Turkey basting seems like an easy enough process. However, there are definite ways to “screw it up” and create a kitchen disaster, incite fear and panic in your holiday guests, and end up with dried-out turkey meat for sandwiches for the next ten days. Let’s follow Bumbling Bubba around in the commercial kitchen as he prepares turkeys in different ways, attempting to discover how to baste a turkey.
Turkey #1. Bumbling Bubba remembers that when a turkey is cooked in a cooking bag, he doesn’t need to baste it. The juices of the turkey stay sealed in the bag, creating a mini sauna that keeps the bird moist. He buys the correct cooking bag, washes the turkey, puts the turkey in the bag, and places the bag in a roasting pan that is two inches deep. Bumbling Bubba sets the turkey roasting pan on the top shelf of the oven, close to the heat.
Hours later, the turkey is done, and Bubba is horrified when he opens the oven. The bag has broken and is sticking to the sides of the oven and to the turkey!
What did Bubba do wrong? Why did the bag stick to the turkey and cook into the skin? When using a cooking bag, the directions say you must allow for the bag’s expansion. Placing it too close to the sides of the oven can cause the bag to burst.
Turkey #2. Bumbling Bubba thinks he can mix chicken broth and Italian dressing together for a flavorful, low-calorie, low-fat basting mix. He gets out his stainless steel bowl, mixes a cup of each, and ensures he uses low-fat Italian dressing. Then, Bubba brushes the turkey with the basting mix, making sure he doesn’t miss the area where the wings attach to the body of the bird. The bird goes into the 325-degree Fahrenheit oven in a roasting pan, covered with tinfoil.
Bubba believes he knows how to baste a turkey: every 30 minutes, saturate the bird with the juices in the pan. He grabs his turkey baster and a potholder, pulling the rack out quickly when the timer goes off. Oops! A lot of that liquid sloshes out of the roasting pan and into the oven! Oh no! Bumbling Bubba sees smoke and flames! He grabs a fire extinguisher and puts out the fire, but now the turkey is full of chemicals from the extinguisher. Bubba goes home for the rest of the day since the kitchen is in shambles.
What did Bubba do wrong? In his quest to learn how to baste a turkey, Bubba did almost everything right with this one. He had a great basting mixture and knew how often to baste. His process was perfect until he rushed to finish the basting. All he needed to do was take his time, and he could have prevented this disaster.
Turkey #3. Bumbling Bubba wants to grill the turkey like a real man would on the backyard grill/barbecue. Bubba fires up the grill and gets the wood chips going for a great smoky flavor. He knows that when you grill a filet mignon, you seal in the juices with a strip of bacon wrapped around the meat and held together with toothpicks. He rubs herbs such as basil, sage, thyme, salt, and pepper into the skin, wraps the top of the turkey with bacon, and places it over the heat, closing the grill.
After a few minutes, Bubba’s wife screams, “Fire! Fire!” It’s Bubba’s turkey and the grill on fire. When Bubba put the turkey on the rack, he placed it directly over the flame that hadn’t died down to the appropriate temperature. The bacon started to cook, and the bacon grease began basting the breast meat as intended, but the excess grease dripped into the direct fire, resulting in a grease fire. Had Bumbling Bubba waited for the heat source to cool down and placed the turkey off to the side, this turkey would have been basted just right and would have had the best flavor of all.
Bumbling Bubba learned how to baste a turkey the hard way. If he had done it correctly, he would have been sitting down to a fancy holiday meal with a turkey prepared just right, with meat juicy enough for leftovers. Know what you’re doing in the kitchen before you start. Read up on it, and you’ll avoid Bumbling Bubba-style kitchen disasters.