Turkey

The turkey, is, obviously, the centerpiece and centerpoint of the meal. I've cooked a turkey once before for a large group of people my 4th year at college, and I had help from two of my friends. It came out fine, considering all the circumstances, like I wasn't sure if I was going to make it, and only decided to a few days before hand, and that I hadn't ever cooked a turkey before, and it later got hacked to tiny bits because I let someone else carve it. I do recall it being somewhat dry. But, whaddyagoindo? Well, brining seems rather fussy, deep frying is for the insane, and basting it constantly would need actually owning a baster. From some food website which I can't remember now, I found a link to a recent Washington Post article about spatchcocking (which is the fun word for butterflying) a turkey. As I was sifting through the New York Times archive for stuffing recipes, I also came across another spatchcocking recipe. It sounded very sensible, keeping the dark meat on top, "protecting" the white meat. And very fast. I enjoyed watching jaws drop when I claimed I would make it in an hour. Well, that was what the New York Times claimed, but comparing the recipe with the Washington Post, I chickened (ha! HA!) out. The memory is a bit hazy, but I think I started cooking it around 4 pm, in an 425C degree oven for half an hour. I turned the heat down to 390C for the rest of the time. I think I took it out around 5:45 pm, as the thigh meat was at a temperature of 170C. As you can tell, I was completely hedging my bets between the two recipes, and couldn't really estimate when the turkey would be done. After some poking around by my roommate and I, we determined the turkey to be definitively not done on the lower half the the drumsticks and the breast meat closest to the bottom of the pan (although there was a rack in the roasting pan), and threw it back in the oven until maybe 6:10. I cut off the top, done parts, then threw the turkey back in the oven for 20 minutes and cut off some more pieces. The next day, I decided it really wasn't cooked completely, and put all the leftover parts and bones into dishes and cooked at 350C for a while until everything was nearly burnt.
So, I would do this again, but not be afraid of high heat (I had been overly cautious since the oven started smoking at 500C the day before) and give it more time than the newspaper cheerleaders claimed.

"But what was it like, to cut a raw turkey in half?"

As I said during the process, it was incredibly satisfying. It made me think maybe I really should become a forensic pathologist. (But then as I was trying to go to sleep that night, I kept on imagining my own bones being cut through, then being flattened out. So maybe I'm more sensitive than I thought. Cutting through the bones was fun, but pulling the halves apart was harder, as I forgot that cut bone might be sort of hard and splintery. Finally, you flip it over and push down on the breastbone to flatten which was a neat sensation. I think there might be something wrong with me. Anyway, the three steps are shown below.

To season it, I rubbed butter over and under the skin ("This feels amaaaaazing") and salted and peppered the skin, and rubbed on some sage. I also threw on a few tablespoons of soy sauce, in honor of a friend of mine who helped me cook the turkey before and insisted on soy sauce to my protests. It turned out nicely browned, and probably would have not required several round of cooking if I just left it in long enough the first time. Poor thing does look rather scared though, no?