The way my brother Eddie tells it, he and a college friend decided to cook a turkey for Thanksgiving one year. The day before Thanksgiving, Eddie went out and bought a 25 pound turkey, frozen, and put it in the fridge to defrost. (Can you see where this is going?) When it came time to cook the turkey, he took it out of its plastic wrapping, only to discover that the bird was still completely frozen. Rock hard. Undaunted (due either to the unchecked optimism that accompanies that time in life, or to beer addled judgement, and probably a little of both), Eddie went about cooking the turkey anyway. Heck, what’s a little frozen meat that a hot oven can’t overcome?
Into the oven it went. When it came time to eat, my brother pulled out of the oven a beautifully roasted, browned all over turkey. Success! thought my brother, hungry by now for the bird that had been roasting for several hours and filling the house with that wonderful aroma of Thanksgiving. A few friends had gathered as well, waiting for the feast to come. Then it came time to carve. Ed took out his longest, sharpest chef’s knife and aiming for the breast, cut in. Or tried to. As he tells it, he got about one inch in before the knife bumped up against rock hard, stone cold, frozen turkey.
Or maybe it was a half inch.
In any case, from what I understand they gave up and went out for Chinese.
The obvious moral of this story is to allow your bird plenty of time to defrost. A 15 pound turkey will take about 3 days in the fridge to defrost, a 25 pound turkey, about 5 days.
The less obvious moral to this story, and the point of the following recipe, is why cook a 25 pound turkey when you are only feeding 4 to 5 people? Unless you want turkey leftovers for weeks, you might be better off cooking just a part of a turkey. In this recipe, we are cooking just the turkey breast, bone-in and skin-on, and making a rich, creamy gravy with drippings from a couple turkey wings.
Continue reading “Roast Turkey Breast with Roasted Garlic Gravy” »
