What happens to the butter you baste your turkey with?

[Pablo]

I don't find turkey worth my time. I vastly prefer chicken or other game birds.

Turkey is blah to me. Dark meat sammiches is ok, lots of Duke's, black pepper etc I always have to remind the maker "mor dat cransberries sorce". White meat? Yeah I'll get it moist. Slow cooked in molé. Nothing like a good toikey molé. Pork works too.

 

[PandaBear]

Let's get the terminology right. Injecting butter or similar under the skin is a marinating technique. Applying fat/oil/meat juice topically is called basting.

Is your goal to make dry turkey flesh more succulent? Have you tried brining? Have you tried landing a turkey? These are questions.

Larding is a technique that consists of making small incisions into the carcass and inserting thin strips of lard called lardoons with a tool called a larding needle. While the meat is roasting the lardoons will render and moisten the dry flesh. You can insert the lardoons into the flesh or under the skin.

I don't find turkey worth my time. I vastly prefer chicken or other game birds.

Goal is to keep the meat more succulent as you said. I would likely buy a pre-brined smallish (12lb?) bird. Don't want to buy any big equipment just for thanksgiving so basically it would be some sort of oven operation on a horizontal bird (breast up or upside down). I've tried basting, I've also tried larding (using Snoop Dogg's recipe with butter mixed with herbs and orange zest). It works fine except I overbaked it.

The thing about Thanksgiving turkey is, even when I say no to turkey, the family always insist on having one just for the holiday spirit. This is probably the reason why we always ended up eating just a few slices of it and then freeze the rest and use them for stocks and soups, and I would never be able to just cut the bird and cook each piece appropriately.

I think this year I will try either ovenbag or upside down the bird somehow.

 

[vavavroom]

Actually know the location of the nest. We have streets out here in the sticks.....

I sometimes sit on a park bench and have an apple or something else during my break. There's this ratty but pigeon who always walks up to me in the hope for food. He's got a large fleshy tumor on his left leg. The tumor is grey with pink streaks and has a glassy appearance. I think it's a fluid-filled cyst. I gag a little when he approaches me. I do give him something to eat which makes him come back and then I gag more. What would you do? This is a question. One of these days I'll take his picture and share it with the community.

 

[vavavroom]

Goal is to keep the meat more succulent as you said. I would likely buy a pre-brined smallish (12lb?) bird. Don't want to buy any big equipment just for thanksgiving so basically it would be some sort of oven operation on a horizontal bird (breast up or upside down). I've tried basting, I've also tried larding (using Snoop Dogg's recipe with butter mixed with herbs and orange zest). It works fine except I overbaked it.

The thing about Thanksgiving turkey is, even when I say no to turkey, the family always insist on having one just for the holiday spirit. This is probably the reason why we always ended up eating just a few slices of it and then freeze the rest and use them for stocks and soups, and I would never be able to just cut the bird and cook each piece appropriately.

I think this year I will try either ovenbag or upside down the bird somehow.

I'd just get two 8-pound chickens. Nobody will know they are not small turkeys and be surprised how good they taste.

 

[SHOZ]

There are pigeon farms raising pigeon chicks, they actually taste pretty good (the chicks, not the adults).

They plant sunflower patches as dove bait areas.

 

[mr_boring]

My mother never used butter and I've never made a turkey. I think she used olive oil and eventually moved to a roasting bag.

When making gravy you're supposed to use a fat strainer and toss the fat.

Heretick - ye shalt be burned at ye olde stake for that!

Seriously though, I skim off most of it and use it in the dressing - not the gravy