I understand that this post is supposed to be about cooking half of a turkey, but let's face it, buying a turkey is expensive and this close to the holiday I don't need to be eating it from now till turkey day. So instead I took apart a chicken as a way to demonstrate.
First using a sturdy knife cut down breast side of the chicken breaking through the breast bone, and wish bone. Next we separate the backbone from the chicken. The easiest way to go about this is with a pair of
kitchen sheers. A good set of sheers comes apart so that the two blades are easily cleaned. Cut down either side of the back bone through the ribs- this will be about half way down. At this point get the knife back out and slide the knife underneath the flat bone attached to the thigh bone.
Pull the thigh away from the bone and pop the thigh bone out of the socket. Once you've done this the knife should slip easily through the joint and you will have two separate chicken halves.
For really easy carving once the bird is cooked also take out the ribs
from the inside of the breast. They should come out fairly easily by
just sliding the knife down underneath them, when you get to the wing
you will find some resistance. You will have to find the joint there
and take push through the cartilage (or you can simply take off the
whole wing, but it really looks nicer if they stay attached, and some of
us like the wing meat.
Now be sure you save all of the little pieces of bone and anything they give you in the cavity of the bird. All of this needs to go into stock. I usually make a lot of stock since I use it in everything. This time of year you can buy turkey necks from the butcher to add to your stock. Roast off the bones at around 375 to get a stock with a deeper color and richer flavor. Any vegetable scraps you have hanging around from the weeks cooking will do. Herbs, bay leaves, garlic, peppercorns, a clove or two and roughly two gallons of water. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer and let it simmer away for about 2 to 3 hours. Strain it and use the stock, which should be about 6 quarts, which will hopefully be enough for all of your other projects.
Once your bird is split (or you can do it before you split it whole, but it takes up less space this way) you will need to brine it for a few hours to overnight. Brining leaves you with a juicier, more flavorful bird. I'm going to give you two amounts for brine recipes, one for a small batch and one for a large. Boil together:
2 cups water 1 quart water
1/2 cup salt 1 cup salt
1/4 cup brown sugar 1/2 cup brown sugar
5 sprigs thyme 10 sprigs thyme
5 sage leaves 10 sage leaves
3 crushed garlic cloves 6 crushed garlic cloves
2 bay leaves 3 bay leaves
10 black peppercorns 20 black peppercorns
pinch red pepper flakes 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
once the salt and sugar dissolve
remove from the heat and let steep for 10 minutes or so. add
1 quart ice 2 quarts ice
put your bird in a bowl or pan and cover with the brine. Refrigerate (sometimes with a turkey I just keep it in a cooler with a lot of icy brine overnight) until you are ready to cook it. If you are going to go for the longer overnight brine, add more liquid so that it doesn't get too salty.
One thing that I really like about cooking a bird like this is that you can cook it more evenly more quickly, which means there is less chance of overcooking and drying out the fowl. It might not be your normal tall turkey centerpiece for your table, but when you cook it just right it's got a melt in your mouth texture. Lay your bird out on a pan with a rack that has been sprayed. This is another point where you have options. With a turkey I really like putting vegetables underneath, but on top of the rack. Large diced onion, celery, carrot and a few sprigs of fresh herbs, thyme, rosemary, sage . . . parsley. Basically the juices from the bird will drip down through the vegetables to flavor the drippings and the liquid in the vegetables will further serve to help keep them moist.
Put the bird half on top, season with salt and black pepper top with a sprig of thyme and a couple cubes of butter. Instead of basting you are going to put a few cubes of butter every 30 minutes or so. For the chicken you'll want to roast it at 325 for about 45 min to an hour. For the turkey calculate about 12 minutes per pound, a little less than what most people use, but that's because we split the bird, also for the last half an hour you are going to turn the oven up to 375 to finish browning the turkey and to cook your two casseroles. For a 20 lb turkey (that you've cut in half) it will need to cook for roughly two hours. Check it about a half an hour before it should be done and at the same time put in the dressing and the butternut. At this point you should be keeping a close eye on the temperature of the turkey, pull it from the oven when it registers at 160 in the thickest part of the thigh. The USDA recommends cooking it to 165- when you pull the turkey a little early it will continue to cook for a few minutes as it rests to get to that 165 degrees you need.
While the bird is resting and the other things in the oven are finishing getting toasty and wonderful it is time to make gravy. Move the bird, vegetables and rack onto another pan. You will be left with a pan of glorious drippings. Scrape what you can from the pan into a sauce pan. There will be some lovely fond (french word that means roughly, awesome flavorful stuff stuck to the bottom of the plan) take a bit of
white wine, 1/2 cup and spread over the bottom of the pan and put back in the oven for a few min to lift that flavorful deliciousness off the bottom of the pan. While that is loosening up make a roux with the drippings. There should be plenty of
fat (remember you were melting butter over the top of the Turkey for a while) I'm not going to give you exact amounts, because you will have different amounts of fat off of different birds. So sprinkle
flour into the pan a little bit at a time and whisk in it in. When you have enough flour in pan to absorb all of the fat (if you have to put more than 1/4 cup of flour in the pan you are probably going to make way too much gravy, pull some of the roux off so you don't have to waste all of your stock making too much) in the pan continue to heat on medium to lightly toast the flour so that the gravy doesn't taste like paste. While toasting pull the pan with the remainder of the drippings and wine that you have loosening from oven. Scrape the remaining liquid into the roux, whisk it in and then slowly add stock until it is the right thickness. Now for my secret ingredient. A lot of people put browning sauce to add a little color. Most of these sauces also contain MSG, which while it makes it taste good, is kind of cheating. I like to add
a splash of soy sauce. Season, as always with salt and pepper and chop a few fresh herbs into it if you like. Some people like a creamy gravy, and if that is your wish
splash in some milk or cream, otherwise just as it is should be wonderful. Make so ure you have enough gravy for everything, remember people won't just be putting it on the bird.
This should only take a few minutes, at which point you bird will be rested. Move it to whatever you are going to serve on and take it out to the table!
I believe I've just got 3 more recipes to share, and hopefully I'll have time to post at least one if not two of them tomorrow. It's been a crazy week for me, and trying to cram all of this in has been a bit of a struggle. Hope I have time for it all!
Basically at this point you've made chocolate ganache, but you want to do this step first to make sure it is smoothly mixed. You will need to add more milk to thin it out so add
