McKinnon's Turkeys

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

So is anyone buying their Thanksgiving turkey from McKinnon's? Are they better turkeys than what I might get at Star? More expensive? Do you need to order in advance?

Thanks!

Comments

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

The cheap frozen turkeys are about the same everywhere. (Shadybrook, Jennies, etc.) It's possible that the sale price at Shaw's is better than the price at McKinnon's (note that you can use the coupon from the Johnny Foodmaster flier at Shaw's, and get a frozen turkey for 39 cents per pound if you spend $25.)

In general if you want to buy a fresh turkey you're best off ordering it so you can be sure you'll get it in the days right before Thanksgiving. If you want to buy a frozen turkey you need to start defrosting it real soon now -- it takes one day per four pounds of weight.

If you want a slightly better frozen turkey buy a kosher turkey or a Butterball; they're sort of pre-brined so they'll be juicier when you cook them. I imagine that the free-range turkeys are much more flavorful, but when I'm buying almost forty pounds of something I'm pretty sensitive to price (I cook two 18 lb turkeys).

I noticed that Market Basket has fresh Bell & Evans turkeys for $1.99/lb, I'm pretty sure that's a good price.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Wow, thanks. My mom (who is doing turkey tech support long distance) is advising me against frozen, but they sound pretty good to me. I'm doing one 18-20 pounder, plus 2 extra legs.

Choices, choices...

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

If you do frozen you'll need to start defrosting it tonight, and if your fridge is too cold you'll be standing over a sinkful of water on Thursday morning cursing. It's doable, but I decided it was worth the extra $10 per turkey to buy a fresh one this year (fresh is around 89 cents/lb unless you go fancy.)

One of the reason people like kosher turkeys or butterball turkeys is that it's a drawback of thermodynamics that you can't properly cook the white and dark meat on a turkey unless you do something tricky (dark meat has a higher specific heat; so if you cook the dark meat until it's done the white meat is dried out). My family solved that problem by undercooking the turkeys, but I realize most people don't want to do that.

If you brine the bird the salt water helps keep the entire bird moist, so it's harder to overcook the white meat. I'm not interested in soaking the birds overnight, so I start the birds breast side down (giving an initial blast of heat to the dark meat) and turning them about halfway through cooking.
For a more adventurous approach you can pre-heat the dark meat with careful blowtorch application.

Oh - and if you're stuffing the bird pre-heat the stuffing. If you start the stuffing at around 150F that significantly reduces the danger of bacteria growing in the cavity (said bacterial growth is the main reason everyone recommends not stuffing birds).

Hmm, I guess I've been hosting Thanksgiving for around a decade.

It's too late for my primary advice to novice Thanksgiving hosts -- roast a turkey in September so you can see what you forget.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

You rock! Thank you for all this advice! I knew about the stuffing hazard, but I didn't know about the light/dark meat trick of starting breast-down. I think I'll try that. :-)

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

You're welcome.

Cooks Illustrated has a good web guide to turkey cooking:
www.turkeyhelp.com
I think that's where I took my first flipping instructions from (now I just do whatever my notes from last year tell me to)

Oh -- another bit of turkey advice: The fewer times you open the oven the faster it will cook. Basting the turkey every twenty minutes means it takes a lot longer to cook.
(It will also take longer to cook than expected if there isn't enough space around the bird for air to circulate - at least six inches on every side. If that's the case, be sure to rotate the pan so both sides have a chance to cook thoroughly.)

[heliopsis.livejournal.com]

I second the inversion technique. I always do this when I roast a chicken, and it works great. The breast comes out moist and the thighs get cooked completely. You need a good turkey lifter, and some help to do this, though. Handling a 20 pound turkey is work for most people; handling one that's hot, slippery and dripping scalding juices is a serious challenge.

My mother's technique is to roast the bird until the thighs fall off and the breast is dry and chewy. This is not so satisfying, IMHO.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Am I still able to borrow your roasting pan? If so what I might do for inversion is this:

Start it breast-down in a foil roaster pan. When it's time, flip the creature from the foil pan into the real pan, possibly with the help of beowabbit if he's there early.

From a physics perspective, does that sound feasible?

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

That icon is so bad, yet so perfect. I want to steal it, but I don't know if I could bring myself to actually use it.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Aw, go on, take the icon. :-) (I made it, so no royalties to pay. And it's not like it's the worst un-PC icon I've made, either.) You can reserve it for use only when you're replying to me!

[gmpe.livejournal.com]

Yes, unless you have hot turkey juices on the bottom of your pan. Then you have a "hot liquid spilling" problem. I just use a couple (large and clean) towels I don't care about and use them to grip the bird and flip it. Make sure you do it before the skin starts to crisp. I used a new oven that cooked the turkey faster one year, and the skin was fragile already by the time I flipped the bird, so it ripped a bit and didn't end up quite as pretty. Also, it's a production (at least with a stuffed, giant bird like I make) so I try not to have too manyn kibbitzing specators around to distract me and make me drop the bird. ;)

Oh, be sure to tent the white meat with foil after flipping and until the last half hour or so. It'll slow the cooking on the white meat.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

I bought turkey lifters tonight!

[gmpe.livejournal.com]

You can also help the dark/light temperature problem by deep-chilling the breasts overnight before cooking using ice packs. I saw a suggestion this year to just fill a large ziplock bag or two with ice and then nestle the turkey breast-size-down into the ice. By starting out different temperatures, it's easier to get them to end up that way. We've done this (plus the flip technique you mentioned) for a couple years now and been very pleased with the results.

Oh, and number one rule of turkey cooking- use a meat thermometer and decide when it's done based on that, not based on the timing on a recipe. :)

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Oooh, thank you for the ice pack suggestion. I'm making note of that...