Let's just cut to the chase: Turkey is wack. It tastes like mashed printer paper and primetime CBS programming. Yet, every year we find the bird back on our tables on Thanksgiving, in the refrigerator on Black Friday, on a sad-ass turkey sandwich on Cyber Monday, and in the trash sometime after that.
Before you begin to raise your grease stained paw to interject that “My momma, grandmama, big momma, abuela, nne nne, babushka, guardian's, turkey ain’t dry.”
Yes, it fucking is.
It’s dryer than a crackhead’s lips.
There’s nothing you can do to salvage the physical dimensions of the bird. The meat to flavor ratio is just too damn high. Chicken wings are delicious because the physical size of the wing allows for maximum flavor seepage. It’s basic math. Density = Mass/Volume.
Sadly, too many of you are out there are trying to box with God. You simple mortals think you can bend the fabric of the universe and make our seasonal flightless fowl as delicious as a chicken or a duck. People are attempting, beyond all good reason, to fight the inherent dryness of turkey by engaging in culinary practices that range from ridiculously time consuming to absurd. Someone in your family is risking their time or maybe even their life trying these.
Brining
As a culinary technique, there’s nothing wrong with brining. You get some seasonings, boil ‘em up and sit your uncooked bird in the liquid and hope it absorbs some of flavor into the blank and empty canvas that is its flesh. That all sounds good until you realize, it takes at least a whole 24 hours of sitting in the fridge, to complete a good brine.
If you ever been the head chef on Thanksgiving, you know time and space are of the essence. You’ve got this big ass turkey in the fridge, taking up space, in a futile attempt to make it juicy, and now you're trying to fit the potato salad in there. You move the potato salad on top of grandma’s sweet potato pie and everybody gotta eat smushed pie pancake because of you.
Do you really want to add a whole day to prepping? Especially, if you get behind schedule. Think about the orange juice you'll save and passive aggressive complaints you'll dodge by getting your diabetic aunt fed on time.
Deep Fried
Scientifically, anything fried is delicious. If you go to any county fair across the country and you can get anything from Oreos to Kool aid battered, dipped in some kind of grease and fried up.
But, are you really willing to sacrifice Uncle Reggie's life for some damn turkey?
First of all, you have to fry turkey outside because it could blow up your damn house.
Secondly, Uncle Reggie is neither a chef nor a professional chemist and he really should not be handling a ten gallon vat of flaming oil.
Every year there's a fried turkey disaster, do you want it to happen to your family?
Do you know how Uncle Charles died in Tha Crossroads? I don't know either but it they never said it wasn't from fried turkey.
Plus, 7 times out of 10, it comes out hard as shit.
Pillowcased?
This right here is an indication of desperation. On the Today Show, a Mississippi woman presented a recipe that requires both the wasting of a new pillowcase with the fun of a potential house fire. Her family has fought against dry ass turkey for generations by placing it inside a pillowcase. Only bland turkey meat scraping joy from their tongues year after year could embolden these people to place cloth inside of an oven.
Don't do this.
Turkey is unsalvageable. Don’t lie to yourself in an attempt to maintain tradition. I know your family dabbled with Islam during the seventies and your Aunt still doesn’t eat pork, but, make a ham people. Think about Uncle Reggie.