WE’RE GETTING JIGGY WITH TURKEY here on The Sister Project. If, like me, you do not relegate turkey to a mere once a year, but instead make it more often, you probably have more than a few recipes in your stash. And, if your recipes are like mine, some of them are better than others. Recently, in search of yet another method, I wiled away hours reading my mother-in-law’s recipe box. And whammo: What I found might shock you.
It’s the Paul Evans T-shirt method for cooking turkey, or so it says on the card, in my mother-in-law’s lovely script. I am not making this up. The nicest people, my in-laws, but wowza, they made some wild stuff, including that Spam Chop Suey, and-just in case you haven’t seen it yet-the Popcorn Turkey recipe supplied by Uncle Wayne, from the collection of his wife, Allene, (also my mother’s name, but don’t that that throw you, when there’s popcorn and t-shirts to do so). So here’s another to add to that maybe-you-will-maybe-you-won’t try this at home recipe list.
Paul Evans T-Shirt Turkey
- Set oven to 500 degrees
- Dip t-shirt in melted butter
- Drape over stuffed turkey
- As soon as it starts to cook well turn oven down to 325 degrees.
When I emailed my husband that I was back in his mother’s recipes, writing about this particular dish, he replied: “The Rev. Paul Evans was a BIG guy. He wore a big T-shirt. Could handle quite the turkey.”
The whole family is really lovely, and normal–I promise. Except perhaps for the Spam Chop Suey, and the T-Shirt Turkey, and the Popcorn Turkey and–well, hmmmm.
Help me out, sisters; send me the antidote: One simple, plain-as-you-please, method for roasting a turkey to counteract this madness. Or, what the hell, go on: Send me another in the list of maybe-nots, and knock my hand-knit socks off.
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Draping an oil-coated piece of cheesecloth over a roasting bird is quite common. Keeps the meat from drying out and, in essence, “bastes” the bird. Butterball sticks the oil under the skin – same idea, really. So a t-shirt is a substitute for cheesecloth. One might assume that the cloth absorbs the oil, which makes it self-basting, but I don’t think so.
Hi, Rachel: Welcome. Good points. The t-shirt seems mighty thick to me. I’ve made many a bird under cheesecloth. You? What’s your method?
Marion, that’s um, quite the family there! Anybody who writes those curiosities down must have something pretty special going on in the wings.
And about those wings: I almost always roast my turkey on the grill. This method not only produces a very tender bird (lid closed entire time) but also solves holiday oven-space trouble. Treat the bird to a butter massage over & under the skin, pop in a few clove-studded oranges & onions, set in a foil roasting pan, close lid and go about your business. A few bastings near the end with port-spiked maple syrup gives it a nice Rockwellian gleam.
Maybe not as exciting as the XXL Hanes method, but crisp and moist in all the right places. Thanks for sharing another lovely family tale!
Hey, Marilyn: Oooooooooooooh. I mean oooooh-ooooooooooh-oooooooooh, delicious. I love this idea, and have never had the courage to grill a bird of any size. Closed lid, smoke holes open or shut? Fifteen minutes a pound? Port-spiked maple syrup is a smashing idea. Having cleaned off my grill area, I am going out to get another (we already had one this week, but hey!) turkey asap. Thanks, sister.
Hey there! Here’s my Turkey method!
If you aren’t looking forward to getting up before dawn on Thanksgiving morning to wrestle with a 20-pound turkey, while chopping onions and celery until your tears sauté along with the food and you have to wipe your nose with your sleeve; if it’s your turn to cook the turkey this Thanksgiving and you dread it, I have great news: you can do it in your sleep!
I learned about the slow roasting method from Ruth Stout’s books in the ‘70s when I first had a vegetable garden. Her brother, Rex Stout, wrote mysteries, but her own irresistible titles, How to have a Green Thumb without an Aching Back, and Gardening Without Work: For the Aging, the Busy, and the Indolent were no mystery. Her easy mulching method of gardening appealed to plenty of people who had both a garden and an aching back. Her slow roasting method for meat is less well known.
Ruth wrote about her first time: after searing roast beef in a 450 degree oven for 30 minutes to brown, she turned the oven down to 145 degrees Fahrenheit and left it overnight. In the morning, Ruth found a blackened hunk of meat in the oven. But when she sliced the beef open, inside it was perfectly pink, tender and moist!
The method works the same way with a big turkey, but you’ll need to start the evening before. Slide the stuffed bird into a 425 degree oven to sear and brown. After 30 minutes, turn the oven down below 200 degrees. (Most ovens stop at 200 degrees, so you have to judge where the 180 mark should be because that is the temperature at which poultry is done.) Brashly confident, you can now go to bed at a decent hour and sleep as late as you can.
In the morning, the house will be filled with the aroma of roasting turkey. Check the roast with a meat thermometer. When it reads 180 degrees, keep it there while you mash the potatoes. The only complaint is that it is hard to lift onto the platter without the meat falling off the bones! Also, it is so tender that it slips away from the knife. (The carver’s job in this case is to just gently separate the sections with a fork and carve gingerly.)
My family agrees that the overnight roasted turkey is perfectly delicious, moist and tender, but when they worry about promoting bacteria with such a low heat, my answer is the same as Ruth Stout’s: The bacteria is not a danger when the turkey is cooked to the required 180 degrees. In addition, if it stays in the oven at that temperature, it will be neither undercooked nor overcooked!
This Thanksgiving! Have someone else peel the potatoes and carrots while keeping the turkey in the oven until the rest of the meal is ready. Take a leisurely morning shower and then sit down and watch Macy’s parade with the family before making the gravy. You won’t feel the need to nap later and you’ll have a truly Happy Thanksgiving.
Um… wow! A t-shirt dipped in butter. This is indeed somewhat shocking. Especially since just the other day I had a small kitchen fire due to a towel bursting into flames in the microwave (long story involving an ear ache and The Case of the Missing Heating Pad). Turns out that cotton is highly flammable. But I’m assuming the butter acts like an imperious shield of fat thus deterring (or perhaps delaying) combustion.
Wishing that I could contribute a recipe, I phoned my number one source of recipes, my mom. I told her about the t-shirt. She was as shocked as I was. Then I admitted to the flaming ear ache towel. And she confided to having a secret stash of towels with burn holes from similar events. And so it is that another Frenyea family eccentricity has been exposed through TSP discussion.
My mom did relay a tale told to her by her friend Florence Warner that seemed somewhat related to the t-shirt turkey and so I will pass it along. Florence said that one time she and her husband were visiting the Amish people and attended some kind of celebration in which a deep pit was dug and much wood and rocks were thrown into the pit. The wood was ignited (probably not started with a flaming microwave towel – these are the Amish after all) and left to burn thoroughly thus super-heating the rocks. Then, a pig, stuffed with poultry – perhaps a whole turkey – was mummified in butter-dipped, garlic seasoned muslin and dropped into the pit to cooked overnight. According to Florence, the outcome was delicious.
And so, here’s our recipe, handed down through legend:
Ingredients:
- an Amish community
- rocks
- firewood
- a deep pit
- one pig
- one turkey
- enough muslin to wrap a pig (one XL t-shirt can be used)
- enough butter to soak the muslin to wrap the pig
- salt to taste
PS
I admit to wondering what the t-shirt the turkey wears would say. Maybe something like “The People Cooking Me Went to Vegas and All I Got was this Lousy T-Shirt” would give the interior of the oven (or the pit) a good giggle.
Marion, I’m worried about you and all that turkey. I’d imagine that after you feast, everyone conks pretty fast!
About grilling: place the prepped bird on a rack (or a improvised “rack” made of twisted foil) in a very heavy-duty foil roaster. Close the lid and cook, about 15 minutes per pound, until thermometer hits turkey temp. Check on and baste the bird every half hour or so.
You can also line the bottom of the pan with whole carrots, onions, turnips, etc. for some of the sweetest, darkest burnt (or caramelized, as you will) vegetables ever to prop a bird. Good luck, and good eating!
Wowza, Miriam, that’s some turkey story. Thanks so much. You might like to research and write a book called “Cooking in Your Sleep.” Sure to be a huge hit.
Hey, Missy: I’m glad both you and your mother found the t-shirt shocking (me, too), but truly delighted to know that I am not the only one who regularly burns up kitchen towels and saves the evidence. Mostly I’m glad that TSP got you to tell your mom about your ear ache. You take care of yourself, sister, and come back soon.
And Marilyn. I know, I’m a little stuck on roasted things and never seem to make casserole-like-ish dishes. I have the “good plain food” outlook on all things edible. But the turkeys are always organic and so I figure we’re good. Especially now that I can grill one. Thank you. And keep coming back, please.
I hope Paul Evans did the laundry fairly often.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, sister-Anastasia. I love that dilemma: Wash it? Wear it again? Donate it to forever-kitchen- duty? Hilarious to ponder.