The Turkey Chronicles
Wild, organic, grain-fed or Butterball?
If someone asked me whether I'd be happier to eat the tasting menu at Restaurant Pierre Gagnaire in Paris next Sunday night or a Thanksgiving meal at my family dinner table, Thanksgiving would win hands down. After spending two days preparing the turkey, boiling the potatoes, trimming the brussels sprouts, peeling the rutabaga and so on, the moment I'm faced with that plate of goodness, I'm practically shaking in anticipation. There's just something about the way the gravy slinks its way around the stuffing, pools atop the mashed potatoes, dribbles down the maple-roasted carrots, and halts when it reaches the blob of cranberry jelly that makes me quiver. And then, of course, comes the glistening turkey meat.
I am a dark-meat lover, and I always set aside the two turkey thighs for myself. If some honoured guest at my table requests dark meat, he or she gets a drumstick. Too bad if they wanted the thigh, I think, slurping back a glass of pinot noir - it's Thanksgiving, my day. And I don't only have seconds at this harvest feast - I have thirds.
I prepared my first Thanksgiving dinner at the age of 23, at my walk-up in the Plateau back in the '90s. For the first time, my family members were guests at my Thanksgiving table. That table was covered with leaves, crabapples and clumps of moss. It was my Martha Stewart phase and, boy, did it show. Everything was homemade, down to the two pies for dessert - one of which, like my table, was covered in leaves, though these were made of pastry. The dinner was a hit, and the turkey was especially magnificent. I soaked up the glory and was hooked. In the family, Thanksgiving dinner was now my thing.
But as much as this dinner is all about tradition, for the last few decades the focus has been on updating the Thanksgiving spread. As a food writer, I’ve long felt the pressure to come up with something different. Glossy food magazines displayed images of turkeys as bronzed and full-breasted as Kim Kardashian. Suddenly we were putting Grand Marnier in the cranberry sauce, lemon grass in the stuffing, and serving pumpkin risotto as a side dish. With everyone looking for new ways to reinvent brussels sprouts and scalloped potatoes, I, too, was ready to drum up a new twist to this 400-year-old meal. And my focus would always be the turkey.
For my first story on the subject, back in 1998, I decided to recreate an authentic pilgrim Thanksgiving, circa 1621. I couldn't match the guest list (which included 53 pilgrims and 90 American Indians) or the timetable (they feasted for three days), but I could make the centrepiece a wild turkey. No mean feat! Turkeys are numerous in the Quebec wilds of late, and hunters are even allowed to bag one each during the spring hunting season. But back in 1998, they weren't that easy to find. A hunter in Hemmingford offered to shoot one for me, but I eventually found a wild turkey at Les Élevages Carfio, in Châteauguay.
Despite my excitement, the wild turkey was a dud. Thin-legged and small-breasted, this bird was the Kate Moss of turkeys, and a sad replacement for the plump birds that usually graced our table. I'm told a wild turkey can be delicious if you braise it for about a day until it falls apart, but considering they cost about twice that of a regular bird, I'll pass on the wild varieties until someone shows me how to make them sing.
And how about that regular "A" category supermarket bird that the majority of us pick up come holiday time? For years, I shunned such proletarian birds. Like all foodies, I could do better. Instead, I opted for a grain-fed turkey, then - a step up - an organic bird, even if it did cost me over $100 for a 13-pound turkey. (A regular bird at that weight would be about $55, a grain-fed bird about $75.) Consulting an Alice Waters recipe, I brined that baby for two days, and roasted it for four hours while basting every 30 minutes. I coddled that pricey turkey to such an extent that by the time I sat down for dinner, I felt like I had given birth.
I eventually determined that the flavour of an organic turkey wasn't superior enough to justify the cost and the intimidation factor. And don't think my friends and family, who drowned the meat in gravy, picked up on the difference.
The truth hit home a few years ago when, having neglected to order an organic bird (which must be ordered well in advance), I settled on a grain-fed turkey readily available at the supermarket near my chalet in the Laurentians.
By the time I arrived, however, the only turkeys left were the ones you roast from frozen (not recommended) or a whopping 20-pound organic turkey that sold for an even more whooping $150. Fretting madly, I picked up the organic turkey, which seemed as large as a toddler, and heaved it in and out of my cart about three times. Yes, I wanted a great turkey, but we were only five at dinner. At 20 pounds, there was enough meat on this monster to generously feed 13. (Count 1.5 pounds of turkey per person with large birds and two pounds with small.) I wasn't even sure it would fit into my oven.
I eventually decided against the mega bird and went searching for an alternative, which turned out to be a Butterball found in the back of a freezer in a dépanneur near my chalet. Disappointed to be saddled with such an inferior specimen, I left the rock-hard Butterball to thaw out in my sink, and turned my attention to my pie crusts.
The next day, I roasted that unsexy, margarine-plumped turkey, paying it little attention, determined only to make plenty of gravy to mask the sure-to-be-anemic flavour. But you know what? It was good - great, even. And when I handed Butterballs to local chefs Mathieu Cloutier and Eric Dupuis for a turkey cook-off story years ago, they also were pleasantly surprised. I'm not saying it's the best option (especially for those with ethical concerns about purchasing factory-farmed poultry), but I will say it is both easy to roast and quite delicious.
When it comes to the roasting, there's a plethora of options. I've roasted turkey upside down, on a rack, Cajun-style, low-and-slow, at high heat, and I even attended a class in Charleston, S.C., to learn how to deep-fry a turkey - a dicey and dangerous proposition for even experienced cooks (and not recommended). I even featured a Chinese-style turkey in the Montreal Gazette a few years back, by local chef Jonathan Cheung. And was it ever a treat!
Yet after two decades of mixing up my turkey methods, I've settled on two: the first is the easiest. You simply roast your turkey, on a rack, for 45 minutes at 450º F (220ºC), then drop the oven temperature to 350ºF (180ºC) and continue roasting until it reaches an internal temperature of 170ºF (77ºC) on the thickest part of the thigh. Let it rest for a good 30 minutes under a layer of loosely tented tin foil before carving and voila!… excellent turkey.
The second is the brined bird featured in my first cookbook, Chez Lesley (Make Every Dish Delicious) and it’s the one I’ll be making this year.
What I like about the brining method is that the turkey roasts more quickly, is especially juicy and carves up like a dream. Or I may try a dry brine this year, where the turkey is not submerged in a wet solution but rubbed with plenty of Kosher salt the day before cooking. I’m still deciding which way to go.
There are a few more hints to getting it just right in the recipe below, but I'm convinced that if you follow some basic steps, turkey is hard to mess up, whether your bird is a rare heirloom breed or just the same ol' gobbler you see piled up on supermarket shelves. Unlike so many celebratory birds - from pheasant to quail to guinea hen - the large size of the turkey makes it forgiving. I've also included a recipe for stuffing and a boatload of gravy, because if your turkey ends up being the dry, boring, dull Thanksgiving standby so many moan about, a little gravy goes a long way.
Simple Roast Turkey with Stuffing and Gravy
Serves 8-10
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