Preparing a Turkey for the Holidays: A Step-by-Step Guide

The art of preparing a turkey is a time-honored tradition that can seem daunting to some, but with practice and patience, it can become a breeze. As we approach the holiday season, many of us are eager to create a memorable feast for our loved ones. In this article, we will take you through the process of preparing a delicious and visually appealing turkey.

The First Cut: Removing the Skins

To start, we need to remove the skins from the turkey. This is often the most tedious part of the process, but it's essential to get it right. Begin by cutting along both sides of the breast, being careful not to cut all the way through the meat. You want to create a slit that will allow you to pull away the skin without tearing it. Next, use your fingers or a blunt instrument to gently pry the skin away from the meat, working your way around the bird.

Tips for Removing Skins

One of the most critical things to remember when removing skins is to be gentle. You don't want to tear the meat or cut too deeply and expose the underlying tissue. Take your time and work slowly, using a blunt instrument like a spoon or the back of a knife to help loosen the skin. It's also helpful to use a little bit of lubricant, such as olive oil or butter, to make the process easier.

Removing the Thigh Bone

Once you've removed the skins, it's time to focus on the thigh bone. This can be a tricky part of the process, but with a few simple techniques, you'll be able to remove the bone and create two large pieces of meat. To start, locate the joint that connects the thigh bone to the leg. Cut along both sides of this joint, being careful not to cut too deeply and expose the underlying tissue. Next, use your fingers or a blunt instrument to gently pry the bone away from the meat.

Tips for Removing the Thigh Bone

One of the most important things to remember when removing the thigh bone is to be patient. This can be a slow and tedious process, but it's essential to get it right. Take your time and work slowly, using a blunt instrument like a spoon or the back of a knife to help loosen the bone. It's also helpful to use a little bit of lubricant, such as olive oil or butter, to make the process easier.

Slicing the Turkey

Once you've removed the thigh bone, it's time to slice the turkey into two large pieces. To start, place the bird on its side and locate the joint that connects the breast to the leg. Cut along both sides of this joint, being careful not to cut too deeply and expose the underlying tissue. Next, use your fingers or a blunt instrument to gently pry the meat away from the bone.

Tips for Slicing the Turkey

One of the most critical things to remember when slicing the turkey is to be even. You want to create two large pieces of meat that are roughly the same size, so that they'll cook evenly and be easy to serve. Take your time and work slowly, using a sharp knife to make clean cuts through the meat.

Assembling the Turkey

Once you've sliced the turkey into two large pieces, it's time to assemble the bird. To start, place one piece of meat on the bottom half of the tray or platter. You can use herbs, such as sage and thyme, to flavor the meat and add visual appeal. Next, place the second piece of meat on top of the first, using a little bit of fat or skin to help hold it in place.

Tips for Assembling the Turkey

One of the most important things to remember when assembling the turkey is to use your eye. You don't want the bird to look too perfect or uniform – that's not what we're going for here! Instead, aim for a rustic, organic look that's full of character and personality.

Garnishing the Turkey

Finally, it's time to garnish the turkey with edible flowers, herbs, and other decorations. To start, take a few sprigs of fresh herbs, such as rosemary or thyme, and place them on top of the meat. You can also use citrus zest, roasted garlic, and figs to add flavor and visual appeal.

Tips for Garnishing the Turkey

One of the most critical things to remember when garnishing the turkey is to keep it simple. You don't want to over-accessorize the bird – that's not what we're going for here! Instead, aim for a few, well-placed garnishes that will add flavor and visual appeal without overwhelming the senses.

The Final Touches

And finally, it's time to plate the turkey and serve. To start, place the platter or tray in the center of the table, surrounded by a few candles and other decorations. You can also use a little bit of sauce, such as gravy or pan juices, to add flavor and visual appeal.

Tips for Serving the Turkey

One of the most important things to remember when serving the turkey is to be patient and relaxed. You don't want to rush through the process – that's not what this is all about! Instead, take your time and enjoy the moment, knowing that you've created something truly special and memorable.

By following these simple steps, you'll be able to create a delicious and visually appealing turkey that's sure to impress your guests. Remember to keep it simple, use your eye, and don't be afraid to experiment with new flavors and techniques. Happy cooking!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enit's a messy messy situation this is why you do not want to do this at the table hi my name is Barrett I am here in the New York Times cooking studio today to talk to you about turkey I have made hundreds of turkeys as a food stylist and I've done basically everything you can imagine to them today we're just going to talk about making it less stressful making it beautiful making sure your guests enjoy it and you enjoy enjoy it because it shouldn't be that hard a lot of people when they cook their turkey want to just immediately bring it out to the table and present it all garnished whole carving a turkey at a table is a disaster it never works out great you can show it to your guests as you cook it but please take it back in the kitchen to cut it up it is scary breaking down a turkey but it's basically just a big chicken so if you've ever broken down a chicken before you can do this it's not that hard and I'm going to show you as a food stylist I make a million turkeys for work I've kind of come up with my favorite way to do it over the years and the main thing is easy I love easy I want to spend time with my guests at Thanksgiving I don't want to screw around in the kitchen forever the first thing you want to do is take the legs and the Wings off for the breast you've got a bone that runs right down the middle you're going to want to cut on either side of that so you've taken your turkey out of the oven it needs to rest for a little a little bit because you're going to cut into it you don't want to burn your hands if you're really wanting to get into it when it's still hot you can wear like vinyl gloves even like two pairs that'll help while your turkeyy is coming to temperature and resting a little bit all those juices are soaking back in you can get your stuff ready you need a big cutting board a very sharp knife uh that's going to help you immensely if you don't have sharp knives sharpen them now it'll help you with everything and some cooking shears all right our turkey has rested for about 30 minutes I'm going to move it to the board you don't want to damage your knife by cutting it on the sheet pan remove the twine from the legs the first thing you want to do is take the legs and thighs off you're just going to follow the natural line that is made between the leg and the breast and a sharp knife will help you just cut right down it's going to be juicy it's going to be messy after you cut that bit of skin we just pull this down and then you'll be able to see that joint in there and that's where you want to cut the oyster is right down here if you can kind of get around that a little bit cuz that's a nice meaty bit but then you can just cut right through that joint always look for the joint and you're good to go there you go we're just going to do the same thing on the other side so once you separated that skin you are going to try to find the joint just be care careful don't cut yourself you're not going to try to cut through any bones your whole leg and thigh should come off in one nice big piece all right the next thing I'm going to do after we've taken the legs and thighs off we're going to take the Wings off you're going to follow this bone pop it open do it again on the other side there's our joint don't be afraid to like flip everything around all right now we are just left with our breasts for the breasts you've got a bone that runs right down the middle you're going to want to cut on either side of that to release the breast from the bone we're just going to follow follow the bone down but you do want to try to keep it in one nice big piece if you can and you can just slowly work your way down I kind of separate it with the knife as I go you know you just have to follow where the turkeyy is telling you to go there we go we've got our nice breast all right we're going to do the other side it's a messy messy situation this is why you do not want to do this at the table I feel like when you do this in the kitchen yourself you get so much more meat off the bone than if you're trying to carve at the table really at the table you're just going to be able to get some nice slices of breast but then there's so much meat on there that you're going to have to take it back to the kitchen anyway there we go and we have successfully taken all the pieces off you can use that carcass for a delicious stock turkey soup but that is it and it is quite a mess but it's going to look really beautiful when we put it all in the flatter so it's really not that hard just take your time just be methodical about it take each piece off on its own and then you'll be done so we're just going to clean this up a little bit then we're going to slice the pieces and platter it all right everything's cut up we're going to just cut it up a little further so our guests can eat it easily uh I generally like to start with the leg and thigh I'll cut off the drumstick from the thigh again you're looking for that joint always look for the joint and then you can just ch go right through super easy if you have a lot of people that like dark meat you can take that bone out of the thigh it's just one big bone right here you can feel it and you just really want to cut right along that bone then you're just going to scrape the meat from the sides keep your fingers out of the way try not to cut all the way through so you can then slice it so that thigh bone will just come right out then you can flip her over and you have one nice big piece of dark meat I like to kind of keep these on the bottom cuz they don't they're not as pretty as the breast just give it a slice so people can easily eat it then you can just use your knife to pick it up then I usually like to lay the lay the leg so it kind of covers the knot Brown part of the thigh and take the other thigh and do the same thing so we're just going to cut right here separate find that joint cut right through take out that bone all right there's really no Rhyme or Reason for where to put things you can move things around afterwards just going to separate the Drummet and the flat always looking for that joint all right and now the part everybody loves the rest so I usually just I don't try to go too thin with this because you're just going to tear the skin and it's going to get ragged I do them a little thicker try to keep as much skin on there as possible right that like that yeah like that we're going to go back and garnish all of this with herbs so any spots you don't like you can cover up usually like to put like one of each thing at either end of the tray just in case it's in the middle of the table people can grab it easily I always try to choose a platter that's pretty big you run out of room really quickly it also gives you an opportunity to use some pretty garnishes but that is looking pretty good turkey wise that looks delicious you get all the beautiful brown skin everything looks crispy seasoned now we're going to go into garnishing when it comes to garnishing I really like to use edible garnishes I don't really like when people put things on the plate that you can't eat obviously you're not going to eat a whole sprig of sage but another thing I like to do is use things that I've used in the recipe so you know on the inside I have sage and time I did a little bit of oregano some Rosemary I also used Citrus so what I did this morning is I went ahead and I just like seared off the Citrus it gives it kind of a nice roasty flavor also if somebody doesn't want to use Gravy they can squeeze a little bit of this over their turkey and it's delicious and if I am going to use something that is not in the recipe I really like simple things you can get at the grocery store depending on the season uh today I got figs and some of these little grapes they're just really pretty and you know if somebody wants to nibble on them they can I really like to use a variety of color if I can so the orange the yellow the green the red from The Grapes it's all really beautiful cuz you eat with your eyes first I also did a little bit of roasted garlic uh cuz I used that in the turkey cavity as well and actually when I was roasting the turkey I just kind of Set It alongside in a little bit of tin foil so that when you're done you have some nice roasted garlic that you can squeeze onto a piece of bread so now I'm going to just garnish and you don't have to get crazy it doesn't have to be look like a photo of a magazine you know I'm just going to start off with a little bit of herbs the sage is really really pretty I might just take a little bit of those guys and just kind of like tuck them around it's not rocket science you're just kind of using your your eye I like things a little bit off center not too even you know so I might do another one over here all I also generally like things in odd numbers threes fives things like that but you're just kind of getting an overall look of things we're going to use a little bit of the Citrus in there too use whatever you have available doesn't have to be crazy Mar Stewart Farmers Market stuff it's whatever's in season or what do you get at the grocery store all right I'll throw a few fig on it gra let's see these guys live there yeah it's pretty I think I'm done I think she's ready I think she's ready for the table you've labored over her for hours it's taken a long time but she's ready so hopefully after watching this you're ready to take on a turkey of your own you're not scared about carving just take it easy do it in the kitchen away from everybody and enjoy it you can find a million turkey recipes on nyt cooking and I hope everybody has a happy holidayit's a messy messy situation this is why you do not want to do this at the table hi my name is Barrett I am here in the New York Times cooking studio today to talk to you about turkey I have made hundreds of turkeys as a food stylist and I've done basically everything you can imagine to them today we're just going to talk about making it less stressful making it beautiful making sure your guests enjoy it and you enjoy enjoy it because it shouldn't be that hard a lot of people when they cook their turkey want to just immediately bring it out to the table and present it all garnished whole carving a turkey at a table is a disaster it never works out great you can show it to your guests as you cook it but please take it back in the kitchen to cut it up it is scary breaking down a turkey but it's basically just a big chicken so if you've ever broken down a chicken before you can do this it's not that hard and I'm going to show you as a food stylist I make a million turkeys for work I've kind of come up with my favorite way to do it over the years and the main thing is easy I love easy I want to spend time with my guests at Thanksgiving I don't want to screw around in the kitchen forever the first thing you want to do is take the legs and the Wings off for the breast you've got a bone that runs right down the middle you're going to want to cut on either side of that so you've taken your turkey out of the oven it needs to rest for a little a little bit because you're going to cut into it you don't want to burn your hands if you're really wanting to get into it when it's still hot you can wear like vinyl gloves even like two pairs that'll help while your turkeyy is coming to temperature and resting a little bit all those juices are soaking back in you can get your stuff ready you need a big cutting board a very sharp knife uh that's going to help you immensely if you don't have sharp knives sharpen them now it'll help you with everything and some cooking shears all right our turkey has rested for about 30 minutes I'm going to move it to the board you don't want to damage your knife by cutting it on the sheet pan remove the twine from the legs the first thing you want to do is take the legs and thighs off you're just going to follow the natural line that is made between the leg and the breast and a sharp knife will help you just cut right down it's going to be juicy it's going to be messy after you cut that bit of skin we just pull this down and then you'll be able to see that joint in there and that's where you want to cut the oyster is right down here if you can kind of get around that a little bit cuz that's a nice meaty bit but then you can just cut right through that joint always look for the joint and you're good to go there you go we're just going to do the same thing on the other side so once you separated that skin you are going to try to find the joint just be care careful don't cut yourself you're not going to try to cut through any bones your whole leg and thigh should come off in one nice big piece all right the next thing I'm going to do after we've taken the legs and thighs off we're going to take the Wings off you're going to follow this bone pop it open do it again on the other side there's our joint don't be afraid to like flip everything around all right now we are just left with our breasts for the breasts you've got a bone that runs right down the middle you're going to want to cut on either side of that to release the breast from the bone we're just going to follow follow the bone down but you do want to try to keep it in one nice big piece if you can and you can just slowly work your way down I kind of separate it with the knife as I go you know you just have to follow where the turkeyy is telling you to go there we go we've got our nice breast all right we're going to do the other side it's a messy messy situation this is why you do not want to do this at the table I feel like when you do this in the kitchen yourself you get so much more meat off the bone than if you're trying to carve at the table really at the table you're just going to be able to get some nice slices of breast but then there's so much meat on there that you're going to have to take it back to the kitchen anyway there we go and we have successfully taken all the pieces off you can use that carcass for a delicious stock turkey soup but that is it and it is quite a mess but it's going to look really beautiful when we put it all in the flatter so it's really not that hard just take your time just be methodical about it take each piece off on its own and then you'll be done so we're just going to clean this up a little bit then we're going to slice the pieces and platter it all right everything's cut up we're going to just cut it up a little further so our guests can eat it easily uh I generally like to start with the leg and thigh I'll cut off the drumstick from the thigh again you're looking for that joint always look for the joint and then you can just ch go right through super easy if you have a lot of people that like dark meat you can take that bone out of the thigh it's just one big bone right here you can feel it and you just really want to cut right along that bone then you're just going to scrape the meat from the sides keep your fingers out of the way try not to cut all the way through so you can then slice it so that thigh bone will just come right out then you can flip her over and you have one nice big piece of dark meat I like to kind of keep these on the bottom cuz they don't they're not as pretty as the breast just give it a slice so people can easily eat it then you can just use your knife to pick it up then I usually like to lay the lay the leg so it kind of covers the knot Brown part of the thigh and take the other thigh and do the same thing so we're just going to cut right here separate find that joint cut right through take out that bone all right there's really no Rhyme or Reason for where to put things you can move things around afterwards just going to separate the Drummet and the flat always looking for that joint all right and now the part everybody loves the rest so I usually just I don't try to go too thin with this because you're just going to tear the skin and it's going to get ragged I do them a little thicker try to keep as much skin on there as possible right that like that yeah like that we're going to go back and garnish all of this with herbs so any spots you don't like you can cover up usually like to put like one of each thing at either end of the tray just in case it's in the middle of the table people can grab it easily I always try to choose a platter that's pretty big you run out of room really quickly it also gives you an opportunity to use some pretty garnishes but that is looking pretty good turkey wise that looks delicious you get all the beautiful brown skin everything looks crispy seasoned now we're going to go into garnishing when it comes to garnishing I really like to use edible garnishes I don't really like when people put things on the plate that you can't eat obviously you're not going to eat a whole sprig of sage but another thing I like to do is use things that I've used in the recipe so you know on the inside I have sage and time I did a little bit of oregano some Rosemary I also used Citrus so what I did this morning is I went ahead and I just like seared off the Citrus it gives it kind of a nice roasty flavor also if somebody doesn't want to use Gravy they can squeeze a little bit of this over their turkey and it's delicious and if I am going to use something that is not in the recipe I really like simple things you can get at the grocery store depending on the season uh today I got figs and some of these little grapes they're just really pretty and you know if somebody wants to nibble on them they can I really like to use a variety of color if I can so the orange the yellow the green the red from The Grapes it's all really beautiful cuz you eat with your eyes first I also did a little bit of roasted garlic uh cuz I used that in the turkey cavity as well and actually when I was roasting the turkey I just kind of Set It alongside in a little bit of tin foil so that when you're done you have some nice roasted garlic that you can squeeze onto a piece of bread so now I'm going to just garnish and you don't have to get crazy it doesn't have to be look like a photo of a magazine you know I'm just going to start off with a little bit of herbs the sage is really really pretty I might just take a little bit of those guys and just kind of like tuck them around it's not rocket science you're just kind of using your your eye I like things a little bit off center not too even you know so I might do another one over here all I also generally like things in odd numbers threes fives things like that but you're just kind of getting an overall look of things we're going to use a little bit of the Citrus in there too use whatever you have available doesn't have to be crazy Mar Stewart Farmers Market stuff it's whatever's in season or what do you get at the grocery store all right I'll throw a few fig on it gra let's see these guys live there yeah it's pretty I think I'm done I think she's ready I think she's ready for the table you've labored over her for hours it's taken a long time but she's ready so hopefully after watching this you're ready to take on a turkey of your own you're not scared about carving just take it easy do it in the kitchen away from everybody and enjoy it you can find a million turkey recipes on nyt cooking and I hope everybody has a happy holiday\n"