You always prepare Thanksgiving’s turkey for your family every year. Nevertheless, is the way you process it correct? Let’s find out in the subsequent content!
1. Preliminary process is important
All the foods need having excellent preliminary process to gain the best flavor, particularly, turkey. The process requires two steps, including defrosting and brining. Most home cooks never allow the turkeys to have sufficient time to thaw and keeps complain about their crumbly taste.
A turkey needs at least 3 days to thaw and it’s better to brine it with sea salt a day before cooking. It will have more time to absorb the moisture and deliver better flavor.
2. Set up an appropriate temperature
Suitable heat plays a crucial role in creating crispy skin for your turkey, which is one of the most attractive things about the dish. Pushing the temperature of the best electric smokers too high may not guarantee that flavor and cause the turkey to burn.
Therefore, you need to find a right oven, electric smoker, or charcoal barbecue, the one that is easy for you to adjust the heat. Then, maintaining the temperature at approximately 350-400 Fahrenheit degrees is perfect.
3. Choose the right time to put the turkey in the oven
Various people choose to cook the turkey too soon. For example, Thanksgiving dinner is at 5 pm and they already cook through the dish in the early morning. I’m sure the turkey’s flavor will not be as brilliant as that when you cook the dish at the right time.
The perfect time to process turkey in the oven depends on its weight, which is 13 minutes every pound. It means that it needs about 3-5 hours to be cooked through and that is the period you should calculate.
4. Protect the breast
The reason for this is because the breast meat is often well done before other parts. That is why when those parts are cooked through, the breast will get burned. Therefore, you should protect it by covering the breast with vegetables or putting it upside down in a full-of-vegetable-baking-pan.
You will be able to slow down the cooking speed and the breast will come out as delicious as you expect.
5. Use a probe thermometer
Thanksgiving Day is an imperative holiday for numerous families. So, we, home cooks, should not frustrate it by ruining the turkey’s taste. Taking advantage of a meat thermometer will tell you the precise moment when your dish reaches to a perfect temperature.
Whenever you would like to check your turkey, insert your thermometer into the densest part of the dish. It is often its thigh. However, keep in mind not to touch the bones. You may ruin the toughness of the meat and crispy taste of the skin.
6. Stuff or not stuff?
That is a relatively difficult question for many cooks. If they follow traditional style, they would love to have a stuffed turkey. Nevertheless, that may take a great amount of time to roast the dish and make it harder for you to cook all the parts evenly.
Fortunately, there is a way for you to stuff the turkey without affecting its taste. It is to bake and stuff in another baking dish, which gives the fillings longer time to be done and avoids the risks of burning the entire dish.
7. Get a proper pan
In case you don’t know, your baking pan is incredibly important in creating the most delicious turkey ever. A proper one should be about 16 inches in length and 13 inches in width. That is the standard for most stable and heavy-duty baking pans.
Moreover, its material should be made of metal with stainless steel on the inside. The interior should also be non-stick and bright color. In that way, the whole pan will be much simpler to clean and bright color prevents the turkey from burning.
8. Don’t forget to rest the turkey
Finally, to drive the most delicious flavor from the bird, you should allow it to rest within approximately 20 minutes before serving. The juices from the meat will follow the heat to drip outside, making the dish even more tender and sweet-tasting.
8 simple secrets are all revealed. I wish that you would have the most jubilant Thanksgiving Day ever with those tips. Thank you for reading and see you!
