Turkey Tips

I've been thinking about all the Thanksgiving dinners I've cooked over the last ten years or so, and the lessons I've learned about cooking a turkey. I never had a big disaster, like leaving the plastic bag inside the turkey cavity while I cooked it, but I've certainly figured out some things over the years. Here are a few of them:

• First, don't buy a huge turkey. Many people believe the bigger the turkey, the better. In my experience, the big ones are tough, dry, and harder to cook properly. Even when I baste, the outside gets dried out before the inside is done. I have combated this in two ways -- first, by cooking a smaller turkey. (For me, never more than 13 lbs. If I can find one less than 10 lbs, I am ecstatic. This year my turkey is 12.67 lbs.) The second way to avoid a dried-out bird is simply by roasting the turkey upside down -- breast down in the pan. This keeps the white meat (which has a tendency to be dry) much moister than basting alone can, and the bird seems to cook more evenly. My recipe for this is here.
  
  
• That frozen turkey always takes a lot longer to defrost than you expect. They say to thaw it in the fridge for a couple of days or so. In my experience, it never, ever thaws in two days. I always end up thawing it in cold water on Thanksgiving morning. My advice is to either get a fresh turkey (not frozen), or put the turkey in the fridge this weekend to thaw. I bought a frozen one tonight and it's in my refrigerator right now. Not my freezer. I just hope it'll be thawed by Thursday.
  
  
• Be sure to get that bag of nasties out of the turkey's innards. If you've cooked a turkey before, you know what I'm talking about. Usually a turkey will have a little paper or plastic bag inside it with the giblets and livers and such. Whether you want to use those parts for something or not, it's important to get them OUT of the turkey before you cook it. Especially if the bag is plastic.
  
  
• The turkey doesn't have to come out of the oven fifteen minutes before you sit down to eat. In fact, it's a lot better if it comes out much earlier. Because for one thing, it's easier to cut after it's cooled for awhile. Also, if you're like me, you may not have a lot of space in your oven. Having that bird in there means I can't cook my rolls or side dishes until it's finished. And I would much rather have my cornbread dressing come to the table piping hot, than a hot turkey that's going to be impossible to carve well until it cools down. Instead, I cook the turkey earlier in the day, then tent aluminum foil over it as it cools. I carve it in the kitchen and serve the slices on a platter. If I do it way ahead of dinner, I'll refrigerate the sliced turkey before time to eat, then heat it up a little (on the platter) in a warm oven just before dinner.
  
  
• Maybe I should also mention that I am opposed to stuffing a turkey. But this isn't a lesson I've learned, it's just a prejudice I started out with. To me, stuffing (or dressing) is just plain nasty when it's been inside a turkey, and it's a lot more likely to be harboring dangerous bacteria as well. It's also harder to tell when the turkey is done when it's full of stuffing -- and by the time you get the middle of the stuffing done, the outside is most likely overdone.
  
  
• Finally, two last things. Use a meat thermometer rather than relying on the pop-up button on the bird. And don't use sage. Unless you want to, of course, and you know I'm not coming to dinner.

Well, there's probably more. But this is all I can think of right now.