We read this quote from Tyler Florence in the November issue of House Beautiful: "Roasting a whole turkey to get a perfectly cooked breast is the equivalent of cooking half a cow for a nice filet mignon." It's true—how often do we douse our breast meat in gravy because it's dried out? Well, this is one solution.
You're giving up the ta-da of presenting a whole, hulking bird on a platter, but honestly, he gets carved up pretty quickly. And we think a split carcass looks just as impressive.
Tyler's tip (and his recipe for Split-Roasted Turkey Buried in Herbs, which isn't yet available on the House Beautiful website) is slightly different than what's pictured above. He recommends completely separating the two halves, as opposed to just removing the backbone and flattening out the whole bird. But either way, the concept is the same: You can cook it in less time, so the breast meat doesn't dry out. Plus, rather than being perched on some roasting rack, the meat is nestled into the pan with the seasonings and juices, keeping it moist.
FYI a butcher can split a turkey for you if you don't feel confident enough to do it at home.
• Recipe pictured above: Butterflied Turkey with Apple-Cranberry Glaze, from Food Network Magazine.
Has anyone tried this? What's your take?
Related: How to Cut Up a Turkey Before Roasting
(Image: Steve Giralt)
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I think it was my Entertaining magazine (from the America's Test Kitchen folks) that also suggested purchasing bone-in breast, legs, and thighs separately in order to help even out cooking. Both great ideas!
We followed Tyler's recipe last Thanksgiving and were amazed at how well it turned out. It was a little tricky getting the whole bird into the pan flat, we had to overlap the halves a little. He shared the recipe on the Today show last year.
I tried this a couple years ago - using a Martha Stewart recipe to spatchcock the bird. I cut open the turkey with no problems, but it was darn near impossible to flatten it out and hey, I'm a culinary school grad. I might be willing to try it this way, tho - cutting out the backbone seems much easier than breaking it.
Roast spatchcocked turkey is wonderful, really wonderful actually kind of Thansgiving changing. Plus, it cooks really really fast. We also use the MS recipe.
http://www.marthastewart.com/355976/roast-spatchcocked-turkey
One year we had the butcher do it and one year we did it ourselves.
The Washington Post ran an article on this a few years ago - they used the other term for it, spatchcock. It cooked in less time and tasted great. Cutting the backbone was somewhat scary since the rib pieces were sharp, but after that it was a cinch.
Oh, also key is to dry brine it and let the skin dry out a la Zuni cafe. Deeply seasoned without the flab of wet brining with an awesome crisp skin
Last year I cut the bird in half at the waist. I separated the breast 1/2 from the legs/thighs 1/2 and started the leg half first. It was great no over cooked breast and you could still stick the 2 halves back together back on the platter for presentation.
We did a dry brine last year and then spatchcocked the turkey. It was great - juicy and definitely cooked faster. I like the idea of completely separating the two halves for easier placement in the roasting pan.
We did this for Thanksgiving this year. We free-ranged and butchered our own turkeys so I didn't want to risk ruining it. It turned out amazingly well and I'll do it this way from now on.
Jonnifer it also got all the skin really crispy. The bottom half (legs) was roasted with all the bottom side skin up so no flabby stewed skin there!
But what about the stuffing??? :(
LauraJC
I was a little worried about the stuffing. I cooked it in lidded ceramic dish with a really fatty homemade stock and it was great.
we "had" to do this last year since we and by we i mean my husband forgot to check the frying set-up the night before ;) it turned out for the best since the bird came out beautifully juicy and was cooked in about half the time and had the added bonus of not taking up nearly as much room in the oven leaving plenty of room for all the side dishes
LauraJC-
For a smaller bird- 14 pounds or less- it works out perfectly. Put the stuffing/dressing in a roasting pan; put the butterflied turkey (or turkey pieces) on a perforated broiler pan over the stuffing, and cook for 1.5-2 hours. Voila! Stuffing that is both crispy on the edges (especially if you return it to the oven while the bird rests),AND full of the turkey juices (don't use much butter in prepping the stuffing!). I then use the backbone, neck, and giblets to make a stock and gravy. This is a Cook's Illustrated approach from about 10 years ago.