Cooking For Engineers

Guest · Posted: Sat Nov 26, 2005 5:41 pm Post subject: Roasting a turkey question

When I roast a turkey I coat the turkey with a mixture of olive oil with herbs.
When I put it on the roasting rack in the roasting pan then into a 500 degree oven for 30 minuits to start off the oil drips into the pan and smokes up the kitchen.
Has anyone else experienced this? What did you do? What would you recommend so this does not happen?

Thanks for your help
Steve

DrBiggles · Joined: 12 May 2005 Posts: 356 Location: Richmond, CA

Turn down the heat.

Herbs on the skin will generally burn at those temperatures.

If you're going to do a high roast turkey, don't put herbs and/or so much oil on the bird. Put the butter/herb/bacon particles UNDER the skin and OVER the breast portion.

If you're attempting to blast the turkey a little before jacking down the heat, try 400 to 425. Then turn it down to 300 or 325, depending on the size of the bird.

Biggles

FranksPlace2 · Joined: 08 Aug 2005 Posts: 16

It your goal is to get a nice brown finish, I would cook it at a lower temperature and the turn it up at the end. That will brown the proteins and sugars that have come out during cooking.

Guest · Posted: Sun Nov 05, 2006 11:41 pm Post subject:

I usually like to cook my bird at a high temp to start to seal the bird. I then cover it after it has browned and I finish cooking it at a lower temp.

To avoid the oil from burning in the bottom of the pan I usually put a bit of water and chicken stock in the pan. This also helps make a bit more gravy as well.

Tony

opqdan · Joined: 25 May 2006 Posts: 43

Americas test kitchen did an interesting recipe for high roast chicken like you seem to be looking for (you might be able to find it at the website for free).

They put the herbs under the skin, along with butter. This way it flavors both the meat and the skin. Placing the herbs outside the skin won't do a good job of flavoring the meat (after all skin is designed to keep things out). This will prevent your herbs from burning.

If you place thinly slice potatoes tossed with a little oil into the bottom of the broiler pan, you won't have any smoke and you'll also have a tasty side dish when finished. The schmaltz adds great flavor to the potatos. They will stick like the dickens though, so cover the pan in foil and oil it good.

This will probably work fine for turkey. Somebody mentioned above to put broth in the bottom of the pan. This would stop the smoking, but unfortunatly, there will then be tons of moisture in the over which isn't conducive to a crisp skin.

IndyRob · Joined: 17 Dec 2006 Posts: 77

There has already been some good advice posted, but I'd like to add that if you'd like to start the roasting at 500-550 degrees, turn down the oven as soon as the bird goes in. The ambient temperature will be enough for the browning. Leaving it at 500 degrees for 30 minutes is akin to broiling it.

SirSpice · Joined: 04 Dec 2006 Posts: 95

Guest · Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2007 8:10 am Post subject:

poultry cooking is completed when the interior is 70 C.

In days of yore, I used to have the butcher chop a turkey breast in half. A half a breast will just barely fit into the largest toaster oven. The lowest possible temperature for the baking scale, is just about 70 C.

I'd put it in, as I was leaving for work. It did take quite a while. Who cares, i was gonna be away at work for 8 hours anyway! You want to talk about juicy meat?