Hey y’all! I posted on Saturday here basically saying I bought a frozen turkey and needed it ready to eat by the next day at 5pm. I got a lot of different suggestions (mostly “you’re fucked”) but I ended up going with the cold water bath and wanted to share my success story ahead of the holidays in case anyone else is in a similar boat and finds this. If that’s you, all is not lost!! DISCLAIMER: If you can buy a thawed turkey then do that. I didn’t have that option which is why I did this. So here’s what I did to get a frozen turkey fully cooked in about 9 hours Bought frozen turkey on Friday and put in fridge Freaked out Saturday and posted on Reddit for help At 8am Sunday morning I fully submerged the turkey in a 10 gallon cold water bath (just cold tap water coming out at 70 degrees) Every 30 minutes or so I swished the water around with my hand and every hour or so I replaced all of the water. The goal here is just to keep the water around the bird warmer because it quickly cools the water around it. At noon I noticed the bird was pretty pliable. Like I could move the legs and wings around because they’re weren’t frozen solid. I didn’t need it fully thawed; just thawed enough go break it down. I removed the bird from its bag, removed the giblet bag (still covered in ice) and rinsed the bird off washing any remaining ice out of the cavity. I spatchcocked it, stuffed thyme rosemary butter and garlic cloves under the skin, put it on a tray in a bag, and threw it in the fridge (it would have been preferable to put it directly into the oven but it thawed faster than I expected and I didn’t want it to be done cooking hours before it was time to eat). At 2:30 I roasted the turkey at 400 with a thermometer in the breast and thigh. At 4:30 the breast was 165 and it was ready to take out, let cool, and eat at 5! My biggest concerns with this approach was safety and making sure the turkey didn’t dry out. In the end, I think the combination of the spatchcocking and rapid cool water thawing meant I was good on both accounts. For those skeptical about the safety issues with this approach, any bacteria is going to die instantly at 165 anyway. Additionally, thawing for only 4 hours and then (almost) immediately cooking it at 400 degrees means the meat is in the dangerous temperature range 40-140 for a fairly short amount of time. As for dryness, the turkey was extremely juicy and everyone raved about the flavor thanks to the spatchcocking. here’s an article by America’s Test Kitchen about this thawing technique. submitted by /u/bagmorgels [link] [comments]
AI summary coming soon. Read the full article at the source below.
