It is the best.
Forty years of making big Thanksgiving feasts for 20 or so, and the years that there is no stuffing in the turkey there is a commotion. Usually, there are two dishes of stuffing - technically one of stuffing and one of dressing, because it’s only stuffing if it’s stuffed! - because there must be separately cooked stuffing or Cousin Annette will give a lecture on food safety. Some years, we try different things, and the family objects. They are traditionalists.
This year is different. Dinner for 3, and a little tiny 9 pound turkey.
Spatchcocking seemed like at least the second or third most violent thing I’ve done in the kitchen, but the results are definitely good. Or good …for turkey.
There is a Martha Stewart recipe for Turkey Burgers that have Mango Chutney in them? It is excellent but took a lot of prep iirc.
I make Turkey Tacos when the kid wants ground beef style tacos – you can taste the spices.
I didn’t say anything about stuffing.
What I make is savory bread pudding…
sometimes fried and served with maple candied bacon
when it becomes leftovers.
Mom would probably love the Mango Chutney, but it wouldn’t return the affection. For almost the last two years, meat, vegetables, fruit and spices have become a shifting minefield for her. (Various tests have been negative on the cause.) A wrong move earns several bathroom trips. Chicken, potatoes, boiled carrots and celery are the safest, but wants to eat that every night?
So it’ll be lightly seasoned turkey burgers, and we’ll see.
OK. So I am going to lay a tray out of stuffing and put the bird directly on it and then roast.
Good luck and god speed
That dark meat concoction sounds incredible
I am 30 minutes into the roasting. Using my ‘professional’ convection oven that has the heating element in the back wall vs the bottom or top. I just turned it and it looks great thus far. Turkey was 13.5lbs to start (before the back came out) so I am going to take a temp around 75minutes in.
Spatchcocking the turkey takes a bit more hoo-rah than a chicken.
This is brilliant. That trend on cooking sites is so tedious. My favorite steak-in-the-oven recipe has several pages of shaming you for buying meat wrong and not having a sufficiently artisan personal butcher before finally giving you the five-line recipe (which is excellent and was promptly transcribed into my recipe file so I can skip the hipster condescension from now on)
90 minutes at 450. Left breast tested 167 and right 159 so I figured resting tented while the oven is used for casserole stuff will certainly finish it right. the bed of stuffing is under it and it is COOKED. Next time two boxes.
I prefer a nice spitchcock.
Next Year?
Thanksgiving Day videos really shouldn’t begin with instructions to “dry age the bird for four days”.
Cross-posted from the Happy Mutants Food Topic, here’s the spatchocked and smoked bird:
Mostly following Chef Tom’s recipe from ATBBQ:
I seemed like we could of cooked ours a little longer. I thought it would cook faster spatchcocked.
But hunger took over and we couldn’t stand the wait any longer.
Ground Turkey has made it into many of our meals this year.
And yes, tacos too.
