The turkey is the star of the show on Thanksgiving Day, golden and juice. But it’s problematic in that it usurps the space in the oven. Doesn’t that bird know you have green bean casserole, sweet potatoes and rolls waiting in line? A little time-saving trick of laying the bird out flat while roasting is a complete game-changer. If you’re the type of person who thinks outside the box with an affinity for the unorthodox, keep reading. This fast roasting turkey method is for you.
A Simple Approach:
Who doesn’t want to save time on Thanksgiving? Mark Bittman of the NY Times, and the author of How to Cook Everything, set out to put together a minimalist Thanksgiving dinner to cut down on prep, cook time, and ingredients so he could have time and energy to actually enjoy the meal with family and friends. Bittman’s first spatchcocking video made its appearance in 2008. Since then a number of celebrity chefs have also applied the same method, with spatchcocking becoming an official foodie trend by 2012.
(Kenji Lopez-Alt is another chef who swears by a flat bird! His discussion about and recipe for a spatchcocked turkey and many others can be found in his book, The Food Lab.)
Advantages of Spatchcocking:
- It’s a Timesaver: To take the time out of the turkey roasting process, Mark splits and flattens out the turkey. With the turkey flattened out, the amount of exposed surface area increases and the overall thickness of the bird comes down to a nearly even level. With this preparation, you can blast the turkey at a higher oven temperature to expedite the cooking process. Depending on the size of the bird, it could take only 45 minutes to cook all the way through. Spatchcocking addresses the issues of not only time; but oven space too. With the turkey flattened out, you’ll still have room in the oven for pies, rolls, and anything else you may be baking.
- Flat Shape=Even Cooking: A turkey is pretty much spherical in shape, no wonder there are issues with even cooking! In a spatchcocked turkey, the legs will be far more exposed than a turkey in its natural shape. This is great because the dark meat needs to reach a higher temperature than the light meat in the breast.
- Juicier Meat and Crisper Skin: On a spatchcocked bird, all of the skin is facing up and fully exposed. This will result in a turkey with crackling crisp skin and even browning all around. As the juices render from the skin it will help keep the meat nice and moist.
- Better Gravy: With removing the backbone, you have another component to add flavor to your gravy. Make a quick stock using the neck, giblets and backbone, and use that in addition to the drippings from the turkey to make your gravy. No need to use store-bought chicken stock to make the gravy.
Disadvantages:
We’ve exhausted the good points of this method, but what are the drawbacks? The most common complaint about spatchcocking is that it “just doesn’t look right”. Splitting a turkey and flattening it across a roasting pan doesn’t look like the romantic memories we have of a whole roasted turkey being brought to the table. But it tastes so darn good, and you’re going to save yourself time. So spatchcock that bird and carve it before it gets to the table!
Break Down the Bird
Enough talk about why spatchcocking is so great. It’s so much easier than you might think! All you need are a cutting board, poultry shears, and a chef’s knife. As long as you’re not squeamish to the sound of bones breaking, it’s a cinch.
Follow These Easy Steps:
Pat the turkey dry and place it backbone side up on a cutting board.
Use poultry shears and cut on either side of the backbone starting from the bottom cutting up toward the neck. If you get to an area that you can’t get through with the shears, use a knife to crack through. You have now removed the backbone. Set aside to use when making your gravy.
Make a cut either down the center of the breastbone or one cut on either side of it. Turn the turkey breast side up.
Flatten bird out by pressing down on the breastbone with your palms, and break it (ribs will break too). You may need to stand on a stool for more leverage.
Tuck the wings under and move the legs out toward the side. Trim the excess neck skin. Your bird is now flattened and ready to go.
Our Kitchen Project:
We decided to give spatchcocking a whirl and see what all the fuss is about.
- After removing the backbone and breaking the breastbone and some ribs, we arranged it on our prepared sheet pan with carrots, onions, celery, a turnip, a parsnip, some garlic, and a sliced cooking apple along with fresh parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme underneath a wire rack.
- After arranging the wings and legs just so and seasoning with salt and pepper, we placed a ChefAlarm probe in the deepest part of the breast, set the high alarm to 157ºF (69ºC), and popped the bird into a 425ºF (218ºC) oven.
- The high alarm went off 1 hour and 12 minutes after closing the oven door. We spot-checked the temperatures with a Thermapen and found a cool area at only 137ºF (58ºC). During the roasting process the coldest area of the breast meat won’t be the same place you started in. If you find a lower temperature, return the turkey to the oven. Our turkey took 28 more minutes to reach 157ºF (69ºC), and this time it was the true low temperature in the meat for a total cooking time of 1 hour and 40 minutes. Not exactly the 45-minute turkey Mark Bittman made; but much faster than a traditional roasting method.
- At the same time, we roasted a turkey of the same size in its natural shape, and its total cook time was 3 hours for a time savings of 1 hour and 20 minutes.
Ken says
I Received my chef alarm last week and have many questions that could be answered with an in striation manual. ! I am cooking a 14 Lb Turkey Fr(Have 14 for this one Have a ham also don’t need help there.The low alarm is set at 164 is this like a warning because the high alarms set at 165. I hope this is correct.) Have other meat do not need help there.Cooking . Cooking a full psmo filet Sat after Xmas Setting at 135 deg should I set low alarm at 132?. And would I need to set a time for either of these. Your help will be appreciated.I will be showing off my new
cooking aid to a lot of people ( guests don’t want to screw up.Thanks for your help.
Kim says
Ken,
With your turkey we actually recommend a pull temperature of 157ºF to account for the rise in temperature after you remove the turkey from the oven–carryover cooking will bring the internal temperature up to 165ºF. Set your high alarm to 157ºF, and we recommend spot-checking temperatures with an instant read digital thermometer like a ThermoPop or Thermapen. There isn’t a need to set a low alarm for this application. The time it takes to cook depends in large part on the cooking method and cooking temperature.
For a smaller piece of meat like a filet, a leave-in probe thermometer isn’t usually our recommended thermometer. Small pieces of meat that cook faster than roasts are best suited for an instant read thermometer like a ThermoPop or Thermapen. With those steaks you’ll want to pull them when the internal temperature reaches 130F for a final temperature of 135F. For more information check out our blog posts on filet mignon: Perfectly Cooked Filet Mignon Prepared Two Ways, and Date Night Steak Night. How will you be preparing your filets? If grilling, you’ll only need to cook for a couple of minutes on each side.
Please feel free to email me with any further questions that you have. kim.allison@thermoworks.com
-Kim
CAROL ROVETTA says
Used this method to cook a turkey for this Thanksgiving. It was wonderful. Wondering if I could put the dressing under the turkey and cook them simultaneously?
Martin says
Carol,
That ought to work. I’d temp the dressing though, just to be safe!
David says
This is my plan for Thanksgiving. I will be cooking mine on a Kamado Joe smoker using my recently acquired Thermoworks Signals and Billows! Great job, chef!
Bruce says
I’ve brined, then smoked a turkey the last couple of years. Any idea of how this would work with smoking a turkey?
Martin says
Bruce,
It should work fine! It won’t get as crispy at the lower smoking temp, but it will still cook faster and you’ll also get more smoke exposure. Go for it!
Rick says
When cooking on top of dressing, the juices will flavor the dressing. Take the turkey off and crisp up the dressing. YUM
Mike Archie says
Jjust how would you carve ? It dose not look easier to me. Any help would be appreciated
Martin says
Mike,
The legs fairly fall off, and the meat can be sliced from those or eaten on the bone. The breasts are best carved out of the carcass and sliced on a board, much like on a whole turkey, but that is easier (at least to me) on this shape bird than on the standard whole one. The wings get split just as always.
daniel pace says
in the video at first he chef said a 5 pound turkey at the end he refered to it as 10 pound turkey which one is it
Martin says
It was 10.
Jeff Dwork says
How big a roasting pan do I need? I don’t want turkey hanging over the edge. Thanks.
Martin says
I use a standard baking sheet. A rather large turkey can still fit on one fo those!
Carol says
i watched this spatchcock video 3 times b4 attempting. I dry brined the turkey uncovered for 2 days. I used the compound butter under the skin and melted butter for the skin. Veggies and herbs under the flat rack holding the meat. I used the chef alarm and thermapen combination as advised. Set alarm to 157.
My turkey came out horrible! Very dry and overcooked.
What did I do wrong?
Martin says
Oh no! I don’t know what went wrong. How big a turkey was it? Maybe email me and we can figure it out.
John says
I tried cooking a 4.7# chicken using this method to practice before attempting a turkey. I used coconut oil instead of butter and cooked in a Traeger pellet grill that was set to 425F. I pulled after 66mins when the lowest temp in breast that I could find was 158F and rested for 10mins. The skin was awesome and the white meat was perfect. I forgot to temp the dark meat, which I was sure was safe to eat, however, the connective tissues was not well rendered and was a little difficult to separate from the bone. I like dark meat that is more well cooked than how this turned out. Do others have the same experience? I’m not sure if it is possible to use this technique to achieve perfect white meat but also have “fall off the bone” dark meat. Any advice on how to adjust this method to get this result?
Martin says
John,
You might try some of the suggestions we make for getting higher dark meat temps in our Turkey Temperature Guide. For instance, let your turkey sit out on the counter for an hour before cooking it with bags of ice ont he bresasts but not on the legs. The legs will get warmer, while the breast stays cold, and that temperature variance should track all the way up through the cook. Good luck!
Mary Ann says
I have a 19 lb. turkey. Could you give me an approximate time and temp you recommend for this method?
Martin says
Well, this answer is certainly too late, but for the benefit of the future…
Cook it for about 75 minutes at 425°F, then turn it down to 325°F. It should take close to 2 hours to cook.
Jim says
Terrific article. Have always had problems with uniformity when cooking turkeys. Used twice last year on BBQ and turkeys turned out perfectly for our tastes. Will cook one this coming week and spatchcock, of course.