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Happy Thanksgiving! 🦃 (startrek.website)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/tenforward@lemmy.world
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[–] 8 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Honestly, it’s incredibly difficult to not burn something like a turkey.

They’re freaking huge, and of significantly varied thickness. If you absolutely insist on doing a whole turkey, your most reliable method is to slow cook it for about a day. Souz vide, smoking. Something like that. Low and slow.

If you don’t want to spend the 24-ish hours just cooking, a better option is breaking the bird down, possibly Splatchcocking the thing. (Or you know just butchering it into thighs, drum sticks, wings and breasts. Carcass for stock.)

this lets you cook it a lot more evenly.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago

    For real. I don't even like cooking regular chicken because it has to be watched like a hawk to not burn (or at least end up dry as fuck), but also be thoroughly cooked when you don't have temperature probes you can just leave in it while cooking. I've been buying my turkey already cooked since I've had to handle thanksgiving on my own. I ain't feeding hella people so it's not really much more in price than getting a raw turkey.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    How big is your bird?

    We cook it on low temp for 4/5 hours and frequently baste and that seems to work.

    I’ve never tried spatchcocking, can you still make stuffing that way?

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago*

    You can make stuffing without it being stuffed into the bird, yeah. Even my aunt, who did everything pretty traditionally and taught me more how to cook than my mom, wouldn't stuff the bird because it just makes it harder to cook the turkey.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    So, depending on the postmaster you talk to, it should be cooked for about 30-60 minutes per pound at 225-250f.

    I built my smoker with a raspberry pi to control it, though, and do some creative things with the temperature- as it comes up to 165 inside the bird, the smoker comes down to 165 itself and stays there for a few hours.

    Eventually? It does dry out, but I’ve had it so tender that when I’m trying to carve it and the drumstick thief comes along, all they get is a bone.

    As for stuffing… you technically don’t even need the bird for it. Though, it’ll miss out on absorbing some of the drippings, unless you collect them and add them.

    That said… I’m not even a stuffing guy and I find that blasphemous… so…it should be noted that though the cavity for a splatchcocked turkey is smaller, it’s still there and you can spread the rest around the turkey just fine.

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