Food Theory: You're Cooking Your Thanksgiving Turkey WRONG!

hello internet, welcome to

food

theory

, the show that gives thanks while wearing spanx, that's right theorists here in the US, it's time for

thanksgiving

, where tradition dictates that we take some time to pause and reflect on all the good things that have happened in our lives as well. us with an irresponsible amount of

food

, we're talking pumpkin pie, sweet potato pie, yam stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, one casserole or another and of course

turkey

, go ahead and name a duo more iconic than

thanksgiving

and the

turkey

, I'll wait to see that a roast turkey is the The undisputed centerpiece of the thanksgiving feast is not only huge and impressive to see if it turns out well, but it's also a huge undertaking.

The first time I hosted Thanksgiving, the turkey was this tough introduction to adulthood. Everything about

cooking

turkey is difficult. On the one hand, it's a huge investment of time, first you have to buy the bird at a time of year when everyone else is looking to buy the exact same item, then the mere act of defrosting the bird takes literally days and then you have the brine. and you have to worry about cleaning and seasoning before you even start

cooking

it, and that will take a huge amount of time too. The general rule of thumb for a turkey is 15 to 20 minutes of cooking time per pound of bird, which means 15 pounds.

Turkey translates to about five hours of roasting and then once it's in the oven, that's when things really get tricky because roasting a whole turkey is a high-risk proposition; It would be one thing if you were just cooking for

your

self, but on thanksgiving there is a whole group of people anxiously awaiting the turkey the moment it comes out of the oven ruining

your

thanksgiving turkey is not an option and yet, you're very likely to screw it up because we're talking about a huge piece of fickle meat that's actually two different types of meat sandwiched together, white meat and dark meat, which it's worth noting, are cooked very differently from each other, which It leads me to the question: does it really have to be that hard?

Thanksgiving is supposedly about family togetherness, and yet thanksgiving requires at least one member. family spending almost the entire day on turkey, I understand it's a tradition, but wouldn't it be great if there was a way to emphasize the non-stressful Thanksgiving traditions, like watching the Thanksgiving Day Parade or even better the dog show that comes immediately after, I mean there has to be a better way to be in the year of our lord 2020, why have there been no advances in turkey technology? And yes, there are certainly other ways besides roasting a whole turkey every year. Many people in this great land cook their turkey in a variety of ways, from smoked to sous-vide, fried and stuffed with a chicken-stuffed duck to create the abomination we call turducken, but most of these methods involve even more work if you ask me. allows me to speak for my fellow Americans and also for Canadians who celebrate Thanksgiving in October.

What we all want, the classic Thanksgiving turkey experience, but we sure wouldn't mind if the process were a little easier. Well, theorists. I'm about to tell you that you may very well change your Thanksgiving forever, apparently there is a shortcut to turkey and it's important, all you have to do is grab the damn turkey and the rooster, I can say that word correctly, youtube, please don't demonetize me. a cooking term and at least it's the holidays after all so bring on the turkeys today's food

theory

busting myths the supposed thanksgiving hack and I mean spatchcocking hack aka butterflying yeah You're boring and you hate funny words, it's a luxury.

Word for a simple process: You cut the backbone of the bird or ask your butcher to do it for you, and then press it down until it's flattened before putting it in the oven. Everything else can stay the same if you are used to brining. You can still brine it along with whatever other seasoning methods you've been using over the years, but by doing this little thing, not by changing our cooking method, but by changing its shape before putting it in the oven, we can really cook it. the turkey at a higher temperature, which reduces the amount of cooking time needed, supposedly by about 75 percent, let me tell you that again an extra preparation step can turn a four-hour turkey into a one-hour turkey now That the concept of spatchcocking has been around since at least the 19th century, but as Google Trends clearly shows, the term has only become popular in recent years, with searches increasing in early November.

Mark Bittman of the New York Times, who published his spatchcocked turkey method in 2002, deserves credit for popularizing this specific method. you have to remove the backbone, the idea here is to make the surface of the bird larger than it was before, so you want to flatten this thing out, here we go, you've been slaving away on unevenly cooked turkeys that took four hours in doing this. 35 minutes and that's fine, so let me tap on the breaks for a second. I'm supposed to believe that this is actually the first major advance in turkey roasting since the 19th century, if spatchcocking is such an ancient method of preparing roast, right?

We're supposed to believe that society simply overlooked the fact that this outrageously efficient method could be applied to turkeys when all along they were using it on ducks, geese, and other types of birds until very recently, like humanity, what are you doing with yourself? A possible explanation. because the reason society may have been slow to catch on to spatchcock customs is that we want our norman rockwell moment when the thanksgiving turkey is presented on the table rockwell was an artist famous for painting Americana and his painting 1942 titled Freedom from Want famously depicts a huge bird completely intact and perfectly encapsulates abundance, Americana, and Thanksgiving.

There is definitely a presentation aspect to Thanksgiving dinner; After all, there's a group gathered and the meal requires an enormous amount of effort, so why shouldn't it be quite a spectacle? other possible explanations for why we can't spoil our turkeys and these are a little more concrete maybe it doesn't work maybe it's actually not more efficient at all because it produces a bird less meat drier less crispy skin I mean let's be honest it can reduce the cook time at 75 is a huge claim, it seems too good to be true, there has to be a problem, sure the cook time is shorter, but maybe the flavor suffers, maybe the texture suffers, no matter what.

However, Spatchcock enthusiasts online seem to suggest exactly the opposite. Many people swear that spatchcocking actually gives a more even bake and actually improves the bird as well as saving a huge amount of time when I hear such a bold claim about something so simple you know I have to put it to the scientific test That's why that I enlisted the help of Stephanie, the undisputed turkey master in our house, to help me achieve a head-to-head or I guess I should say headless showdown between a spread turkey and the classic roast turkey our family prepares. I've been enjoying it literally for years, almost a decade.

It also helps that Stephanie knows CPR. I guess she can only help us when we get to the part where we have to break our ribs on the counter. First we bought two identically sized 13-pound turkeys and then I prepared them exactly the same way, including brining them for 48 hours and buttering them under the skin. I can't believe I have to do two of these this year. The only reason you started this channel was so we could eat more turkey at Thanksgiving. It was my master plan all along and then it was time for our two turkeys to take two very different paths, one was selected for spatchcocking and was named spatchcock the turkey and the other was named sherman because that was the only other good name he had.

It happened to us. with at that point, so we are in the final stages of preparation for both birds, we have the normal, we have the spatchcock, these two methods are essentially trying to achieve the same thing, which is even cooking, but this one involves a lot of temperature rises. and low, lots of fancy stuff and this could change thanksgiving forever, yes, the spatchcock layers everything so that all the meat is on the same playing field, so presumably it cooks one faster and two more evenly, so you don't get the the breast is cooked while the dark meat is and things like that exactly, so I think we really need to do this now.

I think we have to like killing this bird. Are you saying that bird has no thorns? I should also mention both. turkeys are being cooked with their necks on, I don't know if spatchcocking is censoring us, but you maintain that that's definitely not turkey, now I'm so secretive that this is my favorite part of the whole thanksgiving birthday boy, this is The video that released what I know, man, my upcountry redneck, doesn't come out very often, apparently only on Thanksgiving, so we started cutting the tenderloin with kitchen shears, okay, Stephanie started cutting the spine with kitchen scissors.

As an aside, I know Mark Bittman opted for the boning knife, but scissors are another option that many charlatans suggest. This is actually very difficult. Do you want to give this a try? Okay, come in, come in, let me, let me take off. my big gt live merch oh just get in the turkey okay let me take off this awesome game theory signature jacket buy that fusion it wasn't easy but between the two of us we finally managed to get the backbone, Come on, come on, okay. yeah we did it, there's the backbone, you know our cuts weren't necessarily as clean as some of those online cooking channels, but for the first time I think we nailed it, I totally nailed it, oh you touched my hand with yours dirty turkey hands.

I washed my hands while they cut us I thought we were high-fiving for the next step We had to let the knife quote slide across the collarbone Let's let the knife slide Slide light things It's going to oh It's like shining It's like it slid a little bit, it did it, it slid a little bit and perfect, okay, okay, oh yeah, there you open it, we let the knife slide, look at that, now, now we do CPR, CPR, done , wait, wait, Stephanie, before you do CPR. you know you have to do the abc test the scene test the scene the scene is clear everyone stand back matt make sure you're clear call 9-1-1 call 9-1-1 airways his airways are clear yeah, but he's not breathing he's missing a big chunk of his shirt no I'm not breathing check his pulse certainly no pulse starting with CPR crack his ribs done set and one oh could you break my dick break six, seven, eight, nine, ten breaths, okay, I think so.

I did it? I think he's dead enough already. Alright. We have it. Have. Ready. He's ready to go. So this is it. This is the finished bird. Everything fixed. Ready to go. Salty. Seasoned. We are putting everything in the refrigerator while we prepare. the other bird because it's only supposed to take 30 to 45, maybe an hour at most to cook, whereas our other type is supposed to take several hours, so in an effort to get a taste test I did it. cleanest possible, we both want them to come out of the oven. At the same time, Sherman went into the oven first, where we attended to him with all the temperature adjustments and repositionings that a classic-style roast turkey requires while it's in the oven.

When Sherman was about an hour away from finishing, we put the turkey in. spatchcocked in The second oven is fine for the big reveal here it is normal turkey, our Norman Rockwell turkey, he would be very proud. I think I believe it too. We achieved a nice golden color. This is exactly what we wanted this turkey to look like, so it was a hit. So this bird took three and a half hours to cook. It was turned over twice, first down and then up, covered with aluminum foil and then uncovered. We did all the things and it turned out exactly the way we wanted.

Yes that's how it is. pretty consistent with how it always looks yeah so this is pretty good and now for the spatchcock I feel like this is a really nice golden brown there's also this weird shot of cleavage here which is really weird but I can't decide, maybe. I like it, I don't know, hey Steph, so in the battle between Spatchcock and traditional roast turkey in the first round. Visual aspect, what do you think I have to give this one to the Spatchcock? I do that too. It's beautiful, it's golden brown. It's super. It even looks shiny, it looks like what a picture of a turkey should look like, except it's flat, this guy, even though we made ourbest effort and euro again, Stephanie has experienced this for several years in a row, there is just no way you are going to get that. nice and uniform in every part, I must say it's visual appearance, if this appears on the table, I think I like this one a little more, I know, but you know you are not eating with your eyes, it is a feast for you.

Mouth eating with our teeth the toothy parts, that's right, so let's eat with our toothy parts and cut this puppy. We're starting with white meat so I'm going to start cutting up the rest of this which looks like a really nice piece. to come in here with this detailed shot, man, look, look at that juice, look, look at that shine, look how shiny, okay, so this spatchcock looks very tender too, I have to say, uh, it feels very juicy when you put it on short, yes. each one gets a nice slice here and it comes out as basically the same part of the brisket, it's right on the outside so this should be a very uniform test so from a skin crispiness standpoint I would call them both even by I see I'm not a big fan of the skin, they're both pretty crispy, honestly, they had a decent crunch to them, let's see, let's seeSherman roasted regular, yeah, pretty similar, although again I would say the crispy texture of this skin looks more uniform across the board, whereas the Sherman here is crispy on the top, obviously, and here it gets crispy on the side, yes, but when it comes to crispy on the wing.

That's where you're really starting to fall, that's true, so here more of the wing is crispy and more of the breast is crispy, whereas here pretty much everything is centered around the top and main part of the bird, so honestly, I think I have to go crazy with this one, it's just crispy and uniform throughout, whereas here there are definitely solid crunchy bits, but once you get into the wing it starts to fall off, there's just no way to create that same surface with the 3D bird what do you get. the spatchcock so that has to be the tiebreaker the overall uniformity okay, okay spatchcock again okay, what are we testing first?

I nominate Sherman, come on, Sherman, Sherman first, traditional roast first here we go, okay, well, you can cut it with the fork and it's just that it's more. really, yeah, you don't need a knife for either of them, oh man, that was really good, I like yours, it's really good, turkey makes me really happy, it's really moist, it's well salted, it tastes seasoned, It's a little buttery, it's exactly how it should be. The best thing is that this year we have two Thanksgiving turkeys. I'm very excited about these and they were both a business expense. Yeah, so they implanted the Sherman in your tongue.

Okay, let's go for Spatchcock. I think I have my answer. I think I do too. I can't believe this, what's special, right, I can't believe it, like this blows my mind. I am too and stick to my turkey cooking method any day of the week, but spatchcock turkey tastes better. just a little bit moister, it's a little more delicious, we did the exact same thing with these two birds and yet this one tastes a little tastier somehow, yes this one is falling apart in my mouth, so much more, it has a little more. it shines, it's a little bit juicier, it's got a little bit of moisture in it, right, yeah, yeah, and again for half the time, less than half the time, it's only worth mentioning because this is youtube, this is not manipulated not at all, we legit did this all day, yeah, I'm nice.

I wanted my method to win because, like me, I have been wasting my time all these years. This is better. I made two that sucked. I know the final round is dark meat. This is never your cup of tea, but I'm curious to see. If maybe you like Spatchcock, I like it. What I want is to give myself a big turkey leg with lots of barbecue sauce. What I want is right after the neck again. Stephanie, she's a little weird. I did Sherman in the first round first, so let's do uh Spatchcock first, yeah, let's go this way.

I thought Sherman was more moist in the dark meat, yes it's because it's sitting in the juices, yes it's very moist because at the end of cooking it's upside down and it's just absorbing juices, it's like really marinating and it's already crispy to most of the cook, so it stays nice and browned, though the other way around, because it's been upside down in the juices, although the meat is juicier, I agree the skin is more soggy. again because it's just juicy, whereas here in Spatchcock land the skin is crispier on all sides, but yeah the meat is a little less juicy, I will say Sherman is a little better with dark meat and also it's fair to say that three out of four tests were special, oh yes, final verdict on the 2020 turkey battle, are you cooking your turkey

wrong

?

Clickbait challenge. I think we are undercooking our turkey. I think Steph and I have been cooking our turkey

wrong

for how long we've been doing it. this eight years ten ten years since I've known stephanie we've been doing it wrong I think spatchcock is the way to go I'm literally going to cook my turkey this way next year unless of course you want to fry it in which case This is all debatable, so there you have it, the theorists made us believers and it might make you a believer too, but hey, that's just a theory, a food theory, bon appetit, thanks for watching the theorists and in the spirit. of the season let's thank our sponsor for today's episode Bright Cellars Steph and I have mentioned this in previous food theory episodes, but we love trying and learning about different types of spirits and wines.

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