple of times a year are part of the mystique of turkey dinners. Thanks for all the tips!
I follow Alton Brown’s step-by-step turkey instructions from Bon Appetit’s November 2003 issue and have turned out near perfect turkeys since then. Just recently we’ve started cooking them on the Big Green Egg on a turkey sitter and they are downright heavenly. Where does one find a brining bag? That would be a huge help. A funny story – I waited until the last minute to buy a Christmas turkey last year and ended up at the baby Kroger (YDFM too crazy crowded, Publix didn’t have any fresh ones, etc.). There were two fresh ones left – a tiny 9 or 10 pounder and a massive 20 pound beast. The freshness dates were A-OK but I really wanted something in between those, size wise and price wise. The meat department employee saw me checking them out and asked me what I needed. I told her and she looked at the price of the big turkey and said, well, that’s not right. She took it to the back and was gone a few minutes, then brought it back to me with a $12.00 price tag over the $50 (or whatever it was) one. I gave her an elated Christmas hug and we went our separate ways. I’ll never criticize that Kroger again!
I do, and have done, the same recipe for a number of years both in the oven and on the grill. Like you, the brining bag sounded awesome so I went directly to Amazon and have ordered mine.
I saw brining bags at the Toco Hills Kosher Kroger just yesterday. Didn’t check the size or price because I didn’t need any but that would be the place to start. Cook’s Warehouse may have them, too, though they’d probably cost 5x as much there.
Year before last, I got a kosher turkey from that Toco Hill Kroger and it was excellent. Got my turkey from Shield’s last year, with no discernible difference from kosher Kroger. But Shields is so good to me year round for other meats, they will get my turkey order this year.
With $3 wine, what’s not to love? Though I do wish they would stock Ben & Jerry’s Heath Bar Crunch every once in a while!
Hey DM…maybe an Eye on Your Turkey topic would be fun and folks could send in photos of their cooked birds.