pro chef of 20+ years here… i did this in 2015. Broke down, removed all the bones, and the shit ton of tendons in the dark meat, painstakingly with a pairing knife and needle nose pliers. Then i pounded everything flat, rolled both breasts together (didn't need any "meat glue", they fused together while in the water bath), sous vide them, then pan fried them in sautee pans that were warming up out in the garage on the char grill. I had a lot of guests in a small house, and didn't feel like doing much work the day off, or make the house to hot. The results were very impressive to myself as a chef, and to my guests who were astounded. Having all of the bones ahead of time made the stuffing and gravy the best they could be as well. I highly recommend doing this if you have the gear, the time, and the ambition.
by Mark_Foureh
25 Comments
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My god I need to do this.
I’ve done this a few times over the years. I love it because of the ease of cooking it perfectly. the drawback is 2 hours of debunking a turkey.
Great work! I did the same a couple of years ago, spent hours doing the deboning etc, sous vide then on the bbq grill at the end to crisp up the skin, sliced it much like yours ….. then my asshole sister in law bitched that she didn’t like it because the slices were too thick. Good times 🤷♂️🙄
Glory to you. I spatchcocked a 17 pounder this morning and have realized that this was my last spatchcocking. The turkey damn near won, and the turkeys are young but I am not.
I did the same a few years ago but deep fried at the end instead of sautee
I made mine last night, lol.
I actually did two, one turkey and one duck. There was a sale on the duck. Both are ready for sous vide and the carcass and trimmings have been cooked down into stock (and part to be reduced).
Ooooh. Rare to see a PolyScience circulator in these here parts!
I generally don’t recommend doing sous vide with white meat and dark meat in the same bag. They don’t have the same needs in terms of temperature. White meat is happiest around 145-150f. Dark meat, on the other hand, is happiest around 160-165f.
So, one or the other is either going to be under or over cooked.
This is my plan. Only I’m also going to reduce some spinach so I can stuff the inner layer with spinach, parsley, herbs, and garlic. 3 loafs, 1 of the white meat and 2 for each dark meat section. White @ 140° dark @ 160°. Remove, dry, flash fry in oil for crispy skin.
Wow! This is my turkey dream dinner! I’m just not sure I could handle deboning an entire raw turkey.
Did this last year.. but separated the white and dark meat into different rolls. And I also deskinned the bird and made super crispy skin chips to serve with the rolls.
It was definitely awesome.
This year I’m doing a turducken
Key word: ambitious
Wow what an effort man, very nice
My plan this year is to confit the legs and thighs tomorrow. Then filet the breast and stuff the deboned confit dark meat in the breast. Sous vide on Thanksgiving, brown and serve. Will also be able to make the gravy ahead of time. And will not take 2 hours to debone because the breast are easy to debone raw and the confit will fall off the bones.
Turkey ballotine, I love doing this. My local Superstore does turkey giveaways twice per year and I break each turkey down into four ballotines (two white, two dark), and freeze the extras.
I have some cool extras you can try too;
1. I found if you give the meat a quick cure with brown sugar, salt, and seasonings you get beautifully juicy seasoned meat throughout.
2. Also adding a tiny (like 0.25% of the weight if the cure) amount of pink salt, the meat will stay rosy and pink when fully cooked.
3. For ideal sliceability, you can massage the meat with the seasonings for 10 minutes by hand (knead it like bread dough). The turkey will begin to exude myosin proteins (it will feel like a loose glue). These proteins will bind the turkey into a solid log when you cook it-it will also tenderize the meat.
4. You can substitute step 3 entirely by sprinkling lightly with meat glue-but I know a lot of people freak out over that 🙂
5. Last one: if you want to introduce a Smoky flavour, you can either hit smoke it or add a tiny amount of liquid smoke to the cure.
Bonus point: take the above sliced smoke roasted turkey and layer it on rye bread with sliced jarlsberg cheese, mayonnaise, and cranberry or lingonberry sauce. Don’t tell anyone else about this sandwich or you will be compelled to share.
Every year I bone my turkey, roll it’s legs into it’s chest cavity and roast the whole thing before drowning it in turkey gravy. Never had a problem. Would love to smoke it though.
Damn now I gotta do that. I’ve just been cutting the legs/thighs off and doing an airline style breast.
My lady and I just do the whole bird and finish in the oven to crisp the skin.
I need to do this next year now, this would be perfect to make for my MIL. Unfortunately I already bought a bunch of stuff to spatchcock and smoke my bird this year and I’m sticking to the plan but I love this.
I’m not going to lie but I’m loving the sassy side of r/sousvide today.
I don’t know why it’s something I’ve never considered doing, but now I can’t resist trying this out. I’ve spatchcocked and smoked a turkey the last 4 years with mixed results.
But it was always worth it to keep a couple pans under the bird with the trimmings and the usual stock suspects to collect the drippings and create a stock for a killer smoked gravy. Absolute liquid gold every time.
Now I’m thinking of trying this, and separately putting the trimmings in the smoker and then making a stock from that to still get that smoked gravy…
I have forgotten about this trend from a long time ago. Thank you for reminding me.
The new trend now in fancy English restaurants is to do the chx breast and roll them with a chx mousse and “poach” them. I think the sous vide laws got to them so they just say they poach them now and not use that term so they don’t have to keep up with time temp logs.
Looks amazing OP. Is it safe to sous vide plastic wrap?
We’ve deboned it the last couple of years but oven roast it. White meat in one pan and dark meat in the other. Both gets a temperature probe so they’re taken out when they are done. It’s been perfect and easy cooks. The prep work takes a little practice.