Turkey tips: A rookie’s guide to cooking a turkey

It’s a big weekend for those tasked with cooking the Thanksgiving meal — especially the turkey.

Chef Josh Miller joined the Greg Morgan Morning Show to discuss his tips and tricks for cooking the perfect turkey.

Listen to chef Josh Miller on The Greg Morgan Morning Show

Miller said to make sure to take the turkey out of the freezer early.

“A couple days, two to three days you take it out, get it out in the fridge, and just kind of let it slowly thaw,” he said.

“You really want to make sure that it’s a good few days in that fridge, just making sure that you got not just on the outside, but it gets all the way down in there, and it’s not frozen at all.”

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Miller is a fan of a dry brine rather than wet, he said it makes less of a mess.

“I take some kosher salt, some rosemary and lemon zest and I just rub that all over the turkey,” he said. “I let that sit in the fridge for another 24 hours and let the salt do it’s work to pull that moisture out and put it back into the meat.”

Miller said patience is key, this will prevent your turkey from turning into jerky.

“You can stuff anything you want in there,” he said. “You can put an orange or lemons in there if you want to; even put a couple of onions in there — anything that has moisture in it as it cooks—to release that moisture into the bird and just make it that much more juicy and tender,” Miller said.

When cooking a turkey, the most important thing is the temperature. When you pull your turkey out of the oven, it should be sitting at about 165 F. The rule of thumb is about 15 minutes per pound in a 350-degree oven.

“When you take it out wiggle that back leg and if it’s really got that jiggle to it, it’s a good time to take (it out of the oven),” he said.

A tip from Gordon Ramsay is to rest the turkey as long as it has been cooking. Miller is a fan of this tip.

“The best thing to do for any meat is you got to let it rest,” he said. “You got to let all that juice get back in there. Let all that muscle and meat kind of relax and really get all that juice circulating again. It will be one hell of a bird.”

Miller said that if you’re on a budget this year, there are some easy tricks you can take.

“You can have your family bring different types of the items to you, like you’re doing the turkey, somebody else is bringing the potatoes, all that kind of stuff,” he said.

“But one of the good ways (to save money) is if you only have four or five family members just go out and buy a turkey breast. It’s a lot cheaper, and it’s a lot quicker to cook.”

He said the turkey breast doesn’t take away from the traditional meal and can save you a few bucks.

Read more

• What’s open and closed on the Thanksgiving weekend in Saskatoon?
• Harvesting memories: Leo Gaboury reflects on farming’s evolution