You, sir, hate America.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

You cook it whole. You carve it at the table, asking each person in turn whether he wants white meat or dark. Some people adore dried out white meat.

In addition, you make gravy, from scratch. You stuff the turkey with the same stuffing your mom made, unless you stuff it with the same stuffing your wife's mom made.

For dessert you have pie.

There are more rules, but these are the basics.

I don't understand the anti-turkey sentiment at all. I love the stuff. Love it. I prefer a fresh whole roast turkey to any other type of meat. I like other types of meat, turkey is my favorite.

Actually, if you cook the turkey properly, yes, even including the horrid proletarian mass produced genetically crippled and gigantic birds, the meat is all cooked, the white meat is juicy and not dried out, and the taste is fantastic.

But few people I know even regularly bake / roasts chickens whole in the oven, and I frequently have guests shocked that a regular store chicken can taste amazing if done in the oven.

It's less a turkey problem than a bird prep and oven roasting practice problem. But people would (quite sensibly) rather pick up a whole rotisserie roasted chicken at a supermarket for $4-7 than pay $7-10 for a larger whole fryer or roaster and prep and roast for themselves.

You young Turks need to back away from the turkey. Back away slowly. Go back to transit.

This, my chickadees, is what over-reach looks like. You don't have a mandate for this!

Thanks, I'll do that.

Dude, get a heritage turkey and brine it. I got a left-over Narragansett last year. It was a totally different kind of meat - slightly gamey in a really pleasant way, juicy, not the least bit dry or chalky.

I wouldn't call brining labor- or time-intensive. It takes about 20 minutes of extra work. And the payoff is not mild at all -- it's transformative. Brining is change we can believe in.

I've never cooked a dry turkey. I coat the skin with olive oil, I put sage butter underneath the skin, and stuff the bird with cornbread stuffing. Put the bird in a bag, and it comes out juicy and delicious every time.

I do something similar to what maurinsky does (baste with olive oil), except I use cheesecloth and have THAT soaked in the olive oil and then wrapped around the turkey.

Also, putting things like sage, onion and garlic in the stuffing adds additional water content. You could even add diced apples if you wanted to.

Basically, the idea is that the fat in the skin+olive oil+cheesecloth puts up a heavier barrier to evaporation, plus the contents of the stuffing add water to replace what evaporates out. I'm not a big believe in basting because if you do this right, water isn't going to get through the skin/cheesecloth/olive oil,, and the stuffing should replace anything you lose anyway.

My sister-in-law hails from Texas, and I'm informed they often deep fry turkeys down there. Haven't tried it prepared this way, but it sounds tasty.

The way to avoid a dry turkey breast is to ensure that there is liquid in the air to keep it moist. Raise the turkey up on a bed of vegetables and, if you don't have a properly liquid stuffing, poke holes in a large orange or lemon and insert into the bird. I use an onion,quince and apple stuffing that flavors the bird and sauces at the same time.

As a multi-year Turkey-fryer, let me just say it kicks butt. It of course, just requires the outdoor room to safely get a few gallons of oil up to 350, I believe. Did it the last two or three years, but taking a break this year due to having a three week old.

I am a big fan of braising, but Cook's Illustrated has a very good method for ensuring the bird is evenly cooked and completely juicy. It's more complicated than braising, sure, but it retains the trappings of traditional thanksgiving and leaves you with an excellent roast bird.

I only cooked one turkey ("holiday" gift from an employer) in my life before permanently quitting meat (yah, handling the big, dead slippery bird was a turning point toward semi-vegetarianism). Anyway, I put it in one of those baking bags made for turkeys, poured in some white wine and a bunch of herbs and cooked it up (it's way faster in a bag, too). There is no "tending" it while it cooks, either. It came out so juicy and fall apart nice, everyone was impressed. I wouldn't make stuffing inside the bird this way, it'd come out too mushy. "Dressing" made in a casserole dish is the way to go, in my opinion.

I have also heard that the typical
"breast up" position for roasting makes the white meat dry. Turn it upside down for cooking & the juice runs to the dry part.

Wow, it almost sounds like I care about turkey! The good thing about Thanksgiving is there is so much other good stuff, I haven't missed turkey a bit for the last 21 years.

Cheers,
gogo

The way to avoid a dry turkey breast

...is to avoid turkey altogether. Hey, if you like turkey go ahead and do what you must to make it palatable, but there are so many other flesh foods that knock turkey into a cocked hat, why bother?

I've never had a complaint yet about the outcomes of my turkey recipes and like Ben Franklin, consider them to be a noble bird, especially post-mortem.

The only suck factor about turkeys I've ever discovered has come when people lacking in class and taste decide to elect one, as that can cause terminal indigestion.

I'd expect such folks to think beer with eggnog is a festive libation, too. In both cases, it's clear they simply can't handle good liquor, in the dining room or the polling booth.

When pundits wander out of their fields of expertise. Half the comments here show why there are plenty of ways to bake a turkey well. The simplest is to smear it with olive oil and cover it with tin foil once it's browned up. And then there are dutch ovens. And fruit or chestnut stuffings.

The most labor intensive thing as far as I'm concerned is driving to the market and standing in the checkout line.

Smintheus is quite close. The technique is called "tenting". You simply place a folded piece of foil over the breast once its brown, that will stop it from overcooking. Also, if you decide to fry a turkey, use smaller birds, and inject apple juice into the meat prior to dropping into the peanut oil. Don't bother buying expensive flavored injection kits.

THAW BEFORE IMMERSING IN OIL. My wife works in an ER, you'd be shocked by the number of yahoos out there who don't thaw first, and set their porches, decks, or garages aflame.

My best cooking friend has a fruit juice base for roasting birds that works marvelously well, which is kind of like a braise; as an alternative, about 5 years ago my family did a real braise from Martha Stewart, which worked out wonderfully, even though it was labor intensive. I've never really had a bad bird, and my Mom frets about underdone, or dry... but we really never have a problem. It's really not hard. Over time, though, I find myself drawn to dark meat for the gamey taste. All of the suggestions above make sense to me.

Oh and this year - TurDuckEn. :)

The new technique is to ice down the breast meat (like pop a Zip-Lock bag of ice on top), while the legs come up to room temperature. Then cover the breast with foil. That slows down the white meat and affords a little more balance.