What makes turkey tough

Turkey is best cooked at a higher temperature but for a shorter amount of time, rather than a low-and-slow cook as you would for other cuts of meat. When meat such as turkey is cooked, it goes through a series of chemical changes. Meat contains a large percentage of water, and when cooked, meat loses its water content. Other cuts of meat with a large amount of collagen turn out tough and chewy when cooked too fast. However, when these cuts are cooked low-and-slow, the collagen melts into gelatin.

Turkey is a lean meat, therefore it has a low amount of collagen. The problem with turkey is that it can easily become dry. White meats have a tendency to dry out when cooked. Most other cuts of meat used in low-and-slow cooking such as brisket has a high fat and collagen content. When cooked low-and-slow, this fat and collagen melts and renders into the meat.

Because the turkey is so large, by the time the inside of the bird is cooked, the outside will be overdone. Whole turkeys have thick and thin parts with a large, hollow cavity which makes cooking a challenge. The unevenness prevents the heat from reaching all parts of the bird and cooking evenly. The best way to counter this problem is by spatchcocking the turkey. A spatchcocked turkey will cook faster and will help retain moisture.

A spatchcocked turkey, or butterflying, is when the backbone is removed and the bird is lay flat on the grill. Share your post with your fan club! I know there are two camps on turkey, quick high heat and slow and low. I chose the first, and maybe that was my problem. That took about 25 minutes longer than the recipe I was following said it should. Cooked for about an hour 15 minutes. Let rest about 10 minutes. Beautiful bird, lovely skin, VERY moist.

Almost inedible. What to do? The sheer anatomy of the bird guarantees a challenge: Easy-to-overcook breast meat combined with dark meat that seems to take eons to cook through. So it's hard not to end up with a combination of dry breast meat and fall-off-the-bone thighs and drumsticks, or moist breast meat and undercooked thighs and drumsticks. If you don't want to risk giving your guests a Thanksgiving gift of food-borne illness, you've probably erred on the side of overcooking.

So the part of the turkey that's prone to undercooking gets protected by the sides of the pan, while the part that gets dried out easily gets a full blast of heat. Smaller turkeys roast more evenly than large ones, so for feeding a crowd, two small turkeys are a better option. You can flavor a brine as well. Read here for more on the science behind brining. As it melts, it bastes the turkey and adds buttery flavor.

Legs tied up tightly against the sides of the turkey take longer to roast, putting the breast meat in jeopardy of overcooking while the legs take their time. For more on how to truss, watch our video. Placing the turkey, breast side down, on a V-rack for the first hour or so of roasting essentially allows it to baste itself. Any marks left by the rack will disappear once you flip the turkey over and finish roasting it.

Use a thermometer, either instant-read or probe-style, to monitor the temperature in the thickest part of the thigh be careful not to hit the bone. The intense heat of the oven forces the juices into the center of the bird, so after roasting, let the turkey rest for roughly 20 minutes enough time to make the gravy. Nice one! Thank you for sharing this post. Your blog posts are more interesting and impressive. Already a subscriber?

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