Holiday Turkey 2023, Ardent Gourmet Style
By David & Susan Greenberg
davidandsusangreenberg@gmail.com, www.ardentgourmet.com
Believe it or not, sliced deli turkey bears a strong connection to that scene in Fargo in which the character, played by Steve Buscemi, is pushed through a wood chipper. Like Steve, much of it is “mechanically deboned” in a hellish machine and pushed through a sieve to separate all the bone bits. It is doped with mad-scientist shelf-life extenders, stabilizers, gelatin, binding agents, flavor enhancers, food coloring, and, sometimes, propylene glycol, which, hand on a Bible, is also used to de-ice airport runways. It is nozzled into packages which are cooked and solidified. Basically, it’s turkey-flavored Jello with an infinite shelf-life. And it will de-ice runways.
At the other end of the Turkey Universe, top hat grocery stores dispense ivy-league turkeys, uncorrupted by additives or antibiotics, raised on Mozart and spa treatments. They’re not slaughtered, Lord forbid, but lovingly put to sleep.They taste much the same as Safeway birds, but the outrageous price is bitter.
If you simply want the best turkey of all, the key isn’t the turkey per se but the preparation. Buy an inexpensive frozen turkey. We like those at Winco. Last Noel price, 98 cents a pound. Defrost. Then ballotine it (which means remove all the bones except legs and wings), leaving the skin intact. Mound stuffing within. We favor bread stuffing with chestnuts and prune. Fold the beast back into a quasi-cylinder so the severed skin reconnects, truss with string (a two person job), and bake breast-side-down at 325° until a thermometer poked into the stuffing reads 165°, thigh 180° (four to five hours). It’s kind of like doing a caesarian section… in reverse.
That’s it. Ballotine of Turkey. Let sit. Make gravy (we add Marsala to ours). Cut gloriously elegant, moist, flavorful, boneless, cross-sectional pieces of turkey-and-stuffing. Why is it definitively better than other turkey preps? Don’t know.
An inquisitive mind wonders, How do you take the bones out of a turkey? It’s like asking, How do you knit gloves? An explanation is beyond the power of words. Ultimately, like performing an emergency appendectomy in the wilderness, you must dive in. Gird yourself, and slice the turkey open along the backbone. You then have three layers: skin, meat, bones laid out flat. Simply cut everywhere between the meat and bones until the bones lift out. Be careful you don’t debone yourself by mistake. You’ll need a sharp blade and maybe shears. Don’t pierce the skin.
For being delicious, turkeys pay a heavy price. May the tables never turn.
David & Susan Greenberg, we love to hear from our readers. You may contact us at our restaurant review website, www.ardentgourmet.com