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How To Hate Holiday Birds

Holiday bird can be a simple matter

Producing a moist and tasty turkey doesn't have to involve brining, flipping or deep-frying. National Turkey Federation The goal is to cook the leg meat adequately without drying out the breast. - National Turkey Federation

I have done foolish things in pursuit of a delicious Thanksgiving turkey.

I have cooked them in the style of countries I've never visited.

I've dismembered them raw.

I have stood in a cold garage drinking beer while men I barely knew poked at one floating in a caldron of hot oil.

I have hunted down 12 perfect juniper berries and submerged them, along with a turkey raised more carefully than a Montessori student, in a tub of salted water overnight.

I've massaged butter into breasts and stuffed sage leaves under skin.

I've soaked cheesecloth in butter and flipped hot carcasses from one side to the other.

But then a friend gently suggested that serious cooks spend entirely too much time thinking about the Thanksgiving turkey.

Naturally, I thought about that

Is the time and money spent on a gamy American Bronze heritage turkey worth it when most guests prefer the bland flavor of the Broad-Breasted White they grew up eating? Is 24 hours of preparation excessive, when that time might be better spent on traditional holiday pursuits like creating a spectacular pumpkin pie?

On the Thanksgiving plate, turkey is never the star nor the most memorable dish. Turkey recipes are not passed down through generations, like your grandmother's cranberry relish.

No one remembers the turkey unless it is bad.

So I set off to see how simply I could roast a turkey and still get good results. I wanted something neither dry nor taxing.

Expert advice

To start, I took a page from Barbara Kafka, who in her 1995 book “Roasting: A Simple Art” advocated a two-hour turkey in a 500-degree oven. But my oven is never pristine enough for that kind of heat, and the result – even with the cleanest of ovens – is a screeching smoke alarm and a greasy kitchen. I would go high, but not that high.

Next I called Harold McGee, the science and food writer who wrote the encyclopedic “On Food and Cooking.”

“How simple do you want to keep it?” he asked. Very, very simple, I said.

The goal, he pointed out, is to get the leg meat to at least 165 degrees, when the connective tissue is cooked and the pinkness has just faded. But straight-up roasting would leave the breast dry at any temperature much past 155.

“The trick is to establish an unevenness in the temperature of the two different parts, the breast and the thighs,” he said. The easiest way is to set the turkey on the counter and strap a couple of ice packs on the breast about an hour or so before roasting.

McGee said he planned to increase the effect by starting the bird breast side down in a cold pan with cold vegetables and placing a sheet pan on the floor of the oven to slow the heat from the bottom. Then he'll flip the turkey halfway through cooking.

That didn't seem so simple. So I called Christopher Kimball, editor of Cook's Illustrated magazine. He has long advocated brining, an overnight soak in salted water. I have brined many times. Even with a mediocre, overcooked bird, the process makes the meat well seasoned and juicier.

But this year I didn't want to wrestle with plastic garbage bags and coolers and bags of ice. I wanted simple.

“You can buy a frozen, pre-basted Butterball, which is essentially brined, and thaw the puppy out,” he said. “You do have to butterfly it and rip the backbone out, but that's not too difficult. Shove it on a broiler pan at 450 degrees. That's about as painless as it gets.”

I had hoped to avoid butchery projects. So I called Sara Moulton, the Gourmet magazine chef and television personality whose book “Sara's Secrets for Weeknight Meals” is all about assuring people they can cook excellent food easily.

“I do the old 325 degrees,” she said. “I don't do anything funny.”

She likes a big turkey, maybe 16 pounds. She stuffs it, and prepares a separate pan of dressing to cook outside the bird. If the stuffing doesn't get hot enough (it ought to reach 165 degrees), she removes it from the bird, then puts it back in the oven.

“The biggest problem people have is that they follow those charts and they are the vaguest things in the planet,” she said.

The key is a good meat thermometer. Some chefs take the turkey out when the legs hit 155, others at 165 degrees or 170 degrees. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says the thigh meat should be 180 degrees, which is insanely high but hospital safe.

Moulton is not willing to buck the USDA in print, but I am. Bringing the thighs to at least 165 degrees seems the best compromise between safety and avoiding breast oblivion. The temperature will continue to rise as you let the turkey rest for 30 minutes before carving, another tip from Moulton.

Mom knows best

Finally, I called my mother. She has been roasting turkeys for 50 years. It's always the same. A little onion and celery in the cavity, some salt and pepper and a constant 350-degree oven.

So, Mom, why were some of our family's Thanksgiving turkeys terrific and others, well, not so good?

“If you get a good turkey, you'll have a good turkey,” said my mom, who buys whatever is on sale. “If you get a bad turkey, it'll be a bad turkey.”

So I tested three different turkeys. Since a kosher bird is already salted as part of the processing, I though it might be the shortcut I was looking for. It offered juicy meat, but not so juicy to justify all the time I spent pulling feather shafts from the skin. Plus, a kosher bird can be hard to find.

I tried a frozen supermarket bird. It was inexpensive, but I didn't like the taste or quality of the meat or the industrial-style methods used to raise it.

In the end, I settled on a fresh bird sold by my local butcher. For my money, any turkey that has been allowed to forage naturally is the best option, both for flavor and politics.

As for cooking methods, I borrowed a little bit from everyone. I settled on a roasting temperature of 425 degrees, which seemed like a reasonable compromise between high-heat advocates and old-fashioned, slow-roasters. I started with a room-temperature turkey, and I tented the breast with foil. No flipping, no basting.

When the thigh hit 165 degrees, I let the turkey rest for a half-hour, covered with foil and a slightly damp kitchen towel, to allow the juices to settle back into the meat.

For a 12-to 14-pound turkey, my method takes about two hours, which should leave plenty of time to do more important things this Thanksgiving. Like call your mother.

Take it easy

Here are tips to make roasting a turkey faster and easier.

Preparing the turkey: Don't wash it, although this might go against your better judgment. The heat of the oven will kill any surface pathogens, and rinsing only splashes bacteria around the kitchen. Better to take the wrapper off in the sink, put the turkey in the roasting pan and pat it dry with a paper towel.

Tie the legs: Using a piece of cotton string to tie the legs makes a prettier bird, but for cooking speed, leave them untied. If you carve the turkey and put it on plates in the kitchen, the way the bird looks won't matter.

Start at room temperature: Allow the turkey to sit out for a half-hour before roasting. This will speed the cooking time.

Tenting: About half an hour into the roasting, cover the breast with a foil tent. This will slow the heat and help keep the breast moist.

If the pan smokes: Pour a little water or stock into the bottom of the pan if the juices start to burn.

Basting: Resist the urge; the skin comes out crispy and bronze without it. Opening the oven door lowers the temperature, adding to the cooking time.

Use a meat thermometer: About an hour and a half into roasting, begin testing the temperature. Insert a meat thermometer into the thigh, perpendicular to the pan, at the point where the drumstick meets the thigh. Test again in the meatiest part of the thigh, horizontal to the pan. Keep checking until you get a couple of readings of 165 degrees.

Rest the bird: When roasting is done, take the turkey out of the oven and tip it so the juices from the bird drain into the pan. Place the turkey on a platter, cover it with foil and place a damp kitchen towel over the foil to keep in the heat. Let rest for a half hour. During standing time, the internal temperature continues to increase by as much as 10 degrees. Resting allows juices to set in the meat.

After slicing: Pour a small amount of warm stock over the sliced meat to moisten it before serving. This can help rescue dry white meat in particular.

Simple Roast Turkey

6 to 8 servings

• 1 (12-to 14-pound) turkey, preferably fresh, giblets removed; if turkey was frozen, thaw completely in refrigerator (this can take days)
• 2 tablespoons kosher salt
• 1 tablespoon ground black pepper
• 1 large onion, peeled and quartered
• 3 stalks celery, each cut crosswise into two or three pieces.

A half-hour before cooking, take the turkey out of the refrigerator. Pat the turkey dry with paper towels. Place it in a large roasting pan and set aside. Place a rack in the lower third of the oven; heat the oven to 425 degrees. Higher heat speeds roasting without too much splattering and smoking.

Mix salt and pepper together and rub mixture all over skin and inside cavity of turkey. Stuff cavity with onion and celery. If you wish, tie legs together with kitchen twine and tuck wingtips under wing, but this will slow cooking time.

Put turkey in oven, uncovered. After a half-hour, remove turkey and place a sheet of foil over breast, crimping edges to side of roasting pan. Place pan back in oven.

After another hour, remove turkey from oven, take off foil and discard. Do not baste. Begin checking temperature by inserting a meat thermometer straight down into fleshiest part of thigh, where it meets drumstick. Check a second spot, then remove thermometer.

Place the bird back in the oven, checking periodically until thermometer reads about 165 degrees. Total cooking time should be 11/2 to 2 1/2 hours, depending on size of turkey. If bird is larger than 14 pounds, keep foil on longer.

Remove the pan from the oven and cover turkey with fresh foil and then a damp kitchen towel. Let it rest for a half-hour before carving. The turkey will continue to cook and the juices will set into the meat.

Start to finish: 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 hours, plus half-hour's resting before serving.

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