Whole baked turkey is more for a holiday than for an everyday dinner. It's another matter if you have a large family. Then this bird, several times larger than a chicken, will be very useful. However, you can bake not only the carcass, for example, it is very tasty if you stuff the breast. It is a little dry, so either marinate it before cooking, or pour over the resulting juice in the process, or cook with sauce, because baking is good because it involves variations. You can cook both legs and thighs in the oven, but it is better to remove the bones from them first.
It is necessary
- - Turkey;
- - lemons;
- - dried apples;
- - garlic;
- - eggs;
- - mushrooms;
- - marinade;
- - salt;
- - spices;
- - knives;
- - cutting board;
- - baking dish.
Instructions
Step 1
For whole roasting, choose a turkey based on the number of people you are going to cook for. Otherwise, it may not be enough, or (which is still more acceptable) the turkey will be left for tomorrow. In retail, fresh carcasses are quite rare, more often frozen. If they manage to agree on the purchase of a turkey with a farm or subsidiary farm, they will be able to provide slaughter to order. But here, there is a pitfall: any bird after slaughter needs to “cool down” for several hours. Pack a poorly cooled carcass - while you are carrying it, it will most likely "suffocate" and acquire an unpleasant odor. If this happens, do not be discouraged, keep it out of the bag for half an hour - the smell will disappear. Frozen turkey in the store is often sold packed in a colored plastic bag, you don't see what exactly is in it and how fatty or lean the carcass is waiting for you when unpacking. A kind of "cat in a poke", albeit in a bird version. For cooking entirely, extremes are undesirable: too lean a bird runs the risk of getting dryish, you must necessarily foresee what you will water it with; fatty - "loses" fat, which is logical when heated, significantly reduced in size. As always, the golden mean is optimal. Buying breast, drumstick or thigh fillets separately, you see the product and therefore in most cases you will do without surprises.
Step 2
Let the frozen turkey thaw. It is better to do this gradually, in no case using a stream of hot water or any other way to sharply increase the temperature. This is one of the most common mistakes many housewives make. Defrosting too quickly causes the structure of the meat to change, the meat juice flows out, as a result, the collagen fibers are no longer surrounded by it, the meat turns out to be dry, the label “like a sole” is firmly glued to it. Correct defrosting (in the language of professional chefs - defrosting) assumes at least 12 hours at a low above zero temperature (on the refrigerator shelf), and the next 12 hours - in the coldest part of the kitchen. It is with this defrosting that the loss of precious meat juice is reduced to a technological minimum, in the meat, and in our case, in the turkey, enough will remain so that the finished dish does not seem dry.
Step 3
Butcher the turkey according to your preference. Sometimes inside the carcass, if you bought frozen, there is a bag of giblets. Take them out, inspect, rinse, dry. Then - depending on your desire: you can cut, season and return to the carcass, or you can transfer it to another bag, and then place it in the freezer to subsequently cook the broth, adding to the rest of the ingredients. Remove excess fat from the carcass (usually it hangs generously from the tail side), you can cut off the tips from the wings - there is no meat in them, moreover, with long baking, they risk burning or even charring. If you got a bird with a neck, this part should also be cut off. Put all the "extra" in a bag to the giblets.
Step 4
Stuff the poultry, making the filling to your liking. Sweet or sour foods go well with turkey. One of the simplest and most relevant - medium-sized lemons, chopped in several places, stuffed with carnation buds and placed inside the carcass. Alternatively, stuff the turkey tightly with dried apple slices. You don't even need to pour boiling water over them beforehand. Thanks to the juice that forms inside when baked in the oven, the poultry is very tender and tasty, and the apples are soft and aromatic. The filling is more complicated - egg porridge with fried mushrooms. It is an omelet, cooked without adding flour and milk, and then divided into a “crumb” fork. You can fry fresh or frozen mushrooms with it, you can also dry, but they must be boiled beforehand. Do not forget the turkey (inside and out) and the filling, season with salt, pepper, and other spices that you like. When baking, fat will flow out of the bird, collect it with a spoon and water the carcass, so it will turn out not only tasty, but also beautiful.
Step 5
If you decide to bake the drumstick or thigh, remove the bones. If you bought boneless meat, so much the better. Marinate the pieces in a marinade consisting of four active ingredients: sour (lemon juice, apple or balsamic vinegar, kefir), sweet (honey, plain or cane sugar), fatty (any refined vegetable oil), spicy (garlic and spices of your choice), - in classic cooking with turkey, coriander, caraway, fennel and Mediterranean herbs are well combined). Naturally, do not forget to add salt to the marinade.
Step 6
For the turkey breast that you plan to bake in the oven, pick up both the marinade and what to stuff it with. Make a pocket in the thickness of the pieces, not completely cutting through the fillet. Sprinkle with salt and black pepper. Ground dried fruits are well suited as a filling - this is how the turkey turns out in a somewhat Middle Eastern style. Season the fillet with cumin and drizzle with lemon juice. Another option is slices of ham or cheese (or maybe a tandem of them). In this case, it is more appropriate to coat the poultry pieces with honey, but they must be baked on an onion pillow - otherwise there is a risk that they will burn. Whichever method of baking the breast you choose, it is very important not to overexpose it.
