11.19.2014

It's also just plain fun to say.

We had our big Thanksgiving lunch at work this week, and since(no need for false modesty here) I am the best cook at work, I jumped on the grenade of preparing the turkey.  With access to two Traeger's at work, I planned on smoking the turkey instead of hogging the ovens that people were going to need to warm up other food in.  Since I was not motivated enough to spend the night before at work, I initially discarded the idea of doing whole turkey's and started looking at just throwing some faster cooking breasts on the grill.

But, even though it wasn't just my money I was spending, the cheapskate in me took over.  Restaurant style REAL boneless turkey breasts(not the boneless 2.5 pound breast roasts you can find at all the stores) was over $3.20 a pound...and even bone-in breasts were almost $2.00 a pound.  At Win-co, I could get whole turkeys for .88 cents a pound...but there was the time issue, which had me all tied up in knot's, until the internet machine taught me about Spatchcocking.


Spatchcocking is basically a fun to say, attention grabbing word for 'butterflying'.  You take your turkey, and with a nice pair of kitchen shears, you snip along each side of the back-bone, removing it.
From there you can either use a knife to remove the wish bone, or just give the bird CPR, breaking the breastbone and cartilage until you get the bird to lay adequately flat.


The first one was tough, but by numbers 4 and 5...it was going to pretty okay.  After opening the birds up, I lightly brined them(only 1/3rd cup of salt per gallon of water) because they were Jennie-O pre-basted turkeys, and then brought them into work and then split 5 birds between two Traegers. 


I was a popular guy...and the turkey was AMAZING.  No fewer than 8 other guys were saying that they were now going to try this technique for their turkeys next week.  Because it was cold, I ran the Traegers at about 300 degrees for almost three hours.  I could have probably done 275...but I didn't want them to take too long, plus...you don't want them in the 'Danger Zone' too long...better to get them heating faster.

Too bad you there is no scratch and sniff around here. 

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