How to cook turkey on Thanksgiving: 7 easy hacks

With so many variables to take care of this festive season, making sure your Thanksgiving turkey comes out the juiciest and the most scrumptious shouldn’t engulf anyone’s mind.

No matter what sides and beverages you choose to go along on the table, the central issue on any Thanksgiving day is to make sure the turkey comes out a perfect golden brown.

Check out these seven easy hacks to perfect your turkey:

1- Prepare to thaw the bird five days in advance:

Culinary professional Tony Seta stated that it is important to plan out the thawing process in advance. The turkey needs at least 24 hours within the fridge for every four pounds of meat.

Hence for every 20 pound bird, shift from the freezer to the fridge almost five days in advance to avoid any possible undercooking, distastefulness or overcooking. Beginning almost five days in advance will ensure that the turkey is fully thawed in time.

2- Invest in a good meat thermometer:

It is important to not only invest in a good meat thermometer, but to make sure that it is used throughout the roasting process, not just when the cook believes the turkey is done. Poultry needs to be cooked at 160 F in order to be safe for consumption. In case someone heats the oven higher than 175, the turkey will begin to dry out. Checking the progress of the turkey every hour or so will make sure it is heated evenly.

Keep in mind that any large piece of meat will retain heat and continue to cook even out of the oven, so it is recommended to pull out the bird as soon as turkey is within one to two degrees of your preferred target.

3- Incorporate ice packs before the cooking process

While the turkey is still within the fridge, it is recommended to apply ice-packs to the breasts so that they stay at a much cooler temperature, as compared to the rest of the bird. This is important because breast meat dries out the fastest, thus it needs to be wrapped in foil to retain its moisture during the roasting process.

4- Buy one pound of turkey per person:

Many people get lost in the whole idea of making sure they don’t run out of Turkey on the dinner table, so much so that they begin to buy more meat than is needed. Buying one pound of turkey per person is enough for most households. This number will equate to less than a pound of actual meat due to the presence of gristle, and bones.

With side dishes on the table, even if family members only get half a pound of meat, it will still be under proper dietary guidelines.

5- When smoking a turkey, cook the stuffing outside the bird:

For those who opt for roasting their turkey, it is important to cook the stuffing outside of the bird and use apples and other aromatics to fill the cavity inside. If someone were to add the stuffing before smoking their turkey, it might not get ample amount of airflow within.

Rather than opting for traditional stuffing during the roasting process, opt for using apples or other auromaitves to fill the bird’s cavity for a flavour boost. Ingredients like garlic, leeks, carrots, vegetables, cloves and celery.

6- Use sweet wine as a glaze over the turkey:

Incorporate the use of sweet wine when roasting to minimize the chances of the turkey drying out. As a turkey dries out it begins to lose its taste and becomes harder and harder to chew. Once the turkey is nearly halfway done, use a sweet kind of wine to simply splash over the turkey, for an easy one time glaze. Although usually thought of as a dessert wine, they prove to be an amazing glaze on top of the turkey.

7- Reuse leftovers from thanksgiving at a later date:

Having leftovers after this feast is a no-brainer. However that does not mean the food that was made should never be cooked and become food waste. There are more than 30,000 recipes on the internet on reusing common Thanksgiving ingredients. Things like turkey pot pie or bruschetta could come out of this experimentation.