Dinner Last Night
a retrospective...


Roast Turkey

Yes, that's right. Last night. Roast Turkey. Why? Because Costco started selling their fresh turkeys last week and we needed to cook it. Roasting a turkey is a lot simpler than a lot of recipes and it is a shame people don't eat it more often. But, you say, it tastes like cardboard! Many do. That's because they are overcooked. The FDA warns you to cook poultry to 165 degrees for safety. That will kill most bad bugs in seconds. But there is another way. You can cook a turkey to 150 degrees at which point most bad bugs are killed in a manner of minutes. So if you leave it to rest for 30 minutes while the temperature is also likely to climb another 10 degrees (it did for this one), you're covered. You end up with a moist, delicious bird. (Disclaimer: do your research, you do have to do it correctly to be safe.)

There are some other things to help your cooking, though. Buy smaller birds (get 2 if you need a lot). We like 13-14lbs. Do not stuff it, that causes uneven temperatures and issues with safety. We've been putting our stuffing underneath the skin (that's why it looks kinda weird). This means it gets some turkey flavor and it protects the breast from overcooking since it takes longer to cook dark meat than white (recipe from the Los Angeles Times). We use an oven probe thermometer (Thermoworks SMOKE).

Of course we'll be eating turkey meals for at least 5 more days, but we love it.

If you're interested in exactly what we did, let us know.

Roast Turkey