Fully deboned turkey | demi glacé made with the bones

***RECIPE***

a turkey
a couple onions
tomato paste
a handful of dried mushrooms
a packet of unflavored gelatin (optional)
butter (optional)
white wine (optional)
salt, pepper, herbs and spices (I used dried thyme and sage on both sides, and onion and garlic powder on the flesh side)

I recommend starting this two days before your feast, but you could do all the 2-days-out stuff on the day before.

2 DAYS OUT

Open your turkey, set aside the neck and giblets. Put all your bones and trimmings in the same place as you debone.

Flip the bird around so you're looking at its backbone. Slice down one side of the spine and gradually peel meat off the central skeleton. When you reach the hip and shoulder joints, grab the joint with kitchen scissors and twist hard to dislocate it. Then you can snip through the ligaments. Keep peeling off meat until you get all the way to the breastbone. Rotate the bird and repeat on the opposite side, thus freeing the central skeleton.

To debone the leg quarters, slice on top of the hipbone, peel meat off the side of the bone, slip your knife up under the bone and saw outward to where the hip joint used to be, thus freeing that end of the hipbone. Slice on top of the knee and the shinbone all the way down to the ankle, peel meat off the side of the bones, grab the hipbone and saw underneath the knee and shinbone to free all of the meat. Use scissors to snip the tendons/skin at the ankle and free the bones. Use pliers to pluck out the bone-like tendons running through the legs.

You could just cut the wings off, but I think it's worth deboning the drumette at the top . Slice on top of the humerus bone, peel meat off the sides, slip your knife under the bone and saw out toward where the shoulder joint used to be. Once that end of the humerus is free, use your scissors to snip the elbow joint and free the rest of the wing.

Trim away any remaining cartilage or anything else you wouldn't want to eat. Fold the tenderloins back so that the meat will lie at a more even thickness. Make a few shallow slices into the thickest part of the breast to get it to lie flatter. Use your scissors to cut the leg quarters off of the breast so you can cook all the dark meat on a separate tray.

Season the flesh side of the turkey then position the pieces on baking trays, skin-side up — the dark meat should be on one tray and the white meat on another. Season the skin side. Tuck any exposed meat up under the skin, transfer the trays to the refrigerator uncovered and let the skin dry in there until you're ready to roast.

Put all the bones in a big roasting tray along with a couple onions cut in half. Roast in the oven at 400ºF/200ºC for about an hour until brown, but don't let anything burn. Flip everything around a few times as you roast. Halfway through, squeeze a little tomato paste onto the bones.

Transfer everything to the stovetop, submerge in water and throw in the dried mushrooms, some peppercorns and bay leaves (if you're into that). Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer and cover. Simmer the bones, stirring occasionally and replenishing the water as needed until the bones easily break — it took me 16 hours.

1 DAY OUT

Fish most of the solids out of the stock and discard. Sprinkle in the packet of gelatin (not necessary but it can help you increase your final sauce yield), bring to a boil and reduce it as much as you can without thickening it up very much.

Fill a huge bowl halfway up with ice and water, and nest a smaller bowl inside. Lay a sieve in the inner bowl and pass the stock through, discarding any remaining solids. Stir the stock occasionally to help it cool down as fast as possible. Remove the inner bowl, cover, and chill until the fat has risen to the top and the stock underneath has set into a solid block of meaty jello.

Skim the fat off the top and discard or save for corn pudding (recipe above). Transfer the stock to a wide pan and reduce to a glaze, along with an optional glass of white wine. Season to taste, and you can refrigerate this until the feast.

DAY OF THE FEAST

Roast the turkey at 400ºF/200ºC, basting occasionally, until the white meat reaches 160ºF/71ºC and the dark meat 185ºF/85ºC (the dark meat will prob be done first). If you want darker color, jack up the heat toward the end. Mine took about 90 min. Rest before slicing.

Reheat the demi-glacé. If you want greater sauce volume, hold it at a very low simmer and gradually stir in a lot of butter — up to 1:1 butter and demi-glacé. If you don't let it boil, the emulsion should hold. Taste and adjust seasoning. Inform everybody this sauce is way stronger than gravy, so they don't need much.

[disgruntledcashier]

Something I really appreciate about Adam's videos is that when he has do something twice in a recipe (like deboning the turkey legs), he shows us both times to help explain it. It makes it so you don't have to keep rewinding the video to catch all the details

[stir]

I love your consistent skepticism with regards to Bay leaves, and yet consistent usage of them. Never gets old lmao

[slothape]

The thing I love about Adam is his food knowledge is maximised while unnecessary effort is minimized.

[jeanfitzsimmons]

My grandmother always admired the chef she worked for, and spoke with reverence of the fact that he could “debone a turkey and put it back together.” I inherited my grandmother’s passion for cooking, so, since it sounded challenging, i eventually eventually did try it for thanksgiving one year.
A challenge it was, interesting, and it made serving much easier. It also cut the baking time. I am glad i did it, but once was quite enough. It really did not seem worth doing more than once, since doing a large dinner and deserts for my family on my own is quite challenging enough.
These days, at my advanced age, my son does the cooking for family holiday dinners dinners, and i just do the pies. (I retired from my office job the better part of two decades ago, but i’m not quite ready to retire from all cooking. It is still too much fun!)

[conradzxy]

That ending…. Adam really is the most relatable cook

[SeattleSandro]

I made this turkey for Thanksgiving and, wow, it was a hit. The hardest part really was deboning the bird, and even then, it wasn't that hard. I started this the day before Thanksgiving, so I had time to go slowly. It was worth the effort. This bird was juicy, it was done in about 75 minutes, and the white meat and dark meat were cooked perfectly. Carving it up was a breeze and honestly, nobody minded that this wasn't a "traditional" bird. All the extra bones from the bird went into making gravy (no demi) so very little was wasted. This will be my preferred turkey-cooking method going forward. Thanks, Adam, for this video!

[fivefoottwelve]

I love stock recipes because they always seem like the best attempt of someone who has only vaguely heard of cooking: "Yeah just throw some onions in there. Cut them in half first for good measure. Add some water probably."

[kdjhd]

It was a big hit! The juiciness of this meat can not be overstated.

I served a trial version of this using a six pound chicken to my family today. I followed all the directions and split the difference between Mr. Ragusea's preference to skip the brine by adding some but not a lot of salt to the meat.

I used the pressure cooker method for the stock and it worked great. After separating the solids, the stock took much longer to reduce than I expected, but I was also conservative with heat to prevent burning. As a result, I didn't have enough time to reduce the glace enough either. It really didn't make a difference because the more runny glace was just fine.

The six pound chicken cooked at 400F in my active convection oven in about 30 minutes. Much faster than I expected but it makes sense with less meat. Instead of basting during the roast or adding oil to the skin, I basted once right when I took them out of the oven. I tilted the pan to get all the juices in the corner and bastey mcbaste face was quick and simple. The skin was still crispy as sin with that little extra flavor.

You know that moment when your wife wants to know how the magic happened? Well, that happen to me tonight. Thanks again for sharing with me and the rest of the world.

[caldasReport]

The fact that Lauren's reaction to the skin was LAUGHING, tells you that skin was just stupid good.

[tetech]

The level of useful information, and general knowledge these videos deliver is immense. IMO the best Youtube cook.

[ldcldc]

"A glass of white wine in there", proceeds to empty half the bottle.

How big are your wine glasses exactly, Adam?

[HairlessPotato]

I dont know how but adam has the ability to make me zone out when watching his videos, I just start to consume the knowledge he is giving me and only when its done do I realise how much I was focused on it.

[mrmudcatslim]

I was a mechanic at the Macon Water Authority for a bit, after I got out of the Navy. Went from distribution, to the water plant.
I can tell you we had pretty good water. I worked the mechanic side keeping things running, but had to know the steps from the inlet of the Okmulgee River, all the way to the water towers, or clear wells. Had to dose the chlorine as the water worked its way out of the plant and into the distribution system. Pretty cool if your into that sort of thing.

We had a pretty neat filter system at the old plant. It started with floculation chambers, then over and under weirs, and into the filter beds. From there it went to giant clear wells under the ground. Then on out to the city and surrounding area. We used polymer sometimes to help clear the water if muddy, various ph modifiers, and a few other things such as fluoroacetic acid for your teeth. Some things I've forgotten about. We had an old pneumatic/mechanical system to monitor the flow through the pipes leaving the filter beds. Really old. It involved mercury wells to act as a counter balance from the compressed air that worked against a plate. Think of it as a liquid spring. It had to different sized stand pipes to act as references to water pressure. Atmospheric head pressure that is. It had hand cut cams to give a profile to replicate the flow through a venturi in the pipes, it worked much like a carburetors. The cams were actuated by a gear and a chain that moved in relation to the water flowing through the over sized venturi. This raised and lowered an arm with a plate attached, and that provided a back pressure to the nozzle that blasted the plate with compressed air from big double acting vertical air compressors found in the plant. The back pressure was read by electronics and this increased or decreased the amount of water flowing down through the filter beds and out. A mix of the very old and new. Quite a bit more was involved, but I have yapped to much.

Never did work at the new plant. Heard the lake made the water even better.

Good video as always. Have a nice weekend.

[vickiephelps]

Right after Thanksgiving turkeys are so cheap! I always buy 2 of them and debone them before freezing. This saves so much space in the freezer, preparation time before cooking and so much money over buying turkey at any other time of the year. This is definitely a great skill to learn.

[Ryotaiku]

That crunch from Lauren without even a mic up close is all I need to hear to want to try this.

[anthonyrcoons]

Adam - my roommate and I just deboned a whole friggin’ turkey - and there’s absolutely no way we would’ve been able to do it if it weren’t for you. Happy thanksgiving man 👍🏼

[patrickinverness]

Last thanksgiving I was in charge of the turkey and I did something similar--I butchered the bird the weekend ahead and cooked the pieces sous vide. I don't remember my breast time and temp, but the legs were 165 for either 12 or 24 hours. I also roasted the carcass for stock then too. It was effort that took place over the course of several days, requiring planning and logistics, and it wasn't any better than I could roast a turkey normally, but I'd do it again for a specific reason.

Traditional roasting occupies the oven for hours and can be tricky and require a lot of attention, especially if you're using an oven at a relative's house and aren't familiar with it. This method took less than 15 minutes in the oven on the day itself! I reheated the cooked turkey in a waterbath and then took it out of the bags and broiled the skin for a bit. It was the easiest and most painless turkey I've ever done.

[smspk]

I made this twice this year with 18 pound turkeys. The second time I put it over Dave Arnold's stuffing recipe. Both ways were huge hits. I'll never cook it any other way because being able to chuck the turkey in for just 45 minutes to an hour day of was a huge revelation for my kitchen work.

[iant]

I switched to an electric pressure cooker for all my stock making. It's just so easy to push a button and walk away. No smell, no burning your house down and it finishes a lot quicker.

[stewiegriffin]

6:11 “Frog and Toad.” Great choice Adam. One of my favorite book series when I was a kid.