Will It Be Sous Vide? Whole Thanksgiving Turkey
Hello my friendly friends and welcome to the specialWill It Sous Vide? , a weekly column where I do whatever you want with my immersion circulator.
This week I didn’t let you pick a theme because it was predetermined. I forgot who originally suggested it to me, but I got a lot of emails, tweets and comments that suggested trying to shoot a whole turkey, so that’s what I tried to do. It was a great time and, in the spirit of the holidays, it was very stressful. So settle in, maybe grab a bite, and come with me on an epic journey of love, loss, and – ultimately – triumph.
I started out with such big plans. After drunkenly pestering Alan on Twitter about the number of turkeys I could buy, I settled on three and planned to make one whole, one baked, and one broken into light and dark meats cooked at different temperatures.
I defrosted the birds, bought some bags of brine and a vacuum sealing system (time to cook) and cooked my first whole bird. I started out in a very organized way. I even made small bundles of herbs for each batch, that was my arrogance.
Now, before we go any further, I know there are many sous vide turkey recipes out there, but they are mostly for turkey breasts and this is not what we want. We walk as a whole, or, so to speak, a bird.
Anyway. I started with a very simple rub that I intended to use on all three turkeys, consisting of 1 cup sugar, 1 cup salt, 1 teaspoon garlic powder, and one teaspoon parprika. I grated this plus a tablespoon of fried chicken better than ingots all over and inside the poultry. Then I remove the neck and giblets and fill the cavity with my little bunch of herbs and minced garlic cloves over a whole head. I chopped up a couple of celery stalks (although I hate it) and a couple of carrots, cut an onion into quarters, and toss it all into a basting bag. It was a beautiful photo, but it was not meant for my friends, it shouldn’t have been .
Problems arose immediately. Although I now have a vacuum sealer, the brine bags were not suitable for it, and they did not allow vacuum bags to be large enough for a whole turkey. (I mean, they might exist somewhere, but they’re not always available to the average person, so let’s just say they’re not real.) I removed as much air as I could by submerging the bag in water, but obviously it’s true. Nothing like that in the air in the cavity, creating a single floating ball of oil. I could possibly have done something with my MacGyver vacuum system, but I was scared to break my expensive new toy, and there was a bigger problem: the water bath.
The Anova is rated to heat up to five gallons of water, but the turkey and Anova won’t fit in my five gallon container. I used to use a cooler to cook lamb and – although there were over five gallons of water in the fridge – everything went fine. This time things went wrong and the poor little circulation pump struggled to reach the set temperature. (In the end, it just passed out and didn’t play anymore, which has become a trend with me and circulators lately. It turned back on after a short nap.)
So, I was with a turkey that doesn’t sink, a bathtub that doesn’t heat up, and a circulation pump that actually gave me a finger. I frantically began texting friends and lovers to see if they had any elastic cords I could borrow. What was I going to do with them? Who knows! – when I decided to consult my very wise editor.
“Please stop,” he said. “It won’t be sous vid. This is fine. Now hush, my child, dry your tears and try something else. (These aren’t exact quotes, but there was the spirit of Slack conversation.) Try something else I’ve done, but not before tossing the sorrow turkey in the pan and fry it in a rage. It turned out fine.
I decided to skip the flirty idea because although I hate myself a little, I don’t hate myself completely, and went on to a break and cook at different times. I dismembered the bird, rubbed the legs with a sugar-salt mixture, and lovingly placed them in a bag containing four sage leaves, a sprig of rosemary, a sprig or marjoram, a sprig of thyme, and a couple tablespoons of duck fat. I sealed it, immersed it in a bathtub set at 167 ℉, and let them hang out for five hours.
I took them out of the tub, put them on the counter and lowered the temperature of Anova to 149. I massaged my breasts lightly with a rub in and placed them in a bag with the same herbs and fat as my legs. Then they went to the bath for three hours, which I spent at the bar drinking rye cocktails.
They finished at about the same time as the last call, after which I took them out of the tub and put them on the counter to warm them up to room temperature.
I left everything on the counter overnight, but you can put them in the refrigerator if you try. Then, in the cold light of day, I removed the turkey pieces from the pouches, poured out the drops, and extracted the collagen into a pot of broth and placed them in a brazier.
Then I put them in the oven for fifteen minutes at 325 ℉ to reheat them and (hopefully) make the skin crispy. They warmed well, but the skin didn’t crunch, and I didn’t want to risk it drying out. It was then that I turned to the torch.
The skin crunched a little , but not quite, and it lasted for ages with this small, albeit very hot flame. I was disappointed because I live for crispy skin, but then I took a bite of meat.
SAINT. MONSTERS. CRAP.
My friends, my children, my beloved, this turkey meat has been the subject of carnivorous dreams. “Juicy” doesn’t describe it. It was basically a duck fat confit, and that duck fat turned into a damn delicious meat from that meat, resulting in the most flavorful turkey I’ve ever tasted. There was not a single bite that was not saturated with the seasonings and herbs that I threw into this bag. To be honest, I don’t even really like turkey (especially the breast), but I couldn’t stop eating it and it made me forget about the skin. (I know, I can’t believe it either.)
The dark meat was just as excellent. I am a marigold myself and this juicy piece of turkey almost made me cry with joy. All this connective tissue was destroyed in a very pleasant way and the texture was like a duck confit. Living alone has its perks, and one of them is that I was able to eat that leg over the sink, the juices flowing down my face like some kind of hungry tyrannosaurus. The only sad thing is that there was no one around who could taste the meat and confirm that it was real, and not some kind of sous-vide fever dream. I mean there was this thing and she was impressed, but she eats cardboard, so I don’t know if her opinion is correct.
So, getting back to the most eternal question: will there be a sous vide turkey for Thanksgiving?
Answer: Yes, but some disassembly is required. While I’m sure you could create some sort of situation where you could submerge a whole bird, it’s a hassle and a half and you don’t have the ability to cook light and dark meats at different temperatures. I was actually kind of glad I ended up roasting that first turkey in a rage, as I was able to compare and contrast the meat and confirm that the sous vide version is indeed much better.
Now there is an obvious flaw – it’s the skin. Skin is the problem, but Food Lab already has the answer. Simply remove the skins first and fry them separately between two baking sheets . Boom. The problem has been resolved. There is also a problem with the optics. You won’t get this pictorial photo of a whole roast turkey for your Instagram, but you will get something much better than that. Get the turkey you want to eat, no, eat it . You get a turkey that may not make a sandwich because there will be no leftovers. You get a turkey that your family and friends will rave about until Valentine’s Day (at least). In addition, on November 24, almost identical photos of fried birds will appear on social networks. No one will miss yours.