Day 91 or 1000
My boss is a brilliant physicist from Russia. We go to lunch together just about every day. We talk about a lot if different stuff. A couple of days ago, I told him I was in charge of cooking the turkey at Thanksgiving this year. I told him about my cousin, Tim Mecum, who was always willing to tell us when the turkey was too dry. I have struggled with that for years. Even when I use a meat thermometer or that little button that pops out on the Butterball, it does not always come out right. Actually, I get it right about 80% of the time, but that other 20% makes for very sad Thanksgivings. He said he had the perfect way to cook a turkey.
He said, “You need to take the thawed turkey out of the refrigerator and leave it on the counter the night before you cook it.”
I said, “Why?”
He said, “If there is a big temperature differential between the inside of the turkey and the outside of the turkey, it is hard to be sure that when the inside of the turkey is the right temperature, the outside of the turkey is cooked properly, too. Because the turkey is cooked from the outside in, the outside dries more quickly than the inside. The colder the turkey, the greater the differential during the cooking process. If the whole turkey starts at room temperature, there is less differential during the cooking process than if the turkey starts at refrigerator temperature.”
We are going to test out that turkey on Thursday. We will keep you posted.