Gravy's Cooking Thread

Guys deep fry the turkey! The skin becomes insane and if you do it just right it's not actually as dry as traditional bird.

Edit: it's also like a science project. Last year I used a pulley system, dressed in leather jacket, safety goggles and full full skin coverage. Also I was shitfaced.

Yeah, and it has to be 100% defrosted too. Otherwise when it hits the icy center it has this strange tendency to explode.

Deathwing_sl said:

Have you done this before? A friend tried slow-cooking a loin(may have even been a tenderloin) in the same manner you do a shoulder. It was complete shit because there's very little connective tissue to convert to gelatin in those muscles.

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This I'll have to agree with. A loin is way too lean, imho, for slow cooking. And the tenderloin is very tender anyway, no need to overcook it. Pork for pulling is the shoulder. But they call it the butt. How do magnets work?

I can get down on some fried yardbird. The thighs are the best.

White meat sucks on both turkey and chicken unless it's slathered in a delicious sauce. Turkeys are huge and there is very little dark meat to go around. Nobody slathers turkey in anything but gravy. Thus Turkey is mostly shit. I'll eat the dark meat though. But it's still not great. Chicken is superior in both categories however, so why would I ever eat Turkey unless there is some stupid tradition that dictates I must if I want animal protein?

Barraco Bisi_sl said:

Chicken thighs are insanely underrated.

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I tend not to buy breasts anymore, because thighs are cheaper and more delicious.

Maybe I'll get a pork butt, instead. Though the thought of stuffing the tenderloin with sausage and cooking it slowly is not bad.

Deathwing_sl said:

Please don't deep fry while shitfaced.

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I did this once. I didn't burn anything or anyone but at some point between getting the turkey out of the fryer (which was in the middle of the back yard) and into the kitchen I somehow misplaced it. I had to sneak into the house and secretly enlist the help of my friends to find the turkey before my wife learned that it was missing. That was the impetus for banning homebrewed double-IPA from being served at our annual Friendsgiving party...

lurkingdirk_sl said:

Maybe I'll get a pork butt, instead. Though the thought ofstuffing the tenderloin with sausageand cooking it slowly is not bad.

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This made me turgid.

Barraco Bisi_sl said:

Though if I had my way, all holidays would be med-rare prime rib, mashed potatoes, various veggies, and yorkshire fucking pudding. Uncle gravy on all of the things.

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This is relevant to my interests.

Especially the uncle gravy?

Here is my story of Turkey woe

Back last Winter, but well after Thanksgiving, probably February-ish, I got a craving for basically Thanksgiving dinner again. Decided to make it one weekend.

Went to Costco to get some ingredients, and found that they had frozen turkey breasts...awesome, neither my wife nor I like dark meat much, and we didn't really need an entire huge turkey for the both of us, so that was perfect.

I get all the fixings to make mashed potatoes, dressing, all the usual stuff.

Thawed the turkey breast in the fridge for 24 hours or so, then put it into a roasting pan in the oven. It was about 5lbs, so was going to take a good 2 hours or so.

Make up the entire dinner, just shitloads of food, everything looks great.

Pull the turkey out of the oven, looks nice and browned on the outside. I cut in to that motherfucker and It was like trying to cut a rubber work boot. Bigass chefs knife just isn't getting anywhere. I think WTF, maybe I overcooked it and the outside is really dry & tough but maybe its ok in the middle. So I get my bigass knife and just plunge it point-first into the turkey, just to try to get a cut into the middle, and while it gets there, I really still can't slice it. I can't figure out what is wrong. Maybe I read the weight wrong and I cooked it way, way too long?

So I go digging through the trash to find the plastic wrapping that the turkey came in to check the weight, and I see "pre-cooked smoked turkey breast" on the label.

GOD DAMNIT

Had no edible meat of any kind, but at least the sides still made for a tasty meal :/