Thanksgiving Part One - The Protein...

Well, I’ve looked at over 10 publications (including La Cucina Italiana!), and many times over that number of recipes for the (traditional) star of the Thanksgiving table, the Turkey. If only the damn pilgrims had had a haunch of beef, or maybe a pork loin, or leg of lamb, we wouldn’t be in this annual predicament. But no, the Indians apparently decided to bring the fowl to the Pilgrim's board and we’ve been saddled with dealing with that ever since. So the challenge every year is how to make a relatively varied piece of protein edible. There’s those breasts to deal with and then there’s the thighs (no snappy comments here please) and how to bring to the table a nice treatment of both, which require distinctively different heats and cooking times to reach their peak. If one is good, the other may, or may not be ready. One dry, or the other underdone..

The problem for the home cook is how to make both sections of the fowl edible. So over the years we’ve seen approaches and techniques to try to achieve the “perfectly cooked turkey” to bring to the table. Refer to previous posts for pictures of that golden bird, firmly sitting on the table with great style and form. Wonder how it tastes....

The shear variety of methods proposed indicates that there is no one good way to produce an edible product. High heat first, then low, low first, then high, breasts down, then up, put in bag, aluminum foil tent, no tent. And what about prep before actually committing to heat? Brine, don’t brine, rub, don’t rub. They’re all there. Oh, and then there’s the “deconstruction” technique where you remove the backbone (I shudder to think of doing that!), and cook the pieces separately.

Brining, which was the cooking darling for a few years seems to have reclined in its popularity. Only two of the recipes I saw used brining. I can’t argue with that, although I’ve had good results with the technique, but it does require time and equipment and space in the fridge. Many of the recipes called for “lifting the skin” and inserting butter or some flavored combination, and the remainder just wanted an initial spiced rub with continuous basting during cooking. I have not had much success with that “removing the skin” as it seems to always tear or not return to normal. Then there is the “brine” in salt school, but they had mixed results (too salty!). Cook’s Illustrated abandoned their previous brining stand and instead recommended rubbing and barding with bacon.

Cooking techniques also reflected the dichotomy of trying to get the breast and thigh meats done together. Martha says start at 450, then reduce, Cook’s Illustrated says 350 first, then 450; Cook’s Country says 450 then flip the bird to breast side up and reduce. Gourmet says 425 for one recipe then 450 for another (Is your smoke battery detector up to date?). A lot of them just revert to Grandma’s 325 “until an instant read thermometer stuck in the thigh reads…..”.

The naked truth is that there is not an easy way to produce the holy grail of the “perfect turkey”. It’s too damn hard. You do all the gymnastics of de-skin, soak, salt, rub, bag, baste, high heat, low heat, turn, flip, rest, tent, and still you wind up with a dry, relatively tasteless product. I won’t give any space to deep fried turkey.

That’s why you will not find poultry on the menu for the flutters dinner this year, instead a pork loin (from Niman Ranch) and (hopefully) a nice baked Rockfish (from Kellums) will grace our table. You don’t HAVE to have turkey. Why make it hard on yourself. Just think, if you don't have to attend every 15 mintues, you will have time to

DFD

next - what to drink?????