The big dip in the stats reminded me that it was Thanksgiving in the USA, so a belated:
Happy Thanksgiving Day!!!
As someone who hates eating turkey, my commiserations especially if you have plenty leftover. Having the ugly dry bird twice in 30 days must be a great penance, offer it up!
To those turkeys on deathrow who think they have been spared, eat, drink and be merry, for the time being!
13 comments:
Love it, Father! Because tomorrow they get choked!
Thank you./ As to "dry turkey" not if you do it right.
eat the dark bits And if you do it right the white meat should be tender too - use lots of gravy.
Actually the "safest" turkey is the one that gets presented to the president each year. He getr a "presidential pardon" and gets to live out his days in a petting zoo.
There's a little ceremony the day before Thanksgiving. It's one of the fun things a president gets to do. Then they eat an "anonymous" turkey. ;-D [see my blog entry on the full church and watch the little video.)
Years ago, when I lived in Italy, the capon was a popular Christmas roast. The meat is tender, moist and full of flavour, and the high fat content makes an excellent basting agent.
Of course, the bird must be "organically" reared. Capons produced industrially would probably taste little different from ordinary chicken.
I don't know if one can still obtain capon in this country. The meat itself is legal, but I think caponisation was banned some time ago.
I love turkey. Ours is not dry. So whoever cooked yours, Father, should be sacked.
Also the gravy is absolutely divine and with the leftover carcass you can make delicious turkey soup which has a very intense and delightful flavor. It's one of the most economical meats you can buy.
How do you cook so it is moist, then, and also so it tastes of something.
Simple! You roast it "upside down" or breast side down so the juice from the dark meat runs down to the breast.
But, I agree with you, turkey is highly over-rated. We ate steaks....
Well, Father, I don't know how it's done (I don't cook it I only eat it) but I do know it's not upside down because I like the skin nice and crispy.
What a fascinating thread.
I don't know the answer, but how about spit roasting ? This seems to me the only way to solve the dry meat / basting problem.
My grandmother would only buy (from a local farm, I think) a hen bird fed a diet of grain, what these days we would call "free range". Her roasts always tasted fine to me !
But I know what Father means. I have experienced dry and tasteless turkey. The phenomonon is the result of an unsatisfactory bird unsatisfactorily cooked.
bobd - you turn it over to crisp when it's almost done...
Google "roasting turkey upside down" and you'll find lots of info...
OK, Adrienne, if you're sure the skin comes out nice and crispy you're hired. But, only for Thanksgiving. On Christmas Eve we have fish (tuna or salmon is the only fish I'll eat). Roast Beef is served with Yorkshire pudding for Christmas. And Ham (preferably fresh ham--not cured) for New Year's.
bobd - Christmas Eve calls for Baccalà since I am Italian. However, I cheat and use fresh cod not salt cod (too much work to soak the salt off.
I promise you will like it!!
And New Year's Eve is my birthday so can cook me anything you'd like. Ham sounds good! ;-)
To keep the turkey moist, place tin foil over the roasting tray with the turkey in it. The foil forms a tent that keeps in all the moisture and the meat succulent. About an hour before the turkey is done, remove the foil tent so that the skin gets a nice roasting.
Enjoy!
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned placing rashers of streaky bacon across the turkey breast. Of course this is done when cooking the turkey breast up.
Amused to read that the correct way is upside down. I cooked it by mistake upside down one Christmas and felt very embarrassed being teased by the family who always had a low opinion of my cooking anyway! If only I had known then that that was the correct way it would have spared my blushes!!
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