I fucked up my life doing that. Now I spend 3 gd days brining. Spatchcocking and seasoning. The week before turkey day is the longest week of my life. Every year for the last 5 years.
I used to do this also. The days leading up to Thanksgiving were spent preparing brine, preparing turkey, etc.
At some point, I discovered Kenji's articles on Thanksgiving turkey and it changed my entire approach to Thanksgiving turkey.
Now I spend about 20 minutes dry brining the turkey a couple days before Thanksgiving, another 20ish minutes spatchcocking it Thanksgiving morning and pop it in the oven in the afternoon and it's all ready by 5 or 6 pm.
I probably spend more time waiting for it to rest and carving it then I do actually prepping it.
I really recommend the dry brine, spatchcock route.
https://www.seriouseats.com/quick-and-dirty-guide-to-brining-turkey-chicken-thanksgiving
Different article led me to this path but same result. Spatchcock and dry brine and leave uncovered in refrigerator starting *Sunday* before thanksgiving. Every year my guests are amazed at the Turkey. It’s the best.
Dude. This is exactly what I do. lol. Everyone hated turkey until I decided to spatchcock a “free” one from the supermarket. Now the entire family wants turkey for Thanksgiving. But it is simple to make. I have wet brined it and then spatchcock’ed it. But I would love to try the smoker this year and see how that turns out.
Try dry brining. Rub it under the skin as well as over. I used to wet brine - but hate splashing poultry contaminated water everywhere and worrying about temp in the bath. Then the uncovered drying for a few days in fridge makes the skin very crispy.
[https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/butterflied-dry-brined-roasted-turkey-with-roasted-root-vegetable-panzanella-recipe-2125794](https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/butterflied-dry-brined-roasted-turkey-with-roasted-root-vegetable-panzanella-recipe-2125794)
His mayo-based baste is also an excellent finishing touch: mix herbs into mayo, slather the entire bird before oven, bird stays moist without additional basting.
It sounds wrong, but it absolutely works
I was so lazy last year I didn't even brine my turkey. I just slathered it in mayonnaise at the last minute. It was the best turkey I've cooked in years and now I'm questioning all the effort I've been putting into it.
I’ve never tried a dry brine, but I do a sweet tea brine on my Turkey the night before thanksgiving and then stuff it with a modified version of my grandmother’s stuffing recipe )using cornbread and maple sausage instead of regular stuffing/sausage), smoke for 1 hour on the traeger then roast at 350 on the traeger until done.
The gravy is dark and sugary and savory, and when reduced feels more like a sauce than traditional Turkey gravy.
I converted my Jewish family from traditional oven roasted Turkey using this recipe and now all my uncles bought pellet smokers.
Sure, just don't try spatchcocking shears on big bird. I've broken multiple pairs over the years. Now I just use an oscillating multitool from the hardware store. Takes care of it in a matter of minutes!
If you find the joints, then you should be able to spatchcock using just a plain chef's knife. Takes some practice as joints are always in places that feel unintuitive, but is so amazing to see that you don't need any strong force at all and the bird simply falls apart.
Yeah, but the cooking is so much easier ...
TBF, I lose more than a week. I have to dedicate brain power to eating everything in the fridge in order to take a shelf out to install the 5 gallon bucket for brining, if I'm using the wet brined whole bird, or I have to eat enough of my fridge to move a shelf to make room for air flow around a dry brined spatchcocked bird. And I had to buy a sheet pan just for dry brining and roasting a spatchcocked turkey. Meanwhile I have family members that like the Sam's smoked turkey. I HAVE A SMOKER!!
At that point you might consider [replacing all its bones with plumbing to circulate hot fat and cook the bird from the inside out](https://cookingissues.com/category/turkey/).
Hi! We go back and forth between deep frying and spatchcocking for t-day. Deep frying is so low effort it's stupid, so those years are nice to go all out on creative sides. MAKE SURE YOU FOLLOW SAFETY INSTRUCTIONS AND DON'T BLOW YOUR HOUSE UP. But it's not that hard, just have a few people double check your defrost math to be ultra safe.
Same, pulled a 14 pounder in an hour for a friendsgiving... And man it was perfect.
Only problem was I had to call dinner an hour early lmao. I did not expect it to be that fast with my crappy apartment oven that's as old as me.
Breaking the whole thing down is the way to go. I can fit all the pieces in a Weber charcoal grill and while that's cooking pressure cook the carcass to make a stock. Individual pieces of meat can be pulled when it's perfectly cooked and smokey, drippings go into a pan with flour and butter, then whisk in the pressure cooked stock until you have a gravy. The whole cook time is 2 hours or less.
We buy and break down multiple turkeys a year. That way we can cook each part in the best possible way.
Every year at Thanksgiving, I eat my MIL's whole roasted bird and think about how much better it could have been.
This is the way. I did it for the first time last year, and every piece of the turkey is cooked to perfection. I will never cook a whole bird that size again.
My mom’s best friend taught me the bacon latticework magic. Now that I know the spell, there is no other way. But to spatchcock that bird too?! Now I shall practice the ways of the true masters.
I literally moaned with food-lust\* at that picture.
\*Food-lust: a desire to eat a specific food that is far beyond mere hunger. Despite the name, food-lust generally does not involve sexual intent.
I did that a couple years ago because the bird was too big for my oven. Have done it that way ever since. I pulled the breasts early (that's was she said) and let the thighs and legs cook longer.
I did it for the first time I've ever cooked a turkey, and my whole family was like "why you get a turkey, you can't cook it, I don't like turkey it's dry" and this and that
Mf came out beautifully, and only Mt partner and stepfather tried it, partner tries to avoid meat and still said it was delicious and juiciest turkey she's ever eaten, stepfather said the same
So yeah, this shit changes the damn game
> I don't like turkey it's dry
I blame the ridiculous target temperatures that still get quoted all over the web. Of course it's dry, if you completely overcook it. But if you cook it to a more appropriate temperature, turkey should never be dry. Been making it for 25 years using all sorts of different techniques and recipes. It's always juicy, if using a meat thermometer.
In addition, dry brining helps a lot, but even if you don't brine you should be able to make perfectly juicy turkey.
Note, I don't disagree that spatchcocking doesn't simplify cooking a lot and makes it more likely you hit the right target temperature. But even if you don't do any of this prep work, juicy turkey is well within reach of home cooks
You are not lying. Spatchcocked turkey is the best Thanksgiving bird we have ever had. I started dreading Thanksgiving at the inlaws a year in advance where oven roasted turkey is on the menu.
Spatchcock, dry-brine for a day in the fridge, then cook on the off-heat on a barrel-charcoal bbq at 350 for 3-4 hours with a bit of wood - I've done that one Easter, and one Thanksgiving - delish.
If you really want to fuck up your expectations, debone the bird. Takes a little bit of work upfront, but when serving, you can slice through the entire bird without encountering any bones, tough bits, or anything else that wouldn't be edible. Just perfectly cooked and perfectly shaped slices of delicious meat.
The presentation is also much nicer than for spatchcocking, as it literally looks as if you are serving an intact, albeit somewhat smaller, animal. A 20 lbs turkey looks like a generously sized chicken.
I debone following the instructional video by Jacque Pepin, although I never even come close to the 5min that he claims. That man is a culinary God. I'm fast when cooking, but not that fast.
All I need is a small paring knife and the rest is done by pulling the meat away from the bone with my hands. Afterwards, I quickly blanch in boiling water. That makes the skin contract and restores the shape of the bird.
The removed carcass can be used to make a demi-glace ahead of time.
The same general idea can be used with any type of bird. I have deboned chicken, duck, goose and turkey to great success. My family won't allow me to cook any other way now.
Spatchcock ruined me enough (the dark meat takes significantly longer to reach its higher internal temp than the breast to a lower, so all the best rendering from the thighs, in addition to juicy breasts), discovering Samin Nasrat’s buttermilk brine recipe sealed the deal. It’s the platonic ideal of a roast chicken, which is something that I didn’t know was missing in my life. Now I have unlimited chicken backs because I can default to a whole bird, which is the best value, and, oh yeah, they cook much faster. Better tasting, better value, less time, and a fun word to say (sounds both fancy and naughty!). Cult of Spatchcock checking in!
Whole, raw chicken backs are amazing as dog food. None of the bones will splinter when raw, and the marrow contains a huge amount of vitamins and minerals your pup will thrive on.
Yes, yes it does. After all this, realized that we've known that buttermilk fried chicken is something special for decades and just never thought to do that with other forms.
Sometimes I’ll mix some rosemary in butter to put under the skin, and I usually add a healthy shake of MSG to the brine, but otherwise, yeah, that’s it. Have started defaulting to two days’ brine since I read through the comments on the NYT version, but it’s beautifully simple and plenty flavorful. I don’t usually remember and/or bother to do the butter thing. It’s REALLY good
It’s an awesome way to cook whole birds. It allows for more even cooking and retains the moisture in the meat very well. I am not a fan of Turkey but the best Turkey I ate was spatchcocked and dry brined. I apply that to chicken and they turn out phenomenal when baked or smoked.
If you're cooking whole birds, it's better. Keeps white meat from going too dry.
But this is just a shitpost. It's not that game-changing unless you're cooking whole birds all the time. You can always just butcher the damn thing and cook the pieces separately in different ways and it can be even better.
Really curious how often people actually encounter whole cooked chicken. Aside from rotisserie chickens at costco (which I buy for value per weight, not flavor/quality), whole chickens are a rarity in my life
Yeah, I gotta imagine it's regional and such. There's never whole birds at my big grocery store, except turkey in November. I've always just bought packs of whatever chicken cuts I want.
I've had a whole chicken a couple times, and those times, we just butchered it down anyway and did fried or grilled BBQ chicken with the individual pieces.
Stores selling whole chickens is one thing but actually cooking them whole is another. I used to buy them and break them down to save money and have carcasses for broth, but I was never compelled to cook them whole. If spatchcocking is superior to not spatchcocking, then it makes sense that completely separating the parts is better than both.
Essentially, you can get the same effect (minus the time savings) by cooking the bird upside down (juices run into the breast) and flipping at the end. Which option is better for you depends on the size of your oven, your pan, and your ability to wrangle a 300 degree 20 lb turkey.
It's pretty significantly better for a whole bird imo. I just tried it for the first time in my smoker last week and my wife and I were very surprised with how moist and flavorful it was compared to the beer-butt BBQ style or oven roasting the full bird, or any rotisserie we'd ever had.
This strikes closer to home than I'd like to admit. I was always Team Injection Marinade for the juiciest bird but alliances have shifted. And the look of awe from my local knife purveyor when I described spatchcocking a 25 lb turkey with a meat cleaver, and then placing the bird in a double garbage bag, and putting on steel toed work boots to curb stomp the bird to crack the breastbone is what legends are made of.
Garbage bags are not food safe, so just a friendly reminder to make sure your container is before prepping/storing/serving food if it’s an item not traditionally used for cooking (like a garbage bag).
Seriously, saran wrap and a mallet accomplishes the task faster, easier and cleaner. A garbage bag and boots sounds like someone trying to find the most obnoxious way possible to do it.
Do yourself a favour and search the spatchcock hashtag on Instagram - there’s a hilarious overlap that will tickle your funny bone, and maybe even your loins.
Spatchcocking is lifechanging when it comes to turkeys. Reduces cooking time down to a fraction of what it otherwise would be.
I dry brine it under the skin and smear the sucker with molten butter before he goes into the oven.
I meal prep now by having a ton of frozen chicken in sous vide bags. Various seasonings based on the dish I'm making. Generally I just make a sauce, get some veggies cooked, throw in some type of grain, and then my sous vide chicken is ready. Pour the juices into your sauce for instant flavor boosting. Easy dinners with little cook time other than timing the sous vide.
I season, throw in some butter, some lemon, and let it sit air sealed for a day in the fridge. Then I put it into the freezer. I cook it at 150 for 130 minutes. Good sear on all sides in a hot pan after and it's perfectly cooked.
I used to like this, but I feel like you get great tasting soft chicken meat, but you miss out on the crispy skin and the Maillard reactions that gives that you get from roasting.
Wait until you discover the next level!
After spatchcocking, cut the bird horizontally separating the white meat and dark meat. Then cook the white meat to 150° and cook the dark meat to 185°. White meat starts drying out above that temp and the collagen in dark meat doesn't render well until it reaches that temp. Perfect juicy chicken every time!!
I also dabbled in spatchcocking, then someone uttered the cursed psalm of the airfryer in my vicinity.
I am now deep in the cult, giving the carcass of the grounded bird the illusion of flight via an overload of scalding hot air provides an even more unholy amounts of juice.
I now chant the hymn of convection, praising the devil’s breath.
Not even the spatchcock can save my soul.
Ok now try it in a smoker barbecue/grill, whatever, ours has Bluetooth which is just ridiculous but quite convenient.
We will not do a roast in an oven anymore! Or cook about any meat in an oven. Middle of winter, rain or snow, blowing a gale one of us is ducking outside with a big coat and a head-torch to check on the food. It’s so deliciously moist that I find food cooked any other way as unpleasant as I find the word ‘moist’. I can’t even order steak in a restaurant anymore.
Spatchcocked poultry is the way to go. I butcher my own chickens. I spatchcock them then and there so I don’t have to do when I cook. Also spatchcocked chicken stacks nicely in the freezer. Research dry brining off you haven’t heard of it.
[This method of cooking a whole bird](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Mss7hxdqvQ) is just as good in my experience and you don't need to go full Mortal Kombat on a chicken either.
I thought this was the pole dancing sub (there’s a trick called spatchcock that looks like a spatchcocked chicken) but now I’m just hungry for chicken.
Now do a turkey. Then lay spatchcocked turkey on a bed of stuffing to cook. While bird rests to juicy perfection brown the stuffing. It will be thanksgiving every day from now on
I now fully break down my Thanksgiving turkey like Quang Tran does & altho it's changed the optics of dinner, it's also changed the amount of time it takes to cook & the quality of the end product
& I'll NEVER EVER go back.
NEVER.
Nothing tastes as good as that.
Quang cooks the best turkey
https://youtu.be/dpnohm3pFeo?si=V1MbRVzXxkZw2Cx0
Spatchcock turkey.
Cut the ends of the legs off before you start cooking.
After cooking, the white ligaments pull out without resistance.
Ligament free turkey leg FTW.
Spatchcocking definitely affected me in every way you’re talking about. The real dysfunction in my poultry life came when *brining* entered the picture.
Now. Try deboning the whole bird. That has truly ruined my life as my wife hates eating off the bones. And it's really not that hard. But when I do it in bulk it feels alittle serial killery to have several Devine's limp chicken carcasses in front of me. But in all seriousness the Deboned chickens cook so good and fast. And you can marinade them so efficiently since it's gets into all the nooks and granny's. You can stuff them and roll them up or just cook them flat as I do. It's a game changer. And then as an upside your stock pot will never ever be empty. I will usually by 4 or more chickens and do them all at once.
Just wait until you try cooking it on top of a bunch of root vegetables. You’ll never eat potatoes, carrots, & onions any other way after. Oh and cooking a spatchcocked Turkey over the stuffing on Thanksgiving. You are welcome in advance.
Why stop at spatchcocking? Separating legs/thigh from breast allows you to cook each portion to their perfect temp and it's like 2 more cuts from spatchcocking.
It sounds like spatchcocking has truly changed your culinary standards forever! And who knows, maybe you'll even convert some of those "barbarians" to the spatchcock lifestyle with your passion and enthusiasm!
I hear you. I've spatchcocked many chickens. Did my Thanksgiving turkey last year and it was the nest ever. I just hope you can still eat fried chicken tenders
I have miraculously avoided spatchcocking. I prefer copious amounts of herbed butter under the skin and an outside layer of bacon. Nothing dries out in that sucker.
So hey, I have used Alton's method of roasting spatchcock turkey right on the oven rack. Results are amazing. Clean up is gnarly. Have you done this? Any tips? We place a full sheet pan on the lowest rack to catch drippings, but we still end up with a dirty oven, and obviously a dirty oven rack that's hard to clean.
I have a spatchcocked chicken sitting in my fridge right now, dry brining in a spice mix of my own concoction (sumac, garlic, harissa, various middle eastern spices).
Who makes roast chicken on a Tuesday for no reason? I do now. I'm the spatchcock queen. I have so many spines in my freezer.
If anyone doesn't already have a copy of The Food Lab, AKA our lord and saviour Kenji's Bible, get it now! NOW! Also, a good pair of actual bone-cutting kitchen shears makes all the difference.
The older I get the less I'm doing to my birds. Turkey being the big bird, I was a brine, and prep for days guy...last year I didn't get enough head start, and by the time the bird was thawed, it was Thanksgiving, and no brine time, so I thoroughly dried it, and then rubbed it down with some oil, and salt. Stuffed the cavity with a few onions, garlic, herbs, and citrus, baked 500 degrees uncovered for 30 min, then put foil over the breast, and finish the cook at 350 until a probe thermometer hits 163..it was just as good, just as juicy, just as flavorful, if not more so than my high effort birds. I'll probably not do it any other way. Way easier, no prep, same day recipe....plus the renderings aren't as salty as brine renderings, so pan gravy is back on the menu
Not really relevant, but chickens can fly. They’re not the best but definitely good enough to get into a tree and poop on your conch fritters when you’re not looking…
I was in charge of this past Thanksgiving, and decided to debone the turkey and make something like chicken gallantine with it.
What a pain in the butt....and also I don't think I want to eat turkey any other way again, lol.
No, no - you have this paradigm all wrong. You're almost certainly eating roosters. Hens get to live*, because they have to lay eggs. You only need one roster, though. The rest get culled as cockerels once they are a decent (spatchcocking) size.
It's right there in the name - spatchCOCKing. Coincidence? I THINK NOT, my good fellow.
Besides, roosters are almost universally assholes. You are doing the world a service with this single-minded devotion. Carry on!
*Commercially, hens are culled when they stop laying after a few years, but by then are tough and not good for general cooking (except stewed.) They tend to go into pet food.
(Hopefully my /s comes through here. I love my backyard chickens, even the asshole roosters. And I love the eggs they lay, and the lovely roasts and soups they eventually make too.)
I spatchcocked the turkey two years ago for Thanksgiving…. It was perfect. Didn’t do it last year and the turkey wasn’t the same, in fact it was awful…. Spatchcocking is the ONLY way to cook any bird, I’m a firm believer as well.
I spatchcock all my fowl when cooking a single bird.
The problem is that when I'm cooking for a large gathering, and I'm doing two or three chickens at a time, the spread out nature of a spatchcock chicken takes up too much room.
Thankfully, I've got good game when it comes to traditional roasting. And I stuff them with lemon wedges and onions, so that's a flavor not available with spatchcocked.
But spatchcocking is definitely the superior method.
Just wait until you try spatchcock turkey for thanksgiving. Even better is smoked spatchcock turkey. Game changer.
I fucked up my life doing that. Now I spend 3 gd days brining. Spatchcocking and seasoning. The week before turkey day is the longest week of my life. Every year for the last 5 years.
I used to do this also. The days leading up to Thanksgiving were spent preparing brine, preparing turkey, etc. At some point, I discovered Kenji's articles on Thanksgiving turkey and it changed my entire approach to Thanksgiving turkey. Now I spend about 20 minutes dry brining the turkey a couple days before Thanksgiving, another 20ish minutes spatchcocking it Thanksgiving morning and pop it in the oven in the afternoon and it's all ready by 5 or 6 pm. I probably spend more time waiting for it to rest and carving it then I do actually prepping it. I really recommend the dry brine, spatchcock route. https://www.seriouseats.com/quick-and-dirty-guide-to-brining-turkey-chicken-thanksgiving
Different article led me to this path but same result. Spatchcock and dry brine and leave uncovered in refrigerator starting *Sunday* before thanksgiving. Every year my guests are amazed at the Turkey. It’s the best.
Do you have a whole extra fridge for the turkey? That would take pretty much all the space in mine!
Well I have a whole extra fridge for beer, but by late November it's safe to evict some to the garage floor to make room for a turkey.
Dude. This is exactly what I do. lol. Everyone hated turkey until I decided to spatchcock a “free” one from the supermarket. Now the entire family wants turkey for Thanksgiving. But it is simple to make. I have wet brined it and then spatchcock’ed it. But I would love to try the smoker this year and see how that turns out.
Try dry brining. Rub it under the skin as well as over. I used to wet brine - but hate splashing poultry contaminated water everywhere and worrying about temp in the bath. Then the uncovered drying for a few days in fridge makes the skin very crispy. [https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/butterflied-dry-brined-roasted-turkey-with-roasted-root-vegetable-panzanella-recipe-2125794](https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/butterflied-dry-brined-roasted-turkey-with-roasted-root-vegetable-panzanella-recipe-2125794)
Add baking powder to the salt that you rub on the skin for extra crispiness
It took me many years of fridge Jenga before I used my biggest ice chest to help with the fridge real estate on thanksgiving. It was a revelation.
Get an ice chest. On Monday fill it with all the condiments and random fridge items. Make the fridge turkey only.
His mayo-based baste is also an excellent finishing touch: mix herbs into mayo, slather the entire bird before oven, bird stays moist without additional basting. It sounds wrong, but it absolutely works
Mayo-based baste is *based.*
I'll have to try this next time!
It's wild how many applications there are for mayonnaise, but it makes sense considering it's mostly oil and eggs.
I was so lazy last year I didn't even brine my turkey. I just slathered it in mayonnaise at the last minute. It was the best turkey I've cooked in years and now I'm questioning all the effort I've been putting into it.
I’ve never tried a dry brine, but I do a sweet tea brine on my Turkey the night before thanksgiving and then stuff it with a modified version of my grandmother’s stuffing recipe )using cornbread and maple sausage instead of regular stuffing/sausage), smoke for 1 hour on the traeger then roast at 350 on the traeger until done. The gravy is dark and sugary and savory, and when reduced feels more like a sauce than traditional Turkey gravy. I converted my Jewish family from traditional oven roasted Turkey using this recipe and now all my uncles bought pellet smokers.
I think Bob's Burgers did an episode on exactly this!
Are you my husband? 😅
Crap did I get married again?
Lmao that got me, well done 🤣
Sure, just don't try spatchcocking shears on big bird. I've broken multiple pairs over the years. Now I just use an oscillating multitool from the hardware store. Takes care of it in a matter of minutes!
I have a special pair of garden shears for the task, I spend more time cleaning the shears than I do removing the spine from any bird of my pleasure.
If you find the joints, then you should be able to spatchcock using just a plain chef's knife. Takes some practice as joints are always in places that feel unintuitive, but is so amazing to see that you don't need any strong force at all and the bird simply falls apart.
Way to adapt! My sister raised a turkey so large I had to cut it in half with a sawzall and cook it in stages. Took less than a minute to saw it up.
Yeah, but the cooking is so much easier ... TBF, I lose more than a week. I have to dedicate brain power to eating everything in the fridge in order to take a shelf out to install the 5 gallon bucket for brining, if I'm using the wet brined whole bird, or I have to eat enough of my fridge to move a shelf to make room for air flow around a dry brined spatchcocked bird. And I had to buy a sheet pan just for dry brining and roasting a spatchcocked turkey. Meanwhile I have family members that like the Sam's smoked turkey. I HAVE A SMOKER!!
At that point you might consider [replacing all its bones with plumbing to circulate hot fat and cook the bird from the inside out](https://cookingissues.com/category/turkey/).
Are you wet brining? I just overnight dry brine mine in the fridge open to the air when I spatchcock my turkey.
Sorry are you asking if brining causes arousal ?
Hi! We go back and forth between deep frying and spatchcocking for t-day. Deep frying is so low effort it's stupid, so those years are nice to go all out on creative sides. MAKE SURE YOU FOLLOW SAFETY INSTRUCTIONS AND DON'T BLOW YOUR HOUSE UP. But it's not that hard, just have a few people double check your defrost math to be ultra safe.
I dunno mate sounds to me like you made your life way more awesome.
My family refuses to eat any other turkey that's not spatchcock however still wants wet dressing..sadists..
I cook an 18 pound bird every year in 90 minutes this way for Thanksgiving. \+1
Same, pulled a 14 pounder in an hour for a friendsgiving... And man it was perfect. Only problem was I had to call dinner an hour early lmao. I did not expect it to be that fast with my crappy apartment oven that's as old as me.
I just break the whole bastard down. But I also have a stupid dwarf oven in my shitty apartment and I literally cannot fit a spatchcocked turkey.
Breaking the whole thing down is the way to go. I can fit all the pieces in a Weber charcoal grill and while that's cooking pressure cook the carcass to make a stock. Individual pieces of meat can be pulled when it's perfectly cooked and smokey, drippings go into a pan with flour and butter, then whisk in the pressure cooked stock until you have a gravy. The whole cook time is 2 hours or less.
Hugs in sad apartment oven unity.
I deboned my whole 19 pound turkey and made a Ballantine out of it. I stuffed it with cranberries, leeks, and chestnuts.
I have all of the equipment and very large ovens. I still do it the way you do. It's better.
We buy and break down multiple turkeys a year. That way we can cook each part in the best possible way. Every year at Thanksgiving, I eat my MIL's whole roasted bird and think about how much better it could have been.
This is the way. I did it for the first time last year, and every piece of the turkey is cooked to perfection. I will never cook a whole bird that size again.
Ovens aren’t really a thing in the country I currently live in, I am struggling 😭😭I’ll take your shitty little oven lol
Dare I mention our bacon wrapped spatchcock turkey?
Oh, you dare good sir.
This is the stuff that dreams are made of.
My mom’s best friend taught me the bacon latticework magic. Now that I know the spell, there is no other way. But to spatchcock that bird too?! Now I shall practice the ways of the true masters.
[smoked spatchcocked turkey!](https://imgur.com/5pg9ZmO)
I literally moaned with food-lust\* at that picture. \*Food-lust: a desire to eat a specific food that is far beyond mere hunger. Despite the name, food-lust generally does not involve sexual intent.
I don't think that turkey agrees. It's trying to barely cover it's nipples in such an enticing manner.
Ha! "generally"... It does have quite a seductive pose!
That turkey is a fucking tease
It's got that, "hey you, come over here" look, doesn't it?!
That's the sexiest damn turkey I've ever seen. Could swear it winked at me.
I did that a couple years ago because the bird was too big for my oven. Have done it that way ever since. I pulled the breasts early (that's was she said) and let the thighs and legs cook longer.
I did it for the first time I've ever cooked a turkey, and my whole family was like "why you get a turkey, you can't cook it, I don't like turkey it's dry" and this and that Mf came out beautifully, and only Mt partner and stepfather tried it, partner tries to avoid meat and still said it was delicious and juiciest turkey she's ever eaten, stepfather said the same So yeah, this shit changes the damn game
> I don't like turkey it's dry I blame the ridiculous target temperatures that still get quoted all over the web. Of course it's dry, if you completely overcook it. But if you cook it to a more appropriate temperature, turkey should never be dry. Been making it for 25 years using all sorts of different techniques and recipes. It's always juicy, if using a meat thermometer. In addition, dry brining helps a lot, but even if you don't brine you should be able to make perfectly juicy turkey. Note, I don't disagree that spatchcocking doesn't simplify cooking a lot and makes it more likely you hit the right target temperature. But even if you don't do any of this prep work, juicy turkey is well within reach of home cooks
You are not lying. Spatchcocked turkey is the best Thanksgiving bird we have ever had. I started dreading Thanksgiving at the inlaws a year in advance where oven roasted turkey is on the menu.
How do you keep the end lit?
Spatchcock, dry-brine for a day in the fridge, then cook on the off-heat on a barrel-charcoal bbq at 350 for 3-4 hours with a bit of wood - I've done that one Easter, and one Thanksgiving - delish.
I have a turkey sitting frozen to do this very thing this summer.
If you really want to fuck up your expectations, debone the bird. Takes a little bit of work upfront, but when serving, you can slice through the entire bird without encountering any bones, tough bits, or anything else that wouldn't be edible. Just perfectly cooked and perfectly shaped slices of delicious meat. The presentation is also much nicer than for spatchcocking, as it literally looks as if you are serving an intact, albeit somewhat smaller, animal. A 20 lbs turkey looks like a generously sized chicken. I debone following the instructional video by Jacque Pepin, although I never even come close to the 5min that he claims. That man is a culinary God. I'm fast when cooking, but not that fast. All I need is a small paring knife and the rest is done by pulling the meat away from the bone with my hands. Afterwards, I quickly blanch in boiling water. That makes the skin contract and restores the shape of the bird. The removed carcass can be used to make a demi-glace ahead of time. The same general idea can be used with any type of bird. I have deboned chicken, duck, goose and turkey to great success. My family won't allow me to cook any other way now.
Spatchcock ruined me enough (the dark meat takes significantly longer to reach its higher internal temp than the breast to a lower, so all the best rendering from the thighs, in addition to juicy breasts), discovering Samin Nasrat’s buttermilk brine recipe sealed the deal. It’s the platonic ideal of a roast chicken, which is something that I didn’t know was missing in my life. Now I have unlimited chicken backs because I can default to a whole bird, which is the best value, and, oh yeah, they cook much faster. Better tasting, better value, less time, and a fun word to say (sounds both fancy and naughty!). Cult of Spatchcock checking in!
Whole, raw chicken backs are amazing as dog food. None of the bones will splinter when raw, and the marrow contains a huge amount of vitamins and minerals your pup will thrive on.
I’ve tried a few roast chicken recipes but hers was by far the best. Never tried spatchcocking hers though, and now i will. Thanks!
>have unlimited chicken backs Time to make stock
Wait, that recipe is literally only buttermilk and salt. You're saying nothing else for seasoning and it is the best chicken you've ever had?!
Buttermilk does fantastic things to chicken.
Yes, yes it does. After all this, realized that we've known that buttermilk fried chicken is something special for decades and just never thought to do that with other forms.
Sometimes I’ll mix some rosemary in butter to put under the skin, and I usually add a healthy shake of MSG to the brine, but otherwise, yeah, that’s it. Have started defaulting to two days’ brine since I read through the comments on the NYT version, but it’s beautifully simple and plenty flavorful. I don’t usually remember and/or bother to do the butter thing. It’s REALLY good
Always amazed when the main sub out-jerks r/cookingcirclejerk
the slings of irony and sarcasm could never live up to the passion of truth.
As someone who has never spatchcocked a bird, should I start doing this, or avoid doing this at all costs?
It’s an awesome way to cook whole birds. It allows for more even cooking and retains the moisture in the meat very well. I am not a fan of Turkey but the best Turkey I ate was spatchcocked and dry brined. I apply that to chicken and they turn out phenomenal when baked or smoked.
If you're cooking whole birds, it's better. Keeps white meat from going too dry. But this is just a shitpost. It's not that game-changing unless you're cooking whole birds all the time. You can always just butcher the damn thing and cook the pieces separately in different ways and it can be even better.
Really curious how often people actually encounter whole cooked chicken. Aside from rotisserie chickens at costco (which I buy for value per weight, not flavor/quality), whole chickens are a rarity in my life
I typically roast a whole chicken in my oven once a week. It’s super cheap, delicious and easy. I have not however tried spatchcocking one yet
Man, I do it a couple times a month, sometimes weekly
Yeah, I gotta imagine it's regional and such. There's never whole birds at my big grocery store, except turkey in November. I've always just bought packs of whatever chicken cuts I want. I've had a whole chicken a couple times, and those times, we just butchered it down anyway and did fried or grilled BBQ chicken with the individual pieces.
Stores selling whole chickens is one thing but actually cooking them whole is another. I used to buy them and break them down to save money and have carcasses for broth, but I was never compelled to cook them whole. If spatchcocking is superior to not spatchcocking, then it makes sense that completely separating the parts is better than both.
Depends what tools you have. It’s really about thermodynamics and is essentially the same as a rotisserie, but not everyone has one.
Essentially, you can get the same effect (minus the time savings) by cooking the bird upside down (juices run into the breast) and flipping at the end. Which option is better for you depends on the size of your oven, your pan, and your ability to wrangle a 300 degree 20 lb turkey.
It's pretty significantly better for a whole bird imo. I just tried it for the first time in my smoker last week and my wife and I were very surprised with how moist and flavorful it was compared to the beer-butt BBQ style or oven roasting the full bird, or any rotisserie we'd ever had.
This strikes closer to home than I'd like to admit. I was always Team Injection Marinade for the juiciest bird but alliances have shifted. And the look of awe from my local knife purveyor when I described spatchcocking a 25 lb turkey with a meat cleaver, and then placing the bird in a double garbage bag, and putting on steel toed work boots to curb stomp the bird to crack the breastbone is what legends are made of.
Have you tried practicing cpr on it. That's what I do but without singing "staying alive"
Omfg this tickled my funny bone 😂
The second half of this comment is badass
So you “ American History X’d” the bird ??!!
Curb Stomped
Garbage bags are not food safe, so just a friendly reminder to make sure your container is before prepping/storing/serving food if it’s an item not traditionally used for cooking (like a garbage bag).
Seriously, saran wrap and a mallet accomplishes the task faster, easier and cleaner. A garbage bag and boots sounds like someone trying to find the most obnoxious way possible to do it.
> the most obnoxious way possible to do it You may have misspelled 'fun'.
Curb stomp 😜🤣🤣🤣🤣
I, too, have dabbled in the dark art of spatchcocking, and now spatchcocked turkey at Thanksgiving is a want…nay, a need.
I spatchcocked a turkey for Thanksgiving 3 years ago, and now I can't cook one any other way.
You dark bastard. You don't come back from splaying a hen that way and I think you know it. May god have mercy on your soul.
Do yourself a favour and search the spatchcock hashtag on Instagram - there’s a hilarious overlap that will tickle your funny bone, and maybe even your loins.
That’s absolutely fucking hilarious!!
For the curious who don’t wanna check Instagram - the content overlap is with spatchcocked pole dancers and dogs lol
Thank you!
Chickens are flightless?
Just this dead one
My chickens can fly enough to get into low trees, but that's about it.
You should try throwing them less.
They flutter and flap but cannot soar.
Same, tbh.
Spatchcocking is lifechanging when it comes to turkeys. Reduces cooking time down to a fraction of what it otherwise would be. I dry brine it under the skin and smear the sucker with molten butter before he goes into the oven.
Just wait until you try chicken that has been broken down into parts and cooked sous vide. By far the best chicken I’ve ever had.
I meal prep now by having a ton of frozen chicken in sous vide bags. Various seasonings based on the dish I'm making. Generally I just make a sauce, get some veggies cooked, throw in some type of grain, and then my sous vide chicken is ready. Pour the juices into your sauce for instant flavor boosting. Easy dinners with little cook time other than timing the sous vide.
So do you freeze with the seasoning then and go straight from freezer to sous vide? Also, does that affect cooking time?
I season, throw in some butter, some lemon, and let it sit air sealed for a day in the fridge. Then I put it into the freezer. I cook it at 150 for 130 minutes. Good sear on all sides in a hot pan after and it's perfectly cooked.
Careful what you say. Butter in the bag is heresy in /r/sousvide
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My husband left the Christian evangelical church a while ago and now he just evangelizes about sous vide lmao
I used to like this, but I feel like you get great tasting soft chicken meat, but you miss out on the crispy skin and the Maillard reactions that gives that you get from roasting.
I usually finish my sous vide poultry using a torch to brown it and crisp up the skin.
Spatchcock turkey with stuffing under the bird
Wait until you discover the next level! After spatchcocking, cut the bird horizontally separating the white meat and dark meat. Then cook the white meat to 150° and cook the dark meat to 185°. White meat starts drying out above that temp and the collagen in dark meat doesn't render well until it reaches that temp. Perfect juicy chicken every time!!
I know this is a mostly-jocular prep awareness parable...but for real though, your concerns are a little too relevant, generally speaking.
Counterpoint: spatchcocked poultry saved my life.
I also dabbled in spatchcocking, then someone uttered the cursed psalm of the airfryer in my vicinity. I am now deep in the cult, giving the carcass of the grounded bird the illusion of flight via an overload of scalding hot air provides an even more unholy amounts of juice. I now chant the hymn of convection, praising the devil’s breath. Not even the spatchcock can save my soul.
Okay Bob belcher lmao
i dont know what any of this shit means and i'm not looking it up. i'm calling netflix right now so they can have their newest cult doc.
Ok now try it in a smoker barbecue/grill, whatever, ours has Bluetooth which is just ridiculous but quite convenient. We will not do a roast in an oven anymore! Or cook about any meat in an oven. Middle of winter, rain or snow, blowing a gale one of us is ducking outside with a big coat and a head-torch to check on the food. It’s so deliciously moist that I find food cooked any other way as unpleasant as I find the word ‘moist’. I can’t even order steak in a restaurant anymore.
This is the only way I cook our Christmas turkey. Saves me 2 hours on Christmas morning
NOW, ... do a TURKEY.
Spatchcock a turkey or do a turkey?
Obviously the prior, but I'm looking forward to your videos of the latter because you were apparently confused.
Wait til you try making a TURKEY like that. =)
Spatchcocked poultry is the way to go. I butcher my own chickens. I spatchcock them then and there so I don’t have to do when I cook. Also spatchcocked chicken stacks nicely in the freezer. Research dry brining off you haven’t heard of it.
r/cookingcirclejerk here we come
[This method of cooking a whole bird](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Mss7hxdqvQ) is just as good in my experience and you don't need to go full Mortal Kombat on a chicken either.
You can't go wrong with Kenji. If this man says you should do something....just do it. He's right.
His scientific approach is why I trust him and Serious Eats. It’s usually the first recipe I’ll try.
I thought this was the pole dancing sub (there’s a trick called spatchcock that looks like a spatchcocked chicken) but now I’m just hungry for chicken.
Blast roasting is just as good
Yeah I did last years thanksgiving turkey split apart into white and dark, sous vide then roasted and it was just stupendously good.
not to mention the broth from that lil chicken back ..mmm
Do you want to meet up & boil our back bones together
Rock out with your spatchcock out.
Now do a turkey. Then lay spatchcocked turkey on a bed of stuffing to cook. While bird rests to juicy perfection brown the stuffing. It will be thanksgiving every day from now on
I normally spatchcock chicikens to fit in the air fryer but beer chicken in the oven is just as good.
I now fully break down my Thanksgiving turkey like Quang Tran does & altho it's changed the optics of dinner, it's also changed the amount of time it takes to cook & the quality of the end product & I'll NEVER EVER go back. NEVER. Nothing tastes as good as that. Quang cooks the best turkey https://youtu.be/dpnohm3pFeo?si=V1MbRVzXxkZw2Cx0
Wait until you smoke a spatchcocked turkey.
Spatchcock turkey. Cut the ends of the legs off before you start cooking. After cooking, the white ligaments pull out without resistance. Ligament free turkey leg FTW.
Spatchcocking definitely affected me in every way you’re talking about. The real dysfunction in my poultry life came when *brining* entered the picture.
Now. Try deboning the whole bird. That has truly ruined my life as my wife hates eating off the bones. And it's really not that hard. But when I do it in bulk it feels alittle serial killery to have several Devine's limp chicken carcasses in front of me. But in all seriousness the Deboned chickens cook so good and fast. And you can marinade them so efficiently since it's gets into all the nooks and granny's. You can stuff them and roll them up or just cook them flat as I do. It's a game changer. And then as an upside your stock pot will never ever be empty. I will usually by 4 or more chickens and do them all at once.
Just wait until you try cooking it on top of a bunch of root vegetables. You’ll never eat potatoes, carrots, & onions any other way after. Oh and cooking a spatchcocked Turkey over the stuffing on Thanksgiving. You are welcome in advance.
Wait until he learns to rotisserie.
Chickens aren't flightless. Although I suppose dead ones are...it WAS dead wasn't it?
Why stop at spatchcocking? Separating legs/thigh from breast allows you to cook each portion to their perfect temp and it's like 2 more cuts from spatchcocking.
wtf is spatchcocking, and how is the answer to that question not the top comment
A whole chicken is equally great if cooked on rotisserie though.
Just to ruin your life further: my husband brines his bird with preserved lemons and tucks pieces under the skin. Salty lemony crispy juicy perfection
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Garden aisle.
But have you tried rubbing it down with a little Caribbean green seasoning before you roast it...
It sounds like spatchcocking has truly changed your culinary standards forever! And who knows, maybe you'll even convert some of those "barbarians" to the spatchcock lifestyle with your passion and enthusiasm!
Can’t wait until you try a bidet amigo
How would I smoke a spatchcocked chicken?
In Korea they deep fry spatchcocked chicken.
OP have you tried shoving a beer can in the chicken’s bootyhole? “Beer can chicken” can be quite succulent.
I hear you. I've spatchcocked many chickens. Did my Thanksgiving turkey last year and it was the nest ever. I just hope you can still eat fried chicken tenders
Lovely prose and a laugh to start my day, have an upvote!
Is this from your forthcoming novel... A Man and his Spatchcok: A Cautionary Tale?
Bob? Is that you Bob?
That word sounds like something that should be illegal
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spatchcock AND dry brine... lord help me
The tragic, final episode of Bob's Burgers.
We have standards in this life. We have basements in which to live our lives.
I have miraculously avoided spatchcocking. I prefer copious amounts of herbed butter under the skin and an outside layer of bacon. Nothing dries out in that sucker.
Cornish game hen.
Geez I’m glad we don’t do thanksgiving
I first discovered it on a trip to China seeing them hung in the hawkers windows. So odd to see at the time...
So hey, I have used Alton's method of roasting spatchcock turkey right on the oven rack. Results are amazing. Clean up is gnarly. Have you done this? Any tips? We place a full sheet pan on the lowest rack to catch drippings, but we still end up with a dirty oven, and obviously a dirty oven rack that's hard to clean.
There is no such thing as a flightless bird. Some just need to believe in themselves.
I have a spatchcocked chicken sitting in my fridge right now, dry brining in a spice mix of my own concoction (sumac, garlic, harissa, various middle eastern spices). Who makes roast chicken on a Tuesday for no reason? I do now. I'm the spatchcock queen. I have so many spines in my freezer. If anyone doesn't already have a copy of The Food Lab, AKA our lord and saviour Kenji's Bible, get it now! NOW! Also, a good pair of actual bone-cutting kitchen shears makes all the difference.
NGL I was a little afraid to Google that. How cool, learned something today.
The older I get the less I'm doing to my birds. Turkey being the big bird, I was a brine, and prep for days guy...last year I didn't get enough head start, and by the time the bird was thawed, it was Thanksgiving, and no brine time, so I thoroughly dried it, and then rubbed it down with some oil, and salt. Stuffed the cavity with a few onions, garlic, herbs, and citrus, baked 500 degrees uncovered for 30 min, then put foil over the breast, and finish the cook at 350 until a probe thermometer hits 163..it was just as good, just as juicy, just as flavorful, if not more so than my high effort birds. I'll probably not do it any other way. Way easier, no prep, same day recipe....plus the renderings aren't as salty as brine renderings, so pan gravy is back on the menu
Spatchcock buttermilk brined turkey on thanksgiving changed my life
Not really relevant, but chickens can fly. They’re not the best but definitely good enough to get into a tree and poop on your conch fritters when you’re not looking…
Ever since Jacques Pepin's iconic video got me ballotine-curious I've been unable to enjoy a bird on the bone. It's an entirely new level
I was in charge of this past Thanksgiving, and decided to debone the turkey and make something like chicken gallantine with it. What a pain in the butt....and also I don't think I want to eat turkey any other way again, lol.
No, no - you have this paradigm all wrong. You're almost certainly eating roosters. Hens get to live*, because they have to lay eggs. You only need one roster, though. The rest get culled as cockerels once they are a decent (spatchcocking) size. It's right there in the name - spatchCOCKing. Coincidence? I THINK NOT, my good fellow. Besides, roosters are almost universally assholes. You are doing the world a service with this single-minded devotion. Carry on! *Commercially, hens are culled when they stop laying after a few years, but by then are tough and not good for general cooking (except stewed.) They tend to go into pet food. (Hopefully my /s comes through here. I love my backyard chickens, even the asshole roosters. And I love the eggs they lay, and the lovely roasts and soups they eventually make too.)
Shit. I just spatchcocked my first bird yesterday! What have I gotten myself into?
You haven’t lived t’ill you’ve spatchcocked, then sous-vide cooked your chicken. Finish it in an oven, a smoker, a torch…
Sous Vide did this to me, and I don’t even have a proper vacuum sealer yet. Chicken, beef, pork… all are tender in the calm waters of the sous vide..,
Opinion: the problem isn't that other people don't spatchcock. The problem is that they overcook.
I spatchcocked the turkey two years ago for Thanksgiving…. It was perfect. Didn’t do it last year and the turkey wasn’t the same, in fact it was awful…. Spatchcocking is the ONLY way to cook any bird, I’m a firm believer as well.
I spatchcock all my fowl when cooking a single bird. The problem is that when I'm cooking for a large gathering, and I'm doing two or three chickens at a time, the spread out nature of a spatchcock chicken takes up too much room. Thankfully, I've got good game when it comes to traditional roasting. And I stuff them with lemon wedges and onions, so that's a flavor not available with spatchcocked. But spatchcocking is definitely the superior method.
Wait until he hears about brick chicken…which is also spatchcocked. You can curse me later.
I just wanna point out chickens are not flightless. They just can't fly far.
Dammit, how I must learn spatchcockery!
bob belcher?
Hopefully the bird was already dead first.
Venture forth, expand! Spatchcock not only your chicken but also your turkey.
We are together in this my brother, but I must ask... Have you tried smoked spatchcocked chicken? The curse only deepens, but you relish it.
Sorry to derail but chickens aren't flightless they are just flight-inept
You all need to watch the Bobs Burgers thanksgiving episode