Turkey Day

[naomikritzer]

Back in November, our grocery store ran a special where you got a free turkey if you spent $50 on groceries, or something along those lines. We were having Thanksgiving Dinner at my parents' house, so we stashed the turkey in our freezer and it's been sitting there since then.

Ed is the designated bird roaster -- I've roasted things occasionally, but for the most part I prefer to make him do it. So a turkey requires a weekend day, preferably a rainy weekend day when Ed wouldn't rather be outside. We've had lots of rainy weekend days this spring, but the forecasts were always kind of ambiguous, so we didn't know far enough in advance to thaw the thing.

Sunday (ahem, LJ, I have been trying to post this since Sunday evening) was rainy and cool, perfect for roasting a turkey, and turkey sounded really good, but of course, we hadn't thawed it. However, it turns out that you can cook a turkey from frozen, according to certain resources (including the FDA). We decided to give it a whirl.

Unfortunately, Jenny-O had stuffed a plastic bag of turkey gravy mix inside the cavity, and getting that out was a pain in the neck. The recipe notes that you can go ahead and roast it with the giblets still in the cavity, provided that they're in a paper bag -- if they're in a plastic bag, you have to get this out before the plastic melts, or you'll have to throw out the bird. Thanks a lot, Jenny-O.

The turkey turned out OK. It was a little on the dry side, but not too bad, and some of the dryness was probably from sitting in a freezer for over six months. Kiera really likes turkey and gravy, and ate almost as much as Ed and me put together.

Comments

[winterswitchery.livejournal.com]

My mum cooked up a bird last winter that had been in the deep freezer for like..two years. And evidently it tasted great lol

[writingjen.livejournal.com]

The cooking of a turkey has always seemed to me to be shrouded in mystery and complicated ritual: The sink full of lightly running water to thaw it (this for hours and hours on end), the aluminum foil tent -- or not! -- the basting -- or not! -- the removal of giblets, the roasting pan used only once or twice a year pulled from the back of a high and obscure cabinet....

I really like turkey, but I could no more roast one than I could pilot a helicopter, and probably with similarly disastrous results. (But then, I don't cook in general, outside of what you'd consider frat boy food.)

I'm glad yours turned out OK. Turkey in June sounds like a rare and wonderful treat; it's much too hot here in Tennessee to keep the oven on for that long.

[squigsoup.livejournal.com]

I have always told my family that, if they ever intend to have Thanksgiving dinner at my house, they'd best be prepared for Louis Rich turkey slices.

[naomikritzer]

Most of the variants (foil? roasting bag? basting? brining?) are based on whether your priority is crispy skin or juicy meat, or whether there's some trick that will give you both. You can avoid the whole thawing problem by buying a fresh one. Turkeys are large and thus seem very expensive, but they're also very cheap, and if you do attempt to roast one sometime, bear in mind that in the absolute worst case scenario (OMG we've scorched the skin, dried out the breast completely, and yet somehow part of it is still raw!...which was my fear when we started roasting it from frozen) you can cut off the meat, dice it up, and use it in turkey pot pie or turkey under biscuit.

We just use our broiler pan with the rack, which we use several times in the average week for something or other.

It is possible to grill a turkey (my father does it) and that makes it rather more feasible in hot summer weather. (You can't grill a frozen one, though; you actually do have to thaw it first. And that is more complex than I can manage on a grill. YMMV.)

[dotar-sojat.livejournal.com]

You know, I was thinking of cooking a turkey in the summer. We only have it around November and December, and we get SICK of it by January.

Maybe that will be on the menu for next week.

[naomikritzer]

It's possible to grill them, so if you want a turkey but not a hot kitchen, that's something to consider.

[swords-and-pens.livejournal.com]

Not that it would have helped you this time, but I've become a big fan of brining our turkey. Even the left-overs are moist. :)

Something to remember come November, perhaps.

[writingjen.livejournal.com]

My mother-in-law does it this way and hers turn out DELICIOUS. (Thanks, Alton Brown; that's where she got the idea.)

[yankee-in-texas.livejournal.com]

Wow, cooking from frozen. Weird. And nifty.

I cooked Thanksgiving dinner for my in-laws (MIL, FIL, SIL, & BIL). It was my first time cooking a holiday meal. My "pickled" turkey came out very good, thankyouverymuch. I was so nervous it would go bad while it was brining that I kept it so cold there was still ice all over it 12 hours later. (Even putting it outside wouldn't help to keep it cold -- Houston in November is lovely, balmy, late-summer weather.)