Posts Tagged ‘how-to’
7 items.
Thanksgiving Tip of the Day: Cooking your Turkey!
November 26th, 2009 |Posted In: Blog Posts, Food and Drink
I don’t have photos, because by the time I start cooking my turkey, you might have had to do yours, so I just want to get up some tips for those of you who need help!
–Your turkey will need fifteen to twenty minutes of roasting per pound, so keep this in mind when you start cooking. For example, a 12 pound turkey will take about 3 hours, while a 20 pound turkey can take up to 4 1/2. You’re also going to want to leave time for it to sit outside the over.
Here are some tips.
–ONCE AGAIN, MAKE SURE THE GIBLET BAG IS OUT OF YOUR TURKEY. YOU DO NOT WANT YOUR TURKEY TO SMELL LIKE PLASTIC.
–Pre-heat your oven to about 325-375. Different recipes call for different temperatures but somewhere in there is a good place to start!
–Now pat your turkey down with some clean cloths or paper towels and set it on a rack inside your roasting pan. If you don’t have a rack, you can make one! Remember Lincoln Logs? Take a bunch of celery and cut all the stalks apart, and wash them well. You can stack them on top of each other just like Lincoln Logs and set your turkey on top of that! Sweet, huh?
Good? Good.
–At this point, you might want to cover your turkey with…
BACON.
Draping your turkey with bacon will make the skin less crispy, but it will also make it super tasty. Just take a package of uncooked bacon and drape it over the turkey’s breast. Cool, huh? It just depends how much you like skin vs delicious bacon flavor.
–Put your turkey in the oven. Cook it for about an hour and don’t do anything to it– don’t TOUCH it for the first hour, no matter how tempting it is, unless it smells like burning plastic or something!
–After an hour, baste that puppy! You can baste with a lot of things: pan juices, chicken broth, butter, oil, bacon fat, juice…or a mixture of any of those things.
–Turn the turkey around! Most ovens don’t heat EXACTLY evenly, so turning your turkey back-to-front in the oven will ensure that the two sides will cook mostly evenly.
–Repeat this: wait about an hour again, baste, and turn.
–We’re at two hours now. From here on in, you’ll want to check the turkey every half-hour and see how it is doing. Most turkeys won’t be done for at least three hours, so you don’t need to check the temperature till the three hour mark, but every half hour, check the temperature with an instant-read meat thermometer. When it reads about 165-170 degrees, take it out of the oven!
–Until it reaches 165, don’t take it out! Just baste and turn like you did before.
–Don’t trust the plastic pop-up thermometer!
–If your turkey seems to start to get too brown but isn’t 165 degrees yet, TENT IT. Tenting your turkey is fun. Take a great big piece of tin foil and fold it into a little tent-shape. Pull the rack out slightly and pop the tent on the turkey like a hat! This will help keep the turkey from browning too fast.
–Once the turkey has hit 165-170, take it out and put it on a towel or trivet or something, and…TENT IT ANYWAY. This will help it retain heat and cook just a little bit longer!
Yum, huh?
I think stuffing is pretty self-explanatory. Put the stuffing inside the turkey cavity before cooking! If you want to! Not everyone likes their turkey stuffed. You can also put your stuffing inside a piece of cheesecloth to keep the bits of meat from getting into it but still get the meat juice.
OK! I think we are all good. We’re good, right? Good! Let me know if you have any other problems or questions. Have a happy Thanksgiving and there will be more tips tomorrow!
Thanksgiving Tip of the Day: Perfect Stuffing
November 25th, 2009 |Posted In: Blog Posts, Food and Drink
So, while you’re waiting patiently for your turkey to brine, or sitting twiddling your thumbs, or whatever else you do tonight, consider your stuffing!
You know how stuffing is always better reheated? If you want the best stuffing, take a cue from that old truism and make your stuffing tonight!
This is a traditional bread stuffing. You can also make stuffing with rice or other grains!
Stuffing can be made meat-free and even vegan. I’m posting a meat recipe, but I’ll make notes for what to do if you want to go vegan or vegetarian with your stuffing.
Here’s what you will need:
1 loaf of bread or equivalent– I like to mix up different types of bread. Cornbead, rye bread, pumpernickel, sourdough, and multigrain breads make the best stuffing. Don’t use plain white bread. Use bread that is a few days old!
1/2 lb of bacon (if you wish)
1/2 stick of butter, margarine, bacon fat, or vegetable oil, plus more for greasing the casserole.
1 onion, sliced thin
1 rub of celery, chopped finely
Any vegetables you may like– I use turnips and kale here, but other veggies are yummy too. Some people also like raisins or currants. Leafy veggies should be cut into 1″ strips, chunky veggies should be cut into 1/2″ cubes.
1 egg (additional oil if you are making vegan)
2-3 cups chicken or vegetable broth
Salt, pepper, and spices if you want them. I put in a little sage and thyme.
To start, turn your oven to around 350.
Now cut your bread into 1 inch squares.
Butter, oil, or spray a cookie sheet and lay the bread out evenly like this:
Put them in the oven for 5 minutes, then turn the tray around and put them in again for 5 more minutes. The bread should be slightly toasty, like this:
It will be a little crispy to the touch and just golden-brown at the edges. You can turn the oven off now. You will do the real baking tomorrow!
Now, take a skillet and melt some butter or bacon fat, or use some vegetable oil. Heat at a moderately high temperature. Put in the onion and the celery, and keep the heat moderate.
Stir the onions and celery occasionally, until they are soft and slightly translucent. Now add your herbs and spices to the pan and stir for a couple minutes.
The onions and celery should look like this:
Now dump the bread and the onions and celery into a bowl.
Using the same pan, add some bacon. I used slab bacon because you can cut it into cubes! If you have a local farm, find out if they have slab bacon. If you’re vegetarian, forget the bacon and go onto the next step. (Tip: you can fry the bacon in advance and then use the bacon fat to cook the onions if you like that kind of thing)
Now, again in the same pan, cook your veggies up, one at a time. If you are making vegetarian stuffing, you may need to add more butter or oil at this point. Let me know if you need any veggie-sauteeing tips.
Put EVERYTHING in a big bowl like this:
Now you’ll want to get your egg and crack it in a little bowl, and then pour in your chicken broth. If you’re making vegan stuffing, you can use a little vegetable oil here, and obviously veggie broth is fine.
Whisk it up until you can’t see any bits of egg.
Now pour it all over your stuffing and mix it in with your hands really well!
Get a heat-resistant 9×13″ casserole and grease it– I like to use bacon grease for this, but you can use anything you like. How do you use bacon grease? Just drain it out of the pan into a tupperware or bowl, and then chill it in the fridge. It will get hard like butter! Then you can scoop it out with a spoon or your fingers.
Now pour in your stuffing! It should fit pretty much exactly if you used the same quantities I did.
Isn’t that pretty?!
You’re all done till tomorrow! You can bake it by itself or stuff your turkey with it! Cover it with foil or plastic and put it in the fridge! Good job!
Thanksgiving Tip of the Day: Prepping your Turkey, With Photos
November 25th, 2009 |Posted In: Blog Posts, Food and Drink
So, to give you a sample of Google strings that have landed people at my blog today, we have:
do i need to put my turkey in a bag if i brine it?
No, you do not. You can put your turkey the long way into a really big stock pot. You can also buy a big plastic rubbermaid container or cooler and fill that with brine. But bagging it is the easiest way. Here’s how:
Get 2 heavy duty garbage bags and place one inside the other. Put them inside your turkey roastin pan. Take your cleaned, unwrapped turkey and put it in the bottom of the innermost bag. Keeping the bag upright and the opening to the top, pour in your brine solution. Now tie the bags shut and put the whole thing in your fridge. This is even easier with a brining bag, which is like a giant Ziploc. But garbage bags will do in a pinch!
thaw 26 lbs turkey in a day and half
Seriously, THREE different people got to my blog using this search string. SERIOUSLY. Guys. You might have wanted to look this up last week because you seriously need a day for every five lbs of turkey. So you should have started on Saturday.
If you are desperate, though, I will be nice. Take that sucker and clean out a giant rubber container or a big ass cooler. Run your tap to cold and fill it up. Put the turkey inside. Change the water after an hour. Keep doing this for 13 hours. Now your turkey is thawed.
should i take the bag out of the turkey
No, cook it with the PLASTIC BAG inside it. The PLASTIC melts, ENHANCING THE FLAVOR of your turkey.
LOL WHATEVER YES TAKE THE FUCKING BAG OUT.
can you brine a turkey in its plastic wrapping
Um. Since the plastic wrapping would PREVENT THE BRINE FROM GETTING IN, the answer is no.
a really big turkey
Yes.
So it seems like people might need a little more help with their turkeys. It’s pretty late at night, but even if you are brining your bird, there is still time. I’m going to take you step by step through the cleaning process. Apologies to anyone who is grossed out by meat that looks like an animal!
Here are some steps to prepare and get to know your turkey.
1) Take a look at it while it’s still in the wrapper.
The left side is the head and the right side is the tail. The turkey is on its back. The side pointing up is its breast. That’s the delicious white meat! The big hole on the tail side is normally referred to a the “cavity” in recipes and that is where the stuffing will go.
2) If you have a big sink, put the turkey in the sink before continuing. If you don’t, you can use your roasting pan, a rubber tub, a cooler, a really big bowl, or even your bath tub. Just make sure that your sink-tub-cooler-thing is cleaned out really really well and rinsed down with cold water if you cleaned it with soap.
Remember while you are moving your turkey around that turkeys are animals. They are pretty touch and can take some abuse. The skin won’t even rib unless you actually cut into it, tug at it, or abrade it pretty roughly. Don’t worry about being too gentle with it.
Good? Good!
3) Now you are going to cut open the turkey wrapper. Start with a very clean pair of scissors. Wash them with dish soap and hot water. Now cut into the plastic starting at the cavity, like this:
It’s the easiest place to cut into!
Now point your scissors toward the other end of the turkey and, being careful not to cut the flesh of the turkey, cut all the way to the other side, like this:
Peel away the plastic, and remove it completely from the turkey. Discard it!
Great. Now you have a big, naked turkey in your sink (or tub or bowl or whatever).
4) Now you need to take out the giblets. The giblets are turkey organs– usually the neck and heart, and sometimes the liver, are included inside the turkey, for you to use to make stock or to chop up and cook in the gravy.
To take them out, reach your hand into the cavity. Don’t be shy!
Some turkeys will have the giblets wrapped in a plastic bag all together, but other turkeys will have them loose. I didn’t get a liver in mine this year, but just so you can identify them, here’s the heart:
And here’s the neck:
Rinse them off in the sink and put them in a plastic baggie in your fridge!
5) Next you will want to wash the turkey off. If your sink or tub has a spray or shower nozzle on a hose, use that. Make sure the water is COLD– do not use hot water! Rinse the turkey thoroughly, pulling back the wings (you know what those are, right? They look like giant chicken wings), and then tip the turkey up so it is cavity-side-up. Run cold water into the cavity and dump it all out. Just wash the whole thing until you don’t see any more red running off of it.
If you are NOT brining your turkey, this is the point where you will want to take it and pat it dry. Use clean dish cloths or paper towels and pat off all the excess moisture. If you’re brining it, you’re about to dunk it in a vat of water, so no sweat.
6) Now pull the turkey ot of the sink and put it on a prepared prep surface. This can be a counter, table, or even the floor, prepared with a wooden board, rubber mat, old tablecloth, play doh play mat, whatever you have handy.
7) Take a very careful look over your bird. Turn it over and look at it in all directions. This is a good way to familiarize yourself with how a turkey looks and feels, but you are also– surprise– looking for feathers! They don’t always all get taken off, and sometimes they only get half-taken off.
Here’s what one looks like:
It will normally just look like a little white or brown thread (depending on your turkey variety) hanging off your turkey. Sometimes it will just be the little itty quill from the feather– you’ll be able to feel it because it will feel like a thin plastic straw. Look all over your turkey. Don’t be surprised to find up to a dozen of these little feathers. They are most likely going to be in the hard-to-see places, like under the wings or around the cavity. Don’t get too worried, though– it won’t kill anyone if they eat one. Get as many of them as you can.
Great! Now your turkey is ready for prepping! If you’re not ready to prep it yet– for example, if you’re salt-rubbing it, don’t do that till Wednesday night– then you can put it in its roasting pan and cover it up with plastic wrap or a towel. If you are brining it, you can brine it right away!
Give yourself a good half-hour to prep the turkey from beginning to end. It might go quicker than that but that allows you the time to look for feathers and to be slow and careful so you don’t drop it– turkeys are heavy!