Sweet Tea and Tacos

Elevating Your Turkey Game for a Memorable Feast

• Sweet Tea and Tacos

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Ever wonder how to up your turkey game and leave your guests gobbling for more? Look no further! We've roasted, smoked, and brined our way to turkey triumph and are eager to share the golden nuggets of our poultry prowess. Join us, Dave and Jen, as we carve into the heart of turkey preparation, from the dark art of the 12-hour smoke to the bright side of oven baking. We spill the beans on the mess and stress of wet brining and reveal why dry brining, with a stealthy layer of butter under the skin, has turned our turkeys into legendary feasts. Our chat isn't just about cooking; it's a full-on strategy session for nailing that crispy skin and keeping your kitchen out of the danger zone.

This episode isn't just about the turkey—it's about the entire experience, ensuring that your centerpiece not only tastes incredible but also wows visually. We'll guide you through the pre-game of getting your bird room-temp ready and walk you through the halftime show of trussing and pan selection. Discover the secrets to crafting a swoon-worthy gravy with homemade stock, and why the perfect presentation doesn't require a Michelin star carving technique. For those looking to tackle supply chain woes and secure their birds early, we've got you covered. So tie on your apron, sharpen your knives, and tune in—Dave and Jen have got the playbook for a Thanksgiving that's sure to score big with family and friends.

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Dave:

Welcome to Sweet Tea and Tacos. I'm Dave and I'm Jen, so we're continuing the Super Bowl of Food. That's right, and this week it's turkey.

Jen:

Yep.

Dave:

So obviously turkey's the star.

Jen:

Yes.

Dave:

I think traditionally most everybody has a turkey.

Jen:

I think so.

Dave:

For Christmas you tend to do other things.

Jen:

Yeah, here in America, actually, inain, I think they do turkey a lot for christmas yeah, yeah okay, um.

Dave:

So yeah, there's like a million ways, I think, to cook turkey. We've tried a few. We have, yeah, we tend to. Now, before we got married, I would smoke a turkey I had a wood smoker, you know, and I and I'd smoke turkeys. They were pretty good.

Jen:

Yeah.

Dave:

Long process.

Jen:

About how long did that take? Oh, 12 hours.

Dave:

Uh-huh, easily, you know.

Jen:

Did you brine it ahead? No Okay.

Dave:

No, I think I would rub it a little bit with some spices. I wouldn't put anything under the skin or anything.

Jen:

Gotcha.

Dave:

And it was. You know, I had a water pan under the grill. Uh-huh you know I'd put some onions and stuff in there.

Jen:

Okay, yeah.

Dave:

But it was always really good.

Jen:

Yeah, sounds great.

Dave:

But it's a long process.

Jen:

Yeah, yeah, you had the time to do it. Then I did have the time to do it.

Dave:

We don't now.

Jen:

We don't now. Now my brother fried turkeys. Yeah, I've tasted it. Have you yeah, but it's not, so that's a shout out, michael Fried turkey this year maybe yeah maybe Save us some work.

Dave:

Yeah, that's a little more complicated and I haven't really wanted to attempt that.

Jen:

I haven't really had a spot to attempt that yeah, and you've got to have a spot.

Dave:

I mean because it's you know.

Jen:

Yeah, you've got to have the gear and there's a lot of hot oil and as a matter of fact, he fries a bunch for other people. He does.

Dave:

Because he has the gear. So people end up. You know, Mostly we bake our turkey Just straight in the oven, Just straight in the oven. But we've tried different ways of preparing it. We've done the just.

Jen:

you know the regular, throw some poultry spices on the outside and maybe stuff a half or whatever of an onion in the cavity right. You know some celery and whatnot.

Dave:

Yeah, and that's fine, and we um at the other house we had this little separate cooker thing. It was kind of interesting device, but anyway we'd do it in there, just because we didn't have a lot of oven space right um, and it would always be very tender and very tender, but you didn't kind of fall apart and it didn't get the crispy crust right yeah it was always really tender but you missed kind of that presentation and the crispy skin and the beautiful golden brown.

Jen:

Right.

Dave:

And then we got into wet brining.

Jen:

Yeah, we did that for several years, yeah, and those were really good.

Dave:

It's a mess.

Jen:

But it is a bit of a mess.

Dave:

It can be a thing because you've got raw poultry you know sitting in a bag and we would put it in our cooler Right, you know. But then you've got to get it out and the bag can leak, yeah, no matter how much.

Jen:

All that brine is kind of, you know, got the the poultry raw and you'd have to pour it down the drain.

Dave:

It's just a big deal. It's a thing, yeah, yeah. So a couple years ago, you and Nate Our son. Nate, he decided to have a last-minute friends giving yeah well, I think some of his friends pulled that together and he signed up to do the turkey Right.

Jen:

So we bought a fairly small turkey just for this group of friends and tried this new method that I had found, I guess, kind of on social media.

Dave:

It's a dry brine.

Jen:

Mm-hmm.

Dave:

And that was one of the best turkeys, yeah.

Jen:

And you also put butter under the skin. Yeah, you got to put butter under the skin and, like everybody at his friend's giving just raved about it and he brought the turkey home. There was like hardly anything left on the the bird, just these few little bits of meat, and when we tried it we were like, oh yeah, this is really the way to go.

Dave:

So we did that the next year and it was good. It was good. I mean, I think we needed the size of our turkey when we did the volume of the brine. Maybe it was a little too much salt in it, I don't know. But um, or I can't remember what.

Jen:

Yeah, I think we didn't start ahead enough. Yeah, that's for sure, and that kind of goes back to our previous episode about preparedness. There was a lot of salt and we followed the directions, but you really needed a day or two to let it get all the way down to say the bone.

Dave:

It was just sort of at the surface, at the outside yeah, so that's kind of our new thing, because for us it's, you know, it's not as much of a mess as wet brining. It's good as wet brining is Right and it's not as much work as smoking or frying. Yeah, you know, literally you're going to. You need to get it in there minimum 24 hours ahead of time. But even more than that would be better.

Jen:

Yeah and that, but even more than that would be better. Yeah, and that method you leave it uncovered and the skin kind of dries out, right, which will help with that crispy skin yes, that's what the method that.

Dave:

So, um, but yeah, you got to make that preparation, but it's really good. And then, of course, uh, we've talked about in a previous episode getting ready, so that really all you're doing that day is is baking that turkey and you know you've got all these calculations you can do.

Jen:

You know of right for the amount, like, for instance you say well, how much turkey do I need to buy? General rule is about a pound, a pound and a half per person. But you and I were talking about how I mean we've really never seen a turkey in the grocery store like a whole turkey. Yeah, probably below 10 pounds. Right, that's about the smallest amount. But then you do have some leftovers. Even if you only had two, three, four people, you'd still have plenty of leftovers and leftovers is a thing you've got to have.

Dave:

That's part of it, you do you got. There's the fine line, though, dad. My dad was notorious for this. You know turkey soup, turkey sandwiches that's kind of like. You know the forrest gump movie with the shrimp gumbo.

Dave:

It was like that for a week afterwards, um, but he'd always get them from work, his work yeah, turkeys as a thing, and they would be these monster turkeys yeah, you know yeah, um, so we'd have all this turkey, you know, yeah, a week later you're like I'm good yeah, I'm done so my uh quotient of turkey for the year so I would say the turkey leftover ratio is a good two days yeah, about two, maybe three at the max.

Jen:

Yeah, yeah two days. I think you're done with turkey and that gives you the whole week of thanksgiving and you've you've turkey'd yourself out.

Dave:

I agree um, but then, uh, so, but you've got the cooking ratio, you know yes just give yourself an extra hour at least margin. I said that on the other episode give yourself some margin, just so you know it's done you don't want to be serving any raw turkey right and a lot of those cooking times are based on room temperature yes, and, and, and, and.

Jen:

With us, we're pulling it out of the fridge and so it's not room right or you get busy, or whatever.

Dave:

Yeah, so you either got to give it time to come up to room temp and what is that? How long does that take? Versus I'm just going to pull it out of the fridge and pop it in the oven. Give yourself at least an extra hour absolutely.

Jen:

Absolutely At least so that it can sit, so that it can sit, all the juices can rest, because, you know, yeah, and if it's not done yet, you've got a little extra time.

Dave:

You're not pushing the meal back. You don't got people sitting around.

Jen:

Starving, yes, yes, especially when it's little kids. They don't always understand no.

Dave:

Why can't go ahead and eat? You know, right, um, but yeah, so, hey, even if you do get it done, you got that hour ahead of time then, you've got that sitting. Time for it to meld right covered in foil, let it just retain the moisture right. It's still going to be nice and warm not going to be cold no, even if you need to pop it back in the oven for 10 minutes to just keep it warm at the end, whatever, just give yourself that extra time.

Jen:

I can't tell you how many times I haven't done that and we've been waiting or pushing it, or I cranked the oven up yeah, I think we, we cranked it last year uh so some some other things about cooking a turkey um, especially if you've just never done it before, it's important to really wash the turkey when it comes out of the package, um, and make sure that there's no like little pin feathers on it, because sometimes there are. Make sure you get all those giblets out of the cavity, um, because a lot of times they're in a in a plastic bag and you certainly don't want to be cooking that um. The giblets can be used later for gravy. Don't throw those away. I know they may seem a little gross.

Jen:

It's not something we're real familiar with in this day and age we don't deal with that kind of stuff heart, liver, whatever but throw it in a pan and cook it and use it for gravy it Just make a stock. Adds a lot of flavor and the dogs will love it later too. Yeah, I would also recommend trussing the bird, you know, and I think that's one thing that we didn't do when we were talking about cooking it at the other house.

Dave:

Right, we didn't truss it enough.

Jen:

The little legs would just kind of fly to the side because we didn't truss it up.

Dave:

good, and I the side, because we didn't, we didn't truss it up. Good, um, and I mean you're gonna get a ball of twine for trussing and it's gonna last you forever?

Jen:

oh, absolutely, we've our ball of twine's been here for like 10 years. Yeah, because that's the only time we really use it right, is it thanksgiving? Um, and then again about your pan. Make sure you have the right size pan, you know for the poundage of bird, and I would also encourage to do a like a rack Rack.

Dave:

It makes a lot of difference.

Jen:

It really does.

Dave:

Because that air can get up underneath it and get the bottom.

Jen:

Yeah. You know, and then your juices are dripping down. Yeah, you can use that for gravy too. Yeah, and that's what.

Dave:

I do with my gravy. Yeah down, yeah, you can use that for gravy too. Yeah, and that's what I do with my gravy so we'll make we'll take the neck, we'll take the giblets and we'll just do a put it in a small pan, add some water, a little salt and I'll let it cook while we're doing the turkey right and then you know, I pull that stuff out sure, yeah, to clarify we don't.

Jen:

We don't eat that, we just use it for flavor and pull it out then I've got a liquid and that becomes my turkey stock for my gravy, and then, when the turkey comes out of the oven, I'll add some of those pan drippings in.

Dave:

And it just takes that flavor to the next level. And you really don't need to add a whole lot of salt to it at all and really it's an easy gravy and it's always really good.

Jen:

Yeah, yeah, gravy's really not that hard, right, and especially if you've ever made, you know, like a white sauce or something where you're doing the roux and browning it. I mean, that's just an easy thing to translate to gravy, yeah.

Dave:

And then you know, have a decent knife. I mean you can go a million different ways and you know you don't have to have a special carving knife, but just something that's sharp. And you know there's a ton, ton of YouTube channels. You know you can go out and find all these things about how to carve a turkey but you know, don't get paranoid about it, just cut, cut the meat off the bone you know, I mean it just doesn't have to be. You know my dad loves the legs, so you pop the leg out, you know.

Dave:

And then there's your two legs, and then just cut what you can and don't be worried about, I don't care if it's a beautifully carved turkey, we just cut the turkey off, you know? Come on um, you know. Same thing with the trussing. You know, don't get crazy about. I don't know how to truss it right, just tie it up so that doesn't go anywhere right, right, that's all you do, and you can go and find methods and you know, tuck this and yeah, you know, like trussing needles or something.

Dave:

You don't need all that just tie the legs up and, you know, tuck the little wings under and yeah just so the idea is, is it's not going to fall apart?

Jen:

it's going to help you with that, so yeah, and one other thing I would say, as far as a tool to use is um a thermometer, just so you can make sure that the the inner parts of that bird are up to temp.

Dave:

It's really important and those aren't expensive. I mean you can buy expensive ones, but yeah, we just get the little four dollar one at the grocery, yeah like the little, just instant read digital instant read digital like three four bucks they're you know, the last couple years and yeah, you can throw it away and change the battery, get another one, whatever, um yeah, but just make sure it's done, you know, and let it rest.

Dave:

Give yourself plenty of time. Don't worry about carving fancy. You know you can. You've got plenty of time, sure whatever, yeah um, we had. I remember we had a turkey platter one year, beautiful turkey platter, and I guess over the years it had developed a crack yeah, yeah, and it started leaking the juices from the bird and, all of a sudden, where our tablecloth was.

Dave:

Yeah, that was fun, yeah. So again back to the preparation. That's one of those things make sure everything's good to go yeah um lifting. It's always a fun thing getting it out of one pan, moving it to the other, you know and they do have turkey lifters for sale.

Jen:

You can get fancy you can get turkey lifters. I always use just a couple big old forks yeah, or like like some tongs and a fork and stick it in the cavity.

Dave:

One in one here, one in there. That's what the trussing helps leave a truss yeah, move it over to the, the platter, and then get your trussing cut off, and then you, of course, bring it to the table, have your wonderful presentation, and then, you know, then carve, but like this year, for you have a group of friends you're getting together with right ahead of time, at a time you weren't able to get a whole turkey no so it's a center cut right part of the wings and the legs are cut off right so um so that way, we will carve up, you'll carve up, I should say

Dave:

sure um, before it's served and just have it, because that's what you had and it's a small group. So right but yeah, sometimes you have to do that yeah but there's even we've you know, go as far as spatchcocking the turkey which we've heard about.

Jen:

We've heard about we've never tried it. Um, it's not really that traditional. I've seen it a lot with doing it for chickens, right, but I guess you know, apparently it really makes sure that the bird is done, especially if you've got a big one.

Dave:

Yes.

Jen:

And that's basically where you cut it and kind of splay it out flat.

Dave:

Yeah, cut in half, and then, yeah, I just, I don't know there would be so much room in the oven. It would be, you'd have to have a really big oven and a really big pan. You'd almost have to cut it completely in half, like not just one side, but both sides, yeah, and you could do that, yeah. Yeah, and then you know, I wonder if you'd do that on a like on a baking sheet, so that you get.

Dave:

Maybe, Because if you did it, I think in a roasting pan the sides would be so deep yeah.

Jen:

You'd have to get it some air and really, if you had some kind of iron maybe not iron skillet, but like iron griddle Yeah- Cast iron, I don't know.

Dave:

Yeah, I think a baking sheet would, yeah, but that'd be interesting. So but you know, it depends on what you're going for. If you want that, you know, kind of do the nice presentation.

Jen:

Right.

Dave:

You know the bird. It's very traditional, but you know there's a lot of ways to get there. You know?

Jen:

Yep, there are so, but like we said on our earlier episode about preparedness, don't wait to get your turkey.

Dave:

You may run into some issues this year with supply chain things, so just uh try to put in an order for what you want, um so you won't be left without without one so, anyway, hope you have a good uh, getting ready for thanksgiving preparedness, whatever you want to call it and hopefully that turkey helped give you some ideas, uh, and we'll be talking more thanksgiving. Yep, so for sweet teen tacos.

Jen:

I'm dave and I'm jen.

Dave:

That helped give you some ideas and we'll be talking more Thanksgiving. Yep, so for Sweet Teen Tacos, I'm Dave.

Jen:

And I'm Jen.