Recipes from the Collection of Mark and Danielle Hughes
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Roast Turkey The simplest roast turkey (high heat method) Serves 8 to 10 1 (14- to 16-pound) turkey Remove any feathers and quills with needle-nose pliers (kosher turkeys tend to require this more than others). Put oven rack in lower third of oven and preheat oven to 450 degrees. Rinse turkey inside and out and pat dry. Mix salt and pepper in small bowl and sprinkle it evenly in turkey cavities and all over skin. Fold neck skin under body and, if desired, secure with metal skewer, then tuck wing tips under breast and tie drumsticks together with kitchen string. Put turkey on a flat metal rack in large flameproof roasting pan. Roast, rotating pan 180 degrees halfway through roasting, until instant-read thermometer inserted into fleshy part of each thigh (close to but not touching bone) registers 170 degrees, 1 3/4 to 2 1/2 hours. Note: If wings start to brown too much, loosely cover with foil, as turkey continues to roast. Remove turkey from oven. Carefully tilt turkey so juices from inside large cavity run into roasting pan. (Add juices to your gravy, pour over carved turkey or discard.) Transfer turkey to platter and let stand 30 minutes. Temperature of thigh meat will rise to 180 degrees. Cut off and discard string from turkey. Per serving: (6 ounces, without skin) 286 calories, 50g protein, 8g fat (3g saturated), 0g carbohydrate, 242mg sodium, 131mg cholesterol, 0g dietary fiber. Is medium or high heat best for roasting turkey? Q: I have always roasted my turkeys in a 325-degree oven. But lately, I've been seeing recipes for very high-temperature roasting -- 450 or 475 degrees. What, if any, is the advantage to this? A: A cook always faces two decisions: how long to cook the food, and at what temperature. Intuition suggests a short time cooking at a high temperature should somehow be equivalent to a longer time at a lower temperature. That's true, but it's not a direct trade-off. Having selected a temperature, we still have to make an educated guess as to when the food will be done. When roasting a turkey, we can in principle choose any cooking temperature from 200 to 450 degrees. Traditional roast-turkey recipes have settled on a moderate 325-degree oven for about 20 minutes per pound. To determine when the turkey is done, check its internal temperature. Of late, some high-temperature roasting recipes have been popping up, specifying oven settings as high as 475 degrees, with roasting times as short as two hours. Startling as they may seem, these methods are based on sound principles. Nor are they new. Barbara Kafka, in her 1995 book, ``Roasting: A Simple Art,'' pioneered the roasting of a vast range of meats and vegetables at 500 degrees. One's first fear might be that such high temperatures will burn the turkey. But burning is just an extreme stage of cooking, subject to the time vs. temperature trade-off. That is, the high temperature is offset by the short time, and burning doesn't occur. The big question is, ``When is the turkey at the best eating stage?'' The most reliable test of doneness is measuring the internal temperature. When proteins are cooked, their curly molecules unravel and bond together in new, less rigid ways, making the meat more tender. But if the temperature rises too far, the protein tightens up and squeezes out water. That's why overcooked meat can be tough and dry. The trick is to stop cooking when the meat reaches just the right tenderness and juiciness. But what is that optimum temperature, and where do you take a turkey's temperature, anyhow? The traditionally recommended place to measure a turkey's temperature is in the thickest part of the thigh. That's likely to be the meaty part farthest from the bird's surface and therefore the last to reach a given temperature by heat conduction from the outside. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, after decades of recommending that poultry be cooked to an internal temperature of 180 degrees, changed its advice earlier this year. The new government guideline sets 165 degrees as the safe minimum internal temperature for turkeys, and brings the government in line with chefs and recipe writers who often suggest 170 degrees for best flavor and texture. (For a recipe, see Page 4E.) The advantages of high-temperature roasting? For one thing, the turkey's skin is reputed to get nice and crisp, especially if it had been rubbed with olive oil or butter before being put in the oven. Also, the high temperature can mean a roasting time of as little as 2 hours for an unstuffed, untrussed bird.
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