Claire
Master Chef
This is the first year I've ever baked a "small" turkey (13 lbs). I've always done 20+ pounds. I've been doing turkeys for well over 35 years. Using "Joy" as my guide (since I rarely do it more than once or twice a year), I went to work. Using my trusty meat thermometer, it should have been perfect. I seriously think that this is the worst one I've done. The breast was dry and stringy, the wings and thighs (where I had my temp probe) inedibly raw. Since I am a spectacular gravy maker (if I do say so myself), the dried out white meat and legs were a great meal and no one complained (besides me!).
I have several friends who are experienced cooks and chefs.
Do not ask me why it did not occur to me to brine the darned thing. Roll of eyes.
One friend mentioned a method my mother always used, and I did in my early Thanksgiving years. Using an old towel/other kind of cloth as a cover and continually dampening it as you cook.
I mentioned to one of my pro friends that I'd one year accidentally put the turkey in breast side down (I'm sure booze was involved) and it looked ugly but was probably the most evenly cooked, tasty turkey I've ever cooked. She replied that when they had to do 25 turkeys, 24 would be cooked this way with one cooked to look pretty. Since I don't do the Normal Rockwell presentation any more, upside down would be fine.
Because, for us, the holiday is more about companionship than the food itself, the day was a huge success. But I was left with this question of why I can be successful at a 24 pound bird and not a 13 pound bird. I have my answers at hand (and, no, the too-rare parts didn't go to waste, immediately went into a stock pot). But I just thought it interesting, and some of you might think so, that I could cook, easily, a 22-pound bird, a chicken, a cornish hen, even a brace of quail, but somehow a 13-pound turkey defeated me.
I have several friends who are experienced cooks and chefs.
Do not ask me why it did not occur to me to brine the darned thing. Roll of eyes.
One friend mentioned a method my mother always used, and I did in my early Thanksgiving years. Using an old towel/other kind of cloth as a cover and continually dampening it as you cook.
I mentioned to one of my pro friends that I'd one year accidentally put the turkey in breast side down (I'm sure booze was involved) and it looked ugly but was probably the most evenly cooked, tasty turkey I've ever cooked. She replied that when they had to do 25 turkeys, 24 would be cooked this way with one cooked to look pretty. Since I don't do the Normal Rockwell presentation any more, upside down would be fine.
Because, for us, the holiday is more about companionship than the food itself, the day was a huge success. But I was left with this question of why I can be successful at a 24 pound bird and not a 13 pound bird. I have my answers at hand (and, no, the too-rare parts didn't go to waste, immediately went into a stock pot). But I just thought it interesting, and some of you might think so, that I could cook, easily, a 22-pound bird, a chicken, a cornish hen, even a brace of quail, but somehow a 13-pound turkey defeated me.