Thanksgiving Turkey

Here is an article that may help you out with your bird this Thanksgiving.

Columnist: Aaron Chambers

May your turkey be moist through and through.


There may be nothing more glorious than a perfectly cooked turkey, fresh from the oven with its caramelized skin and captivating aroma.

The family, if only for a meal, comes truly together.

But just how do you get the dark meat cooked all the way through without drying out the white meat? The question is as fundamental to turkey as the bird itself is to Thanksgiving.

I called my grandma. Her succulent Thanksgiving turkeys have pleased, year in and year out, her 10 children and dozens of grandchildren.

Rub a lot of butter on it, she told me. I usually put the foil on it to begin with, and then take it off so it browns. Just loosely, just loosely. Butter, lots of butter.

Her mother would strap cheesecloth over the breast, and pour melted butter over it.

We were always such butter people. We used butter for everything, my grandma said. I know today they don’t use butter as much; they use olive oil.

PACKING EXTRA FAT into the meat certainly is one way to go.

Brining the bird before popping it in the oven is another.

Brine — salt and sugar dissolved in water — seasons the meat while infusing it with water. If you brine, you should not have to baste.

Brine is the best way to have the bird moist in both areas without having to overcook the breast, said Mark Wasserman, executive chef at Cliff breakers in Rockford.

I figured he would know. He’s preparing 80 turkeys for the banquet hall’s Thanksgiving blowout.

Wasserman says to combine two cups each of kosher salt and brown sugar with two gallons of water. Warm the water to dissolve the salt and sugar, but cool the mixture before adding the turkey. Brine the turkey overnight in a five-gallon bucket suitable for food.

Before you cook, discard the brine and rinse the bird. Wasserman starts the turkey at 425 degrees, and then drops the oven to 350 after 15 minutes. He recommends pitching a foil tent over the breast when the bird is half-cooked. There should be space between the skin and the foil — a layer of cool air that insulates the white meat from the blast of heat. He recommends cooking the bird until the thickest part of the thigh registers 165 to 170 degrees.

The breast meat should be 155 to 160 degrees. If you stuff the bird, then cook the dark meat until it hits 175 to 180 degrees, or 165 to 170 degrees for the breast.