Cooking Turkey Naked

Turkey in the oven!

Gotta’ get a head-start on Thanksgiving, don’t you know!?

It’s 13.68lbs (6.2kg), and will be cooking approximately 4 – 4.5 hours at 370ºF  (187.7ºC).

I’ll check it around the 3 hour mark, give or take.

I’m cooking it “naked,” as seen.

The bird, not me.

I’m wearing clothes.

And since I keep windows up & blinds open 24/7 during clement weather, it’s almost a necessity.

Not that I don’t walk around au naturel, but it’s simply easier to wear some kind of garment, especially when seated by the windows. I like fresh air & sunshine.😁

By the way… breast side DOWN, as can be plainly seen.

Oh!

And what’s on it?

Aside from freshly ground black pepper, salt (which I pulverized in a mortar w pestle), along with cumin, chili powder, cumin, turmeric, pepper flakes, rosemary, and paprika.

And I put some bacon underneath the skin on the back, which will enable it to drain DOWN INTO the breast meat, thereby flavoring it.

The neck & giblets (heart, gizzard, liver) are cooking inside the bird.

Not in the bag, of course.

I’ve never cooked a bad turkey.

Seriously. Never.

First turkey I ever cooked was cooked in a plastic cooking bag.

Turned out PERFECTLY!

Cooking Bags are great kitchen tools. Even the “uninitiated” 0r inexperienced cook can appreciate them, just as much as can the Professional Chef.

The good thing about being a cook, or cooking, is that you get to eat your mistakes. And depending upon the level and severity of mistake, of course, that could be a good -or bad- thing.

Frankly, I’ve never understood folks that can’t – or won’t – learn to cook. Rather, I don’t understand why some flatly refuse to learn to cook. Seems to me that if a person likes to eat, they’d learn to cook. But, it doesn’t always work that way.

Nevertheless…

Cooking is easy. Some folks think it difficult, and say things like they “can’t boil water,” but cooking is really not hard a’tall.

Seriously. It’s not.

Start by… boiling water!

Then, boil eggs.

Cooking is not mysterious, and (at least for me), if one understands WHY things are done, it becomes much easier.

For example, consider the water boiling thing. Salt should (almost every time) be added to water to be boiled.

Why?

The presence of salt increases the temperature at which water boils. Typically, water boils at 212º degrees Fahrenheit (100 degrees Celsius). But at altitude, it boils at a lower temperature. But for simplicity sake, we’ll simply use the “sea level” example.

We could get all “sciencey” about it, and why and how it does that, but we’ll just KISS… Keep It Simple, Stupid. And the “simple” reason why salt increases the boiling temperature of water, is that just like ice, it “breaks down” under heat. Salt is NaCl, sodium chloride, and when mixed with hot water, becomes H20+NaCl (solution), not a new compound. But the presence of salt in water makes it “not pure” water, and thereby alters it. And we’ll stop there. But the point is, anything else in water increases it’s boiling temperature.

Anyway…

Salt in water = Hotter water.

Science!

But back to the food thing. Cooking in a bag allows the heat & moisture to be retained in whatever is being cooked, so it’s a great cooking technique for that reason. It’s more “forgiving,” per se, than some other techniques.

And, we’ll stop here.

So, go buy a cooking bag, and you’ll be on your way in practically no time!

Now… just in the case you’re wondering how it turned out?

Behold!

PERFECTION!