Transcription
This video is sponsored by Tyer. What's up, dude? Let me start off today's video with a little bit of a reality check for you. It's not the turkey that sucks, it's the way you've been cooking it. In this video, I'm going to show you how to create an extraordinarily mouthwatering turkey that is both tender and juicy, and we're going to do it all in just 2 hours. Now, let's [Music] go.
You want to start with one giant bird. Not you, this giant bird. Now, in all my previous years of turkey cooking, I would always go for a wet brine/air dry situation. However, that process takes literally 3 to 5 days to pull off. This year, I'm going to show you how to make the fastest turkey ever while still retaining a ton of flavor and juiciness. To do this successfully, we're going to start by breaking down this turkey into its sections, which will give us complete control over the doneness of the white meat versus the dark meat. Let me show you how it's done.
You're going to want a sharp knife, and I would always recommend you use one of these microfiber towels so you can get a really good grip on that turkey without it sliding around. And I'm going to start by flipping it on its side and working on this wing here first. Really easy, right? You're just finding the joints when you're breaking down a bird, same goes for a chicken, other small poultry. And I'm going to slice around this joint like so. When you get a couple slices in, this is where the microfiber towel comes in handy. You want to just o break the joint like that. You'll hear it, right? And from there, makes it really easy to just slice out like that. Again, we're just slicing around. You use a little bit of force, especially on a turkey, right? See that right there is the joint? Right here's the other side of it. You're just slicing right through there like this, and it's out. And there's your wing. I can't stress how important it is just to keep everything really dry when you're doing this. If the handle of your knife gets slippery with all those turkey juices, dry it off.
Flip it back over. Most turkeys hopefully come with the giblets inside. Giblets, giblets, all the organ and such, and the neck is key. We're going to be using this to make our stock and gravy, so save it. Unfortunately, this turkey doesn't have the rest of the organs, which, oh well. The neck for me is the most important. Now, usually I would leave this part on when I'm cooking a turkey, the little butt or the Pope's nose, there's a lot of names for it. But since it was falling off, I'm just going to use it for the stock.
Now for the legs, I'm going to pick it up, real firm grip on the leg here. I'm just going to slice first right here, and you want to make a slice right around the back like this, all the way around. So like this, and just keep pulling away and slicing in. Now, same deal as the wing, we're just going to push it back and snap. That one was way easier. You can see the joint right here, right? Boom. All you're going to do is just slice through it. It really is that easy, there's nothing to it. And there's the leg. Can't recommend these microfiber towels enough. I'll put a link to these ones in the description. I'll use them all the time, they're cheap too. If I get one really gross with, you know, cutting up a bunch of chickens or something, I'll just trash it afterwards. Again, follow it back, you're just making those cuts there as a guideline. It's really about doing all those snaps, right? And you can see that joint right there, nice and easy, we're just going to guide our knife around and slice through. And leg out.
Next step is getting the breasts off, obviously. And you see how it's really unstable now. It's going to be really hard to take that off without removing the spine. So I don't know if this is what people do, this just makes sense to me. I'm going to just begin slicing this out like so. Wow, that was brutal, huh? Put the, can we do the Predator thing again? What is the sound he makes? It is not the sound. Now that's sitting nicely, just the breast bone here. What you want to do now before taking out these breasts is to take out the wishbone, 'cause it's sitting in there like this. And so if you try to slice out that breast meat right now, your knife is going to catch on the wishbone, which is going to dull your knife and make it so you can't get the breast out in one piece, too. So what you want to do is pull this. Oh, and surprise, surprise, they were so deep in there, the organs. So anyway, just pull back. Now, as you can see right here, boom, wishbone, boom, wishbone, two of them right there. There. So what I'm going to do is just guide my knife along either side of both of the wishbones, like here. There's no super graceful way to do this, you just need to start scraping along these bones around the top here. Go slow, try not to cut yourself, and just keep kind of freeing it up. And eventually, you should be able to just get in here with your fingers. Oh, you might get it out in pieces, that's okay. The most important thing is that you get it out. Anyway, place down here, it's going to be a little bit harder than a chicken bone. Now I can spin it a little bit, and there it is. It's out. I just had a break right there, but I make sure to get it all out. No problem.
From here, we want to locate that breast bone. It's just a bone that runs along the middle here, and we're just going to slice along one side of it all the way down like so. Now, as you can see, my knife can go all the way here on this end. It's 'cause there's no wishbone there anymore. And from there, I'll just guide it underneath and boom. I mean, it just comes right out, right? Look at that. Just wants to come out. Now that that wishbone is gone, from here, I'm just going to clean it up a little bit. I obviously don't need all this fat, although I'll save all that fat. Any little trimmings is going in the stock, right? So never throw any of that stuff away. Slice along the other side, just try to get as close to the bone as possible, that's all you want to do. And there you have it. Your breasts, your thighs, your drumsticks, and your wings.
I'm going to take these wing tips off, actually. Same deal, just kind of break it, find that joint. When's giving me a little, little trouble there. There we go. Oh my god, that was so much harder than it needs to be. Just edit, just edit that up. Make it sick. The little wing tips are going to do better in your stock, they got a ton of gelatin in there, well collagen that will turn into gelatin. Now, you don't have to do this next part, but with the rest of my bits, I'm just going to chop them up a little bit. Again, it's not totally necessary, and it can get a little bit messy. The neck, I'll leave whole. Just going to give us a little bit more browning and flavor when we have this in a couple more pieces.
With all my scraps here, I'm just going to start by lightly oiling them. Help a little bit with the browning, and therefore the flavor. I want a real rich turkey stock. I want it to be deep brown. This is the holidays, you guys. It's time for the rich food, time to fatten up a little bit for the winter, to survive the winter. And also, today, stick around because I'm going to be showing you how to make gravy. Can't give you a turkey video without the gravy, as well as the homemade rosemary salt, which is coming for the next step, which is literally going to make your whole holiday meal taste like three times better. It's incredible stuff. I'm just going to go lightly now. I don't want this to be too salty, we can always add more salt later if we need. And here we go, straight into a 400°F oven.
At this point, it's been about 45 minutes. I'm just going to take out my little turkey scraps here, flip them over, just so they brown a little bit more evenly. Oh, ooh. Also, at this point, I'm just putting in two little half onions and then turn them over till they're cut side down. Those are just going to brown up as well and give our stock more flavor. And roasted it for another 30 minutes. Again, it could be faster if you have a convection oven, but this is what I'm talking about in terms of browning. This is going to give so much flavor to your stock. It is definitely worth taking the extra time.
All right, here we go. Let's start making this stock. Dump it all into a big pot. Smells like Thanksgiving in here already. Really does. There's the little butt, in with its butt. Yeah, yeah. Now you can just go ahead and get rid of the sheet pan. No, that was a joke. Did I get you? Did I get you? Don't ever do that. Look at all that gold. All you need to do now is dump some hot water, boiling hot water, on your tray and really take your time. Just a little flat metal spatula, and we're just going to scrape away all those little bits. Oh, yeah. I mean, you can just see the color changing as I'm doing this. So much flavor here. This is also a two birds, one stone situation, because you're cleaning the tray too. Clean it in my mouth, in my mouth, 'cause that's good. A lot of people would say then that they would take it and then just dump, dump it away. But there's so much, there's a, if you, if you take the flavor and you get it in there, then it's on that, the charts are on the 10 charts. I mean, the charts are 10 out of 10. You could even make it then take it on, on, on for a sauce, even if you wanted from the stock. And there we go. Dump it on in. Get all those little weird little scraps.
Now, simply just top it off with water all the way up to the top. And I'm going to keep this really simple. Some peeled carrots, I like leaving them in big chunks so they don't overcook too fast. Some thyme, little sprigs of thyme, about 20 peppercorns. And that is literally all I'm putting in here. I don't do celery, I don't do bay leaf, I don't really like those flavors when they're cooked in a stock for a long time. I do like celery sometimes in certain preparations, but not in stock. So let's set this over just low to medium heat and let it simmer away.
For the rosemary salt, start with coarse kosher salt. You can use another salt if you like, I just always use this one for it. And it's going straight into a food processor. If you don't have a food processor, you can use a blender. And all we need to do is strip some rosemary off the stem, just like this. Throw it in. There's one thing you should take home from this video, it's the rosemary salt. Even if you don't cook the turkey and the gravy from this video, please make the rosemary salt and use it in your Thanksgiving and holiday cook, and you are going to be amazed at the results. It really just smells and tastes like the holidays.
Next, we're putting in a little bit of sage. Same deal, you just want to pick these leaves off the stem. It's that holiday flavor, it's that stuffing flavor. Couple cloves of peeled garlic, and finally, a little bit of lemon zest to brighten things up. If you don't have yourself a microplane yet, you should definitely get one. I'll put a link for this in the description. Kind of a must-have, if you ask me. Straight in. I always kind of show off my zesting skills, I can't help it. Look at that, almighty zester. And we're going to start by pulsing it just a little bit, and then let it roll. Just about a minute of blending. As you can see, it retains a little bit of that coarse structure from the salt, and it's moist. It feels sort of like damp sand, but it doesn't like clump up. See, I can't clump it, which you don't really want. You want to be able to spread it out nicely like salt. And there's your salt done. It takes literally 5 minutes to make, and then you get months of enjoyment out of it. It will last for months in your fridge, although I try to use it up within about 3 weeks for optimal freshness. Airtight container, keep it in the fridge, that'll keep it fresher for longer.
So I'm going to start salting my turkey. And look, I'm going to do these for an hour or even less, because this is the fast turkey version. If you want to do this the day before, give it a full 24 hours or 12 hours of dry brining, you could do that. But I am absolutely confident I'm going to get perfectly juicy, amazing turkey in just a few hours, right, including roasting time. I'm going to salt these pretty generously, and then I'm going to flip and do the same side here on the skin. There we go. This looks good. I'm going to put these in the fridge for just 1 hour. Let's cook this turkey, my friends.
And the first thing I'm going to do is separate it onto two sheet pans instead of one. We want it to have room to breathe, definitely. I think I'll do my wings over here with the thighs and the legs. Everything's got some room. And then all I'm going to do is just dab up a little bit of that excess moisture for now, so they can brown evenly in the oven. And then I'm also just going to spray with a tiny little bit of oil just to help that skin start the browning process. You don't need a lot, really, just to help start it.
Let me tell you something here. If you're a serious home cook, you definitely need a great wireless thermometer. And especially around the holidays, with all the turkeys, all the roasts, all the proteins you're going to be cooking in the oven, having one of these is essential. And I'm honestly very proud to have T-y-e-r Sink as a sponsor of this video, because this thing is awesome. I am literally in love with it. And what sets the T-y-e-r Sink apart from the rest of the thermometers on the market is definitely the dual probe system. The probes are clearly labeled one and two, and they're both neatly packed into this very beautiful, premium-feeling unit. And so, this truly was the perfect setup for the technique we're doing in this video, because we're going to be cooking the breasts and thighs to different temperatures. Let me explain. First of all, if you're cooking your turkey to 165°F internal, you are overcooking it. There is just no saving that turkey, it is going to be so freaking dry. Instead, I highly recommend you cook your turkey breast to around 145° internal. To do that, I took probe one out of the T-y-e-r Sink and just inserted it into the thickest part of that breast, and then set my target temp to 142°F, so a touch under 145. Then you simply just need to start the cook, and you are good to go.
And for the thighs here, we are going for a vastly different temperature. Again, I just took out probe two and inserted it into the thickest part of that thigh. I then set my target temp all the way up to 190°F. This is going to give you an almost fall-off-the-bone, melt-in-your-mouth texture from those thighs. I started that second cook, and then put everything into the oven. And once the meat has been cooking in the oven for a little bit, it's going to do some math and tell you exactly how long it's going to be before it's done. Another cool feature of the T-y-e-r Sink is you have this incredible display, as well as the app. Seems like with most thermometers these days, it's one or the other. This thing does both, and it does them very well. The probes also have five sensors running throughout and use an advanced algorithm to detect the lowest internal temperature of your food. And this ensures that you really get accurate results every time, which is important when you're cooking meat. They're also geared with the latest Bluetooth 5.4 technology, making Sink the most reliable wireless thermometer on the market. You're never going to have to worry about this thing disconnecting mid-cook or anything like that. On a final note, I really love this little kickstand on the back, so you can just pop that near your oven or wherever you happen to be cooking, and it's just easy and fun to monitor. They're also running a pre-Black Friday deal where you can save 20% off the T-y-e-r Sink. Just use code THATDUDE2 at checkout, and this deal only runs through November 17th. So make sure you click the link down in the description to check it out.
The temperature of the oven is 400°F. And with those wings, I'm just going to pull them out when they look good. They're going to be done before the thighs and breast. And here we go. My breasts have hit their target temperature. Let's pull them out and let them rest for at least 20 minutes. And they only took 35 minutes to reach that temp, so nice and quick. And you know what? I might not even sear them because that skin looks really, really good. We definitely want to get these off onto a resting rack so they don't overcook on that hot tray.
On another note, with that sheet pan, here's what you want to do. I'll just take a little bit of my turkey stock that's been simmering away, pop it on here, couple little ladles. Again, just scrape it off. Oh my god, I just love scraping sheet pans, man. Give me a, give me a sheet pan, I'll scrape that thing for you. Dump all that flavor and goodness back into your stock. Oh, scrapy, scrapey. Get my stock back on the simmer. I also pulled out the wings at the same time as my breasts, just 35 minutes. They look nice and golden brown and delicious. Let them rest a little bit, and they'll be good to go.
And there we go. Our thighs just hit 180° internal, which happened after about an hour and 7 minutes. Out they come. Woo! Oh yeah. And same deal with our thighs and legs. Take them off, let them rest. Ah, there's actually enough juice in this tray for me to probably just scrape without getting some extra water in here. And honestly, I didn't even re-crisp the skin because it's just perfect right now anyway. So let's slice in and see how this looks. It's definitely got a nice glisten to it. It looks pretty juicy to me. Pulled at 145°F. Let's give it a test. All right, Marcus, pulled at 145. Let's give it a shot. Yeah, I mean, look at, look at the way it pulls apart. Honestly, I think that's just as juicy as any brine turkey I've ever had. It's great. There's some huge difference. You know, that meat just like pulls apart. That's good, good turkey. Now, think about this. Just an hour of salting and a little over an hour of roasting in the oven. That frees up your oven on Thanksgiving Day from all that turkey time, leaving more space for getting all your side dishes done. And trust me, you want that extra time. And there really is, like, this is better than a whole turkey. There's no reason not to do this.
My turkey stock's been going for 2 and a half hours, a little more. Nice and done. I'm going to go ahead and run it through a strainer. Shinoa. Now, there's one thing I want you to save right now, and it's the turkey neck. I love putting this in the gravy. I'll show you what I do with it. Turkey neck gravy. I'm just going to let this drip for about 10 minutes. I don't want to try to force anything through, actually, because I'm afraid I'll push those carrots through.
Now, with my neck here, here's what I do. It's, it's a little bit of work, but if you ask me, totally worth it. You're going to break them into their individual little vertebrae and then just rip off the meat. Doesn't take too long, and we're essentially picking all those little pieces clean and then discarding the bone. And from here, what I do is just chop up the neck meat. By the way, if you've never just tried turkey neck meat, it's got so much flavor. It's the rib of the turkey. There we go. Something like that. Set that aside for now.
Last but certainly not least, let's make our gravy. Starting with unsalted butter. Now, as I'm making this pre-Thanksgiving, I'm not going to make a ton of gravy. However, if you are feeding like 8 to 10 people, you may want to double this recipe. That will be located down in the description. Once that butter is melted, put in your flour. We're just building a really basic roux. Work that in. It should look like this, sort of wet sand type consistency, like you see here. And just like for any good roux, you need to let this cook. You need to cook off all that flour taste. So keep an eye on it, you want to stir it pretty frequently. The heat's around medium low. Now, I've been cooking my roux for about 15 minutes, and it's almost the same color as the stock. That's what I'm going for. You could go darker, but this is fine. Smells amazing.
And now, little by little, we're going to begin adding in our turkey stock. Never want to put in too much at once. Drop it in. Once it's all seized up, add some more stock. And I say go little by little, really work it in between additions like this. We don't want to end up with some kind of lumpy gravy. God, I love gravy. Oh yeah, this is going to be rich. Just keep working in that stock, little by little. It's going to be really thick at first, but then it's going to thin out as you keep adding more stock. Starting to look really good now. Although I don't like my gravy really thick, I want mine thinner. Personal preference. If you like it thicker, add less stock. At this point, season to taste. My friend, black pepper. I like a lot of black pepper in my gravy, pretty finely ground. Now we're going to bring this up to taste with a couple seasonings, but before we do that, let's test it. It already tastes pretty good. After we're done with it, it's going to taste amazing. More stock. The first thing I'm hitting it with is rosemary salt. A little bit of this right before you finish it for that freshness is just so freaking good. And the next ingredient is a secret family recipe of mine. It's Marmite, or yeast extract. It may seem weird to you, but I'm telling you, this stuff makes it taste amazing. It gives it this punch. It's so good. But it's really strong, right? So I'm just starting with one teaspoon. Go ahead and work that in. All right, one teaspoon of Marmite in and a little rosemary salt. Oh, now it's starting to taste like the gravy I know and love. Another little pinch of rosemary salt and another little teaspoon of Marmite. You always want to season things little by little, right? For me, this is a nice consistency of the gravy. I wouldn't want it any thicker. That's the stuff that is the ticket right there. That's money. Yo, drop it in the comments if you know who this is. This is an impression. That's money, dude. That's money, money, dude. That's money, dude. And the final ingredient, the turkey neck. Oh my god. Something about a meat gravy with chunks of meat in it, and it's just going to add that little bit of extra flavor. Turkey neck gravy. Mmm. Yeah. Oh yeah. Get it down. Ooh, oh, that's homey. Oh, that's homey. That's my hometown turkey gravy. Throw your neck in it. Throw your neck in it. Throw your neck in it. Neck in, neck in, neck in.
If I were making this turkey to serve on Thanksgiving, here's what I would do. I would slice up my breast, put it on a sheet pan like this. Pull all the meat off your thighs. I don't know if you want to leave the legs whole or pull the meat off those as well, you could do either. Set everything on this tray, put your wings on this tray, put a third of a cup of stock in the bottom of the tray, and then cover it with foil. Then simply just throw it into a 400° oven for, like, I don't know, 7, 8 minutes, just to warm it up. Take off the foil, put it on a tray if you want, and then just serve it. But we're just going to go ahead and eat ours right now. So I'm going to plate it up with some gravy and let's give it a taste.
[Music] All right, Marcus, here we go, dude. Um, turkey time. You want a leg? You want this? This always been too much of a weapon for me. Yeah. I, I was thinking like, could just take a swim. But, you know, we could go swim. We could take a swim. Although wing swim. All right, dude, wing. Nice. Good call. I think I'm going for a thigh. I'm just going to rip into it. Just rip into it. Go savage. Rip into it. Them gusis. Oh man. Oh, a thigh meat right here. We're filming. I don't know how long it's been. This thing's still crunchy, by the way. Thighs, super juicy, really good. Honestly, I don't think I'm going to cook a whole turkey ever again. So fast. People stress out, you know, during Thanksgiving time because of the turkey, because the oven space it takes up. People keep opening the door every 2 seconds, takes like twice as long. Then you're trying to cook all this other stuff, and you have no oven space. Took 1 hour to cook turkey. People who say they don't like turkey haven't had this turkey. Make it like this, dude. Don't tell me you don't like turkey. Tell us. Tell us you won't listen. Tom. Tom, this is your message to actually make the turkey good this year, man. So do it. And now you do a random name too. Say, listen, you know, Bolom. No, no. Do like a common name. We get of people. Hey, Mike. Make it like. Oh, oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. Hey, Gary. Woo! Ooh, try dipping the, uh, the wing in the gravy. What are you guys cooking? Birdman, dude, you're so annoying. We're not, we're not cooking anything. We're not doing anything. We're not eating anything. Go away. Go back to your nest or whatever. All right, all right, all right. I'm going to go. All right.
Thanks again to Tyer for sponsoring this video. And don't forget to grab your Tyer Sink today. You can find the code and the link in the description below. Thank you for watching today, my friends. I sincerely hope you'll give this turkey method a try. I know I am not going back to the old way. There is just no point anymore. And if you want to keep learning today, here are two more holiday forward recipes that I know you're going to love. Until next time, you know I love you.