Kitchen

[4uthebest]

Once again we had a superbly juicy turkey done in the NuWave oven that finished before I even expected based on the "recommended" times/weight from NuWave.

Even before cooking it, I used the Alton Brown convection method of thawing it and it went so fast I was forced to stop it overnight or it would be thawed too soon in the morning. Using a 5 gallon cooler and the 16lb bird, it went from completely frozen to about 90% thawed from 6PM to 9:30 PM. In the late morning on Thursday I took the lid off of the cooler and again allowed water to drip one drop every 2-4 seconds and the bird was completely thawed by noon when I took it out of the wrapper, rinsed it out and set it back in the refrigerated water. At about 12:50 I took it out of the water, patted it dry and then started it upside down by about 1 PM after injecting some creole butter into the legs, thighs, breasts and back portions. According to my calculations, it was due to be turned over in 96 minutes, but I looked at the progress after a couple of bastes and decided to turn it about about 90 minutes.

What happened next suprised even me as after turning the bird over and after a few bastings, I took the temperature in the thigh after 75+ minutes and it already was over 160 degrees but I continued cooking for a few more minutes and stopped it before 3:45PM and already the temperature had exceeded in some parts of the bird 200.

I then mashed the potatoes that I had warming in my pressure cooker while the bird was still sitting in the NuWave resting. After finishing them I packed them in my thermal bowl and loaded them into the car. Next I lifted out the turkey and set it in a roaster pan with a lid and then separated the fat from the juices and put the juices into a Lock & Lock and loaded the car and drove to parents home where after carving the bird, we were eating at 4:45 PM.

Amazing bird that you could wring out the juices from the breast !