- 3 months ago
Think roasting a perfect turkey has to take all day? Think again! In this video from Food Wishes, Chef John demonstrates his "one hour" spatchcocking technique that results in a gorgeous, golden-brown bird with super crispy skin and incredibly juicy meat. Get your Thanksgiving main course on the table in record time with this game-changing method.
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00Hello, this is Chef John from Foodwishes.com with One Hour Turkey.
00:08That's right, I'm going to show you how to roast an entire turkey in one hour,
00:12thanks to a couple minutes of knife and scissor work, plus a very hot oven.
00:17And besides saving time, we're going to get a super crispy skin, along with moist succulent meat.
00:23Plus, we get to use the term spatchcock, which is never not fun.
00:27And to get started, we'll take a whole turkey, somewhere between 10 and 12 pounds,
00:33which is the size bird this technique works the best with.
00:36And I like to start by cutting off the wingtips, by cutting down through where that joint hinges.
00:41And if you find the perfect spot, the knife goes right through, which I never do.
00:46So we'll often have to give the knife a tap to help it go through.
00:49And I do this because those just burn anyway, and there's no meat on them, and they're better in the stock.
00:54And once the two tips are removed, I also like to slice off the turkey butt,
00:59or as my family called it, the Pope's nose.
01:02And we can use that in our stock as well.
01:05And once those two technically optional steps are done,
01:08we'll perform a technique called spatchcocking,
01:11which involves flipping the turkey over,
01:14and using scissors to cut on either side of the backbone to remove it.
01:17And somewhere in the back of a drawer, I have some poultry shears.
01:22But instead, I decide to use some very dull, fairly lightweight scissors,
01:26which I can't say makes this easy, but it's definitely doable.
01:31And by the way, don't let those hairy forearms fool you.
01:34I'm not as strong as I look.
01:36But even with the worst case scenario scissor choice,
01:39you will be able to get this done.
01:42And once we get past the thighs, everything gets easier to cut.
01:46And once we're past this point,
01:48and we continue cutting to the top of the bird,
01:51our scissors are going to go between one of two spots.
01:54Okay, if they go between the backbone and the shoulder blade,
01:57they will slice right through.
01:59But if they go between the shoulder blade and the shoulder joint,
02:02which is what's happening on this side,
02:04your scissors will not go all the way through.
02:06And you'll have to bend the backbone up like this
02:09so that we can finish the cut and remove the backbone.
02:13And if you do it that way, the shoulder blade is going to be exposed,
02:16which is good because we're going to remove them.
02:19But if you cut through like on that first side,
02:21we will simply cut through the meat holding it on.
02:24And once those have been exposed,
02:26we'll simply dislocate those from the shoulder joints
02:28and either yank them off with our hands or cut them off with a knife.
02:32Right? That's up to you.
02:34I mean, you are after all the Dracula.
02:36Of removing the scapula.
02:39But anyway, the point is by removing those,
02:41our turkey is going to be easier to flatten out.
02:44And we won't have to do that by smashing it with a heavy cast iron pan.
02:48Which is pretty much how everybody else does it.
02:50And then to finish the spatchcocking process,
02:53I usually like to make a small cut into the cartilage
02:56right at the tip of the breastbone.
02:59And if this was a chicken,
03:00we could grab either side and we could bend up
03:03and we could pop that breastbone right out.
03:05But with a turkey, that's not happening.
03:09Which is fine.
03:10It doesn't need to.
03:11Since all we'll do is grab either side of the rib cage
03:13and bend that down until it separates and flattens.
03:17At which point we can flip this over
03:19and show what a perfectly spatchcocked turkey looks like.
03:24And sure, it might be fun to smash this with a giant cast iron pan.
03:27But who knows how those shoulder blades are going to fracture.
03:30So I think this method gives us something more uniform and better looking.
03:35And once all the hard work's done, if you can even call it that,
03:39we will flip it over and begin a very generous seasoning.
03:42Which on the inside is going to be both kosher salt
03:46as well as a little bit of freshly ground black pepper.
03:50And then eventually when we flip this over,
03:52we'll just do salt on the skin side.
03:54I didn't want any black specks distracting
03:56from what's going to be a beautiful golden brown finish.
04:01And by the way, the salt measurement in the recipe is not going to be a typo.
04:04Right, generally for a spatchcocked bird this big,
04:07I want to do about a tablespoon of salt per four pounds of meat.
04:11Or in other words, about a tablespoon and a half per side.
04:15And as I've gotten older,
04:16I've decided a simply seasoned bird is the best way to go.
04:20But having said that,
04:21this one hour roasting time technique I'm showing you
04:24will work the same no matter how you're going to flavor this.
04:27And if you like to do things like brine the turkey ahead of time,
04:30or apply some kind of spice rub,
04:33please feel free to do that.
04:34And that's it once our turkey is seasoned.
04:37We can move on to prepping a sheet pan,
04:40which I'm going to do by laying over a large piece of heavy-duty aluminum foil.
04:44And once that's in place, we'll place over a sheet pan-sized baking rack.
04:48And if you don't have or can't get the large size of foil,
04:51just two strips of the regular size will work,
04:53but it really should be heavy-duty.
04:55And as you can see,
04:56we definitely want about four or five inches of extra foil
04:59going past the edge of the pan.
05:01Because once we transfer our turkey on,
05:03skin-side up, of course,
05:05the ends of the wings and the ends of the legs
05:08are going to be going past the pan a little bit.
05:10So to play it safe,
05:11I'll take some extra pieces of foil
05:13and make sort of a little bit of a ledge to go underneath them.
05:17And I'll tuck that between the rack and the foil underneath.
05:20And then we'll simply sort of bend and curl that up a little bit.
05:22And that way, if we have any grease dripping,
05:25it will be funneled down into the pan
05:27and will not drip onto the bottom of your oven.
05:30And that's it.
05:31Once those extra pieces are placed on,
05:33I'm going to go around the outside,
05:34around the outside, around the outside,
05:36sort of folding and crimping that foil up.
05:39Again, making sure anything that drips
05:41is going to go towards the center into the pan.
05:44And that's it.
05:46Our turkey is now ready to place into the upper center
05:48of a 450 degree oven for about one hour
05:52or until we get to our desired internal temp,
05:56which for me is about 150 to 155 in the middle of the thigh.
06:00And if everything goes according to plan,
06:02it should look like this.
06:05Oh yeah, now that is a gloriously gorgeous bird.
06:08And if you've ever wondered
06:09what perfectly crispy turkey skin sounds like,
06:12here you go.
06:13Oh yeah, fork don't lie.
06:22And then yes, you definitely want to let this rest a little bit
06:25while you pull together your sides and sauces.
06:28And once we're ready to serve,
06:30we'll transfer that onto a cutting board.
06:32And I'm actually going to turn this
06:33so it fits on the board a little better.
06:36And this batch cock technique really is great,
06:38but it does produce a lot of crotch.
06:42Some might say too much crotch.
06:44But that is easily fixed with some rosemary sprigs
06:47and maybe a few edible flowers.
06:49And once that was looking a little less disturbing,
06:52I grabbed a fork and knife and sliced in for the official taste.
06:55And if you're wondering if a turkey like this
06:58cooked at such a high heat for only an hour
07:01is just as good as the one cooked low and slow for like three hours,
07:05well, the answer is no.
07:07It's actually much better.
07:09And I was trying to find an angle here
07:10where you could see that glistening moist meat,
07:12which I didn't quite accomplish.
07:14So you'll have to take my word for it.
07:16And if any part of this turkey was going to be dry,
07:19it would be that breast meat near the surface.
07:21And yet it wasn't.
07:22So I was thrilled with the texture.
07:25And the taste was amazing as well,
07:28even though this was only seasoned with salt
07:30and a little touch of pepper.
07:32So the white meat checked out.
07:34And I'm going to go ahead and cut it into the thigh
07:36to prove that came out just as good.
07:40And by the way,
07:40even if you cook the dark meat to 155,
07:43which is perfectly safe to eat,
07:45there's still going to be spots that are naturally pink.
07:48So do not let that throw you off.
07:50And you can just tell grandma to relax.
07:52There's no problem.
07:54And as much as I love those breast and thigh samples,
07:56the best part of a one-hour turkey
07:58is by far those wing flats,
08:01very crunchy on the outside,
08:03unctuous near the bone.
08:05And I'm a little bit mad at evolution
08:07that there's only two per bird.
08:08I mean, have you seen some of those dinosaurs
08:11turkeys evolved from?
08:13Couldn't we have gotten a few extra wings?
08:16But anyway, that's really my only complaint.
08:18And if you want a perfectly cooked turkey
08:20that tastes every bit as good,
08:22if not better,
08:23than the classic method,
08:25then I really do hope you give this a try soon.
08:29So please follow the links below
08:30for the ingredient amounts,
08:32a printable written recipe,
08:34and much more info as usual.
08:36And as always,
08:38enjoy!
08:40I'll see you next time.
Comments