First Visar told me that he had gone to the store on Tuesday and bought a turkey, it was the best one he could find (random choice). He put it in the fridge immediately after he bought it. I thought great, should be ready for us to start cooking Thursday because it will be defrosted...
When I opened the fridge I was a little shocked.
19 lbs???????
And I learned from the Internet that it takes approximately 24 hours to defrost each 3-5 lbs of meat. Doing the calculation, I realized that technically only about a generous 10 lbs of meat was defrosted by the morning of Thanksgiving (~50% still frozen obviously). So I proceeded to bleach the sink, toss the 19 lbs under some cold running water into the clean sink so at least the giblets and neck could be removed.
Well that took an unexpected 1.5 hours. It was still partially frozen so I gave up, put a bunch of potatoes/carrots/celery on an IKEA pan and threw the bird on top. I put a cup of water and another cup of white wine underneath the turkey (which I found out was NOT a good idea, especially when the turkey was still partially frozen). Visar helped put all the spices on with his disposable lab gloves (clean ones of course).
So we were all set to start cooking! Halfway through there was a small problem... Well I was having a panic attack because there were flames so I didn't get a picture, but there was an image on a blog I searched about how to put out oven fires that had a great example of what I saw EXACTLY-
(taken from http://blog.timesunion.com/kristi/a-fire-in-my-oven/2377/)
This was 4 hours in. Water+wine+bird juices... disastrous overflow from the IKEA pan, dripping all over the electric coil! Visar got to waving all the smoke out of the room, out the window, shutting off the fire alarm.. while I scrubbed out all the char and oil using some soap and water.. then drained all of the juices that caused the fire from the bottom of the pan. Boy the turkey really did have some water coming out of the meat as it was cooking.. At this time I thought since the turkey was all drained, it would be perfect to add some cooked wild rice stuffing in there. Maybe that might absorb any more water coming out. I figured let's make the best of this.
Placed the turkey back into the oven, along with a new aluminum foil contraption that I so skillfully engineered..
7.5 hours later, all done!!!
The stuffing looked a little bit browned on the outside of the turkey, wild rice cooked pretty well but may not have been steamed enough.
There was some risk because we didn't have a meat thermometer.. but when Visar sliced the meat there was steam coming out. We thought, "Good enough..."
Then joined together with all the sides:
1) Wild Rice Stuffing
2) Roasted Fingerlings and Green Beans With Creamy Tarragon Dressing
3) Hot-and-Spicy Cranberry-Pear Chutney
Our toes made it into the picture!!
Surprisingly there was no smoky taste in the meat! I'd say it was a success, at least since we had something edible and it wasn't half bad. Next time I can expand to a 25 lb turkey! Or maybe not since I'm already sick of leftovers... enough turkey for a lifetime.
