Every year, in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, holiday conversations inevitably turn to one question about the annual feast. The question is, is turkey delicious?
While debates and debates take place over which side dish is the best, it seems that the stars of the show are often ignored, or worse, vilified and belittled.
Every year, the most common complaint about the main course is that the bird comes out dry.
For a meal that takes days to prepare and hours to cook, your holiday can be ruined if your turkey comes out dry on the bone without the meal’s popular accompaniment.
But any experienced chef will tell you that turkey doesn’t have to be dry. In fact, it’s very difficult to get meat to be desert-dry unless you overcook it.
And therein lies the problem.
This undated stock image shows a turkey with a pop-up timer. (Getty Images)
In the 1960s, as the Thanksgiving turkey became an established part of holiday tradition, companies looking to make turkey preparation easier created a new tool for inexperienced chefs: the pop-up timer.
You’ve probably seen red dots poking out of the breast of your Thanksgiving turkey. These literally pop out of the meat to let the chef know that the turkey has reached a safe temperature and is done cooking.
But is that really the best way to measure doneness of a turkey? In short, no.
For food safety reasons, these buttons typically do not activate until temperatures exceed 180 degrees Fahrenheit.
The Food and Drug Administration recommends that for a turkey to be considered safe to eat, it should register an internal temperature of 165 degrees on an instant thermometer.
And even that doesn’t tell you everything.
Even if the thermometer reaches a lower temperature, say 155 degrees Fahrenheit, the turkey is actually safe to eat as long as it stays at that temperature for at least 90 seconds to kill any surviving bacteria. Carryover cooking, which continues to cook food after it is removed from the heat source, ensures that a safe temperature is reached when the turkey is removed from the oven and allowed to rest.
In other words, by the time the turkey buttons “ring,” the bird is already overcooked, and overcooking is the enemy of juiciness.
Four different pop-up turkey timer packages at culinary school CulinAerie in Washington, DC, October 28, 2015. (Getty Images)
Rather than relying on the once-revolutionary pop-up thermometer technology, most experienced chefs recommend using an instant-read thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the turkey.
Other ways to make sure your Thanksgiving meal has plenty of moisture include brining or brining the turkey the day before cooking, or cooking the individual components of the bird separately. I can list it. Food blogger/chef/scientist J. Kenji Lopez-Alt likes to cook white meat at 145 degrees and dark meat at 165 degrees.
This method also significantly reduces the time it takes to put the bird in the oven, further ensuring that your Thanksgiving main course will be juicy, not dry, and get the marks it deserves.
Regarding pop-up timers, López Alto said in no uncertain terms, “If I had my way, the world would be rid of them.”
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