Favorite Turkey Brand

[JohnL]

I never really look for a brand name bird, but I do buy the so called "fresh" turkeys (you know the semi froze ones). I buy those because I'm too disorganized to remember to thaw out the truely frozen birds in time to cook them for T-day dinner. That being said, I don't ever remember being dissatisfied with any of the brands that I bought. We usually do 4 turkeys in the 12lb to 14lb range. One "traditional" roast, two deep fried and one smoked. All have turned out well.

 

[morerecipes]

Brand probably doesn't matter as much as the method you choose to cook your bird. You are going to get different tastes on all tech different types of methods. I agree that Smoking is probably the most traditional recipe according to history since ovens weren't always around..., but I meant traditional as in what your family practiced growing up.

Was that the traditional recipe your family practiced...smoking the turkey as you were growing up?

Has anyone ever tasted a turkey using the high heat recipe?

 

[HTT]

I talked to a guy reasently that told me he does it the real traditional way (native american way) which is to hunt the turkey, clean the turkey out, Then without plucking it he wraps it with clay and makes a clay ball out of it. Then wses a stick to make vent holes for steem releas and puts the whole thing into a fire. After the vent holes steem for a while he then removes the bird from the fire and takes the clay off thus the fethers stick to the clay removing the fethers from the body. Sounds like alot of work to me!

 

[BreezyCooking]

Unfortunately, not only the feathers would come off with the clay - most likely all the skin would too. And for me all that buttery crispy skin is one of the very best parts of the bird!!!

A former "mountain man" neighbor of mine claimed he used to bake woodchucks using a method like that, & the whole point was that when cracked out of the clay, all the skin & fatty deposits would be left behind.

 

[mitmondol]

Used to buy whatever was cheap at the the time. Until I tasted one I got from my friend who raises them !
Oh boy!
Not only free range, she puts them on a special diet for a few weeks, corn, chestnuts (if I remember correctly) and some protein rich something that I do not remember.
Well! These are just unbelievably delicious!
She promised me one for this year too.
(I don't know, tomorrow I'm going to her place, she has 7 wild bores she raised to butcher and one of them is mine.Maybe no turkey after that?)

She has a tom about 5 years old, beautiful creature!
His feathers are mostly sky blue color!

 

[Caine]

Normally, I just get whatever the supermarket is giving away free with a mimimum purchase, but last year I had a special guest for Thanksgiving dinner, so I bought a fresh Honeysuckle White from Smart & Final and stuck the free turkery from the supermarket in the deep freeze and cooked it up for "Thanksgivng in July."

 

[buckytom]

caine, i do the same thing with the free turkeys. i have yet to be disappointed with one. we actually like them better than butterballs, and are far better than the empire brand kosher turkey that we've had before. the boids we've bought that were freshly killed and cleaned at a farm market were only slightly better.

a few years ago before we were married, my wife and i qualified for 3 free turkeys in 2 supermarkets. 1 was cooked for thanksgibbing, the others went into freezers for february and may dinners. i guess they were a valentine's day turkey and mother's day turkey.

i just picked up our free turkey for this year; a 19 lb sucker, store brand (shop right). it was supposed to go into a freezer but now our plans to go to my parents' are off , so it's in the fridge to defrost for thursday.
i guess the silver lining is that there'll be leftovers.

how long would a frozen solid 19lb. turkey take to defrost in a fridge? i hope it's not too early.

 

[jpmcgrew]

Normally, I just get whatever the supermarket is giving away free with a mimimum purchase, but last year I had a special guest for Thanksgiving dinner, so I bought a fresh Honeysuckle White from Smart & Final and stuck the free turkery from the supermarket in the deep freeze and cooked it up for "Thanksgivng in July."

Whats the word on the Honeysuckle brand?That what I bought it came at $7.99 for up to a 16 lbs bird I also got a Safeway brand called Manor House for $4.99 up to 16 lbs

 

[Poppinfresh]

My favorite "brand" of turkey is Diestel (Diestel Family Turkey Ranch).

Though it's not really a brand. It's fresh turkeys. You place an order @ 3 bucks a pound, they kill/pluck/gut the bird and hand it over to you. Yeah, OK...it's 60 bucks for a 20 pound bird as opposed to the 17 I could buy one at the store for, but the taste is noticeably better.

 

[Caine]

Whats the word on the Honeysuckle brand?That what I bought it came at $7.99 for up to a 16 lbs bird I also got a Safeway brand called Manor House for $4.99 up to 16 lbs

The fresh Honeysuckle White was an excellent bird, but this year I'll probably go with Manor House or Butterball at 48¢ a pound from Von's because my boss gave me a $25.00 Safeway gift card. In fact, seeing there is nobody special this year, I was thinking I just might buy their prepared Thanksgiving dinner, which includes a fully cooked 12 lb Butterball turkey, and then pick up a minimum purchase frozen turkey for use sometime next year.

 

[morerecipes]

That $25 Safeway gift card will come in handy to buying all the supplies needed for that cookingThanksgiving dinner, unless you decide to skip cooking..... I've never tried a pre-made turkey. Have you heard news that they are good at all?

 

[Caine]

The precooked turkeys are pretty good. They're Butterballs, and they come from the factory fully cooked and frozen, so even Safeway can't screw them up. But I decided to get their Spiral sliced ham this year instead. I've never NOT had turkey for Thanksgiving in my entire life, so this will be something completely different. When I was in the Army, they always made sure we got a turkey dinner, even in a combat zone, and when I was living all by myself in a studio apartment in Phoenix, I still managed to cook up a turkey leg, Betty Crocker mashed potatoes, Franco-American gravy, and some kind of vegetable.

What I ended up getting with the $25.00 gift card was:

• Two frozen pizzas (Safeway brand, $3.99 each)
• 8 bottles of Propel (Buy 3, get 1 free)
• 4 sweet potatoes (2 pounds for a dollar)
• 4 cans of Progresso soup (4 for $5.00)
• 4 12-packs of Coke Zero (Buy 2, get 2 free)

 

[justplainbill]

The fresh Round Hill brand from Pilgrim's Pride that we had this year was one of the tastiest I've eaten in the past 20 years.

 

[In the Kitchen]

Believe This?

Last night, very late, I heard on radio news that a brother and sister each year have bet as to who can prepare the largest bird. This year the brother won. He had 72 lb. turkey! The sister said she could never have gotten that big of bird in her oven. Wonder how he did! Hear the crazy stories around holidays. Hope your Thanksgiving was good. We sure can be thankful we have something to eat.

 

[morerecipes]

Thanksgiving was great! The 2-hour turkey worked out nicely. Believe it or not, we went thru 2 turkeys and 2 hams with very little left overs! So I feel you on the desire for ham! We actually had to hide some turkey so we could have left overs for ourselves!

Hope everyone's T-day was great as well.

 

[LMJ]

Whatever's on sale at Save-A-Lot or K-Mart. I've yet to get burned by the bird.

My own mistakes while cooking it, OTOH...

I tried smoking a 14-pound Honeysuckle White this year... Ended up with a big cold spot in the middle. So while the ladies feasted on dark meat, my father risked salmonella on a partly-cooked breast, and after carving off all I could, I shoved the bare carcass into a hot oven and spent the evening picking meat off the bones.

Please note that this account of turkey day 2007 completely glosses over the triple homocide I was nearly driven to in the process.

Slicing the partially-raw breasts into "turkey steaks" and grilling them on Saturday left them a bit dry, but OMG, the flavor! Smoky, spicy, bacony, savory, a little bit sweet...

Next time, I'm quartering the bird first!

 

[LMJ]

The sister said she could never have gotten that big of bird in her oven.

Well, you don't NEED an oven, if you've got a shovel...

 

[bigjimbray]

I am curious to find out what brand of turkey that was he cooked that was 72 lbs. I use
to work for loveless ranches years ago and they had toms that would be close to 100lbs.
and I did`nt know anyone else had birds that big. because there`s were a special breed.

 

[LMJ]

I am curious to find out what brand of turkey that was he cooked that was 72 lbs. I use
to work for loveless ranches years ago and they had toms that would be close to 100lbs.
and I did`nt know anyone else had birds that big. because there`s were a special breed.

I would think you'd have to go to the rancher or shoot a wild tom yourself to get one that big... What store would take a bird that size?

Unless perhaps there's some distribution network for giant turkeys to be served for sheer impressiveness at celebratory/corporate/diplomatic functions. Hmm...

 

[Mrs. Cuillo]

I keep my turkey very plain...a little butter and some poultry seasoning...so I can taste the difference between brands. The past several I have cooked have been Honeysuckle but this year for Thanksgiving I tried Butterball and was very disappointed. There was almost no turkey flavor, though it did stay very moist and only took an hour and a half to cook a 10lb bird. I would like to find an organic farm and see how those taste...maybe next time!