With the holidays approaching, foodies are grumbling again about turkey. The domesticated bird is overweight, too fat to fly; in cooking, turkeys easily dry out; their meat, especially the breast, is tasteless. Why bother? So I thought many years ago, when I served instead at Christmas a suckling pig, beautifully stretched out on the platter, paws forward, an apple in its mouth, skin golden-glazed, flesh succulent. My spouse accused me of culinary sadism, my son was driven to years of vegetarianism. The cooked bird is certainly inoffensive by contrast and — who knows? — perhaps therefore theologically more acceptable.
Still, there are steps you can take to make turkey more interesting without tarting it up with fancy sauces or stuffing; all it takes is time.
Don’t be misled at the butcher into thinking that the bird splayed out on the marble slab is ‘fresh’; most of these turkeys are in fact simply unfrozen, and you might as well buy the bird in the same state the butcher bought it. Defrosting the monster block of flesh takes about five hours a pound; this means a 20lb bird should spend about four days in the fridge. (As with all birds, leaving a turkey to unfreeze at room temperature will invite colonies of unwanted bacteria to form.)
Were you to cook two small turkeys rather than one monster the unthawing process would, obviously, speed up; small birds are easier to cook properly; they are easier to carve. But tradition demands the monster, father hacking with knife and tongs pound after pound of white flesh …perhaps it is a more savage moment of the year than theology would suggest.
Defrosted, your turkey is ready to be brined, to ensure it will stay moist while cooking.
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