PSA: Butter-Blanket Turkey Recipe

Every year, I am implored to re-publish this absolute hands-down winner. Hint: It's an exhaustively tested hybrid between SF treasure Judy Rodgers and ex-LA Times' Russ Parsons.

After last weeks proudly partisan post, I lost four subscribers. I was surprised to see their names, but you never know. Luckily, I gained eight new ones. Welcome!

And now, I will swap that hat for one I wore for 20+ years and 29+ nationally published cookbooks.

From 2013, on my now-defunct blog, “The Crispy Bit.”:

My insatiable, knows-no-bounds quest for The Crispy Bits in life began early.

Every year when my dad carved our small family’s small turkey, he would announce “The skin people can come in now.” An only child, I was the only skin people. It was Heaven.

The skin people are already here.

I have a crispness imperative. In my own small family now, Stella has a chew imperative; my husband’s imperative is visual, emotional impact in theatre.

Here are a few of my favorite things:

• Pork skin crackling

• Real Peking duck

• The top of a creme brûlée

• Pan-fried “grilled” cheese sandwiches created with a plethora of salted butter

• The surface of a smoking-hot-pan-seared slice of foie gras that’s been previously dusted with spiced flour

• Frico (lacy, melted-cheese “cookies”)

• Lobster mac and cheese with a cheesy breadcrumb crust

• Grilled pork confit

• Apple Crisp, Crumble, and Betty

• The puffed, golden crust of a pizza (aka the corniche) cooked in my wood oven

• Bacon

It is not only food that can be crisp. A view, a sentence, a performance, a paragraph, the memory of a fine day in a young love affair—all these things may be crisp. An argument can certainly contain crispy bits. My mother’s tone when disappointed was often crisp. I can awaken feeling crisp (aka brittle) after a night of too much wine—even exceedingly good wine.

Thanksgiving offers several crispy opportunities, and I would be a cad not to grasp them all. But the most important “crisp-ortunity” on the third Thursday of November is the skin. For years, I wet brined my turkey, thus forgoing crispy skin in favor of succulent flesh. No more.

Lifting the Butter Blanket

The “Judy Bird” as interpreted by Russ Parsons and presented by the estimable Food52 details the process of dry-brining better than I can. Yes, the recipe will produce a turkey with unimpeachably succulent, tender flesh—completely unlike any turkey previously executed with a wet brine. But skin of almost ethereal crispness can only be achieved with the addition of one extra step: The Butter Blanket. I’d like to think this process is my own invention—since I’ve been doing it since 1982—but I’ve never published the recipe and it does appear elsewhere in the murky depths of the lexicon of turkey recipes. With The Butter Blanket, there is no need to hassle with starting the turkey breast side down, then awkwardly turning the hot bird over. Skip the following paragraph if you are only here for The Butter Blanket.

Start with the recipe as published. (But I do suggest the following change—and several others: Use French gray sea salt in place of kosher salt. Pulse the salt in a mini-prep with a teaspoon or so each of ground fennel and dried thyme, plus two capfuls of Boyajean orange oil.) Proceed as directed, dry-brining your Diestel or other high-quality bird for three full days in a huge ziplock bag (the kind designed for storing winter clothes). Pat the bird as dry as possible (don’t rinse!) and then place uncovered on a rack in your refrigerator for about 12 hours. Remove from the fridge and let stand at room temperature, covered with a clean kitchen towel, for at least 3 and ideally 4 hours. (Recipes never tell you how long it takes to bring a 16-pound turkey to room temperature—although they do say it’s crucial to do so—because they are afraid of the health department. An hour or two simply won’t cut it, and a bird that’s still cold inside will cook unevenly, yielding a tough, dry breast.) Do not stuff the turkey, please. Stuffing, aka “Dressing” deserves a place at the table, but should never be cooked inside the bird. Sorry, I get opinionated on certain subjects. As regular readers may have divined.

Smoothing the Butter Blanket

The Butter Blanket: When your patted-dry, dry-brined turkey has been standing naked at room temperature for about 3 1/2 hours, preheat your oven to 325° (lower than the starting temperature given for the Judy-Bird; or 300° if it’s a convection oven). Cut two lengths of cheesecloth long enough to cover the bird (on a rack in a roasting pan) from stem to stern. Open the fabric out flat, then fold each piece over so the cut ends meet. Stack. You should have created a four-layer blanket of cheesecloth wide and long enough to fully cover your bird. Melt 6 ounces of salted Kerrygold butter in a small saucepan and swirl in 8 fluid ounces of medium-dry Sherry or Madeira; grind some—or a lot of—pepper into the butter. Holding the cheesecloth blanket by the top two corners, dip the blanket into the butter mixture and thoroughly saturate (don’t let go of the corners or you’ll never find them again). Lift up and let drip for a moment, then smooth the blanket evenly over the bird, tucking it in around the edges. Brush some of the remaining butter mixture over the blanket, pour a cup of water into the roasting pan below the bird, and pop the pan into the oven, legs toward the back. Baste every 20 to 30 minutes, first using the remaining butter mixture from the pan and then using the pan drippings (the water will now have evaporated). When the temperature at the thigh reaches about 160° (after about 2 hours, give or take), remove from the oven and transfer the bird to a platter or a cutting board with a channel around the edge. Let stand for 30 minutes, then pull off and discard the (now very unattractive) cheesecloth. Ask someone capable and trustworthy to carve, while you deglaze the roasting pan with some of the wine in your glass—don’t worry, you’ll have enough later; just think sacrifice and bliss. Add the pan drippings to your mostly-made-ahead gravy. Sit down at the table and accept the praise.

Apparently, it takes a village to carve a turkey, because everyone wants to get into the act.

Almost enough Crispy Bits for all.

 
I’ve always felt that turkey was misunderstood in America, and its certainly misunderstood in other parts of the world. [UPDATE: All Americans are now misunderstood throughout the world.]

A bird so outrageously good deserves to appear at table more than once a year. Why shouldn’t this tasty t-bird feature in your dining plans for Christmas, New Year’s Day, and Easter?

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Tidbits For The Week of November 18, 2024

Brigit’s What I’m

CURRENTLY LOVING ➡️  Casey's Carbonara, chock-full of Etto's excellent guanciale. And abiding love. 
THINKING ABOUT ➡️  Young women and their young, male-bro tormentors shouting "Your body, MY choice," in elementary schools in Michigan, and in any-level schools near you. 
LISTENING TO ➡️ "If Not For You," George Harrison.