Sous Vide Turkey?

Submitted by Stuart Broz on Wed, 11/18/2009 - 7:11pm

Over on Serious Eats, I saw a post about cooking a turkey with two immersion circulators (in a pot filled with duck fat and butter). It reminded me of this video that made the rounds last Thanksgiving of Grant Achatz cooking turkey sous vide: Of course, neither of these are technically sous vide, since they weren't vacuum-sealed. Still, the idea of cooking a turkey like this is incredibly appealing. I do fairly well with my method (which I will reveal in a couple days), but managing to get both the breast and leg meat done properly is very tricky. One day, when I either get a SousVide Supreme or get around to rigging up my own contraption, I will try it.

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Stuffing

Permalink Submitted by Jason (not verified) on Wed, 11/18/2009 - 7:23pm.

I've done the "sous vide" stuffing that they mention in the video, and it has changed my world. Now everyone can get lots of crunchy bits AND soft bits, quite amazing really.

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Stuffing changed your world?

Permalink Submitted by Stuart Broz on Wed, 11/18/2009 - 9:17pm.

Dude. That's quite a claim.

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Never liked it

Permalink Submitted by Jason (not verified) on Wed, 11/18/2009 - 9:36pm.

I never liked stuffing. It wasn't browned much, tended to be mushy and not very flavorful. Because of the very controlled cooking, you get stuffing that has lots of concentrated flavor. By slicing and browning it, you get all the benefits of the crunchy browned bits without drying it out. Not to mention you can now cook your stuffing the day ahead and just brown it off on T-Day. Plus if you don't brown it all, your leftover stuffing, freshly prepared, is just as brown, crunchy, and delicious as it was on T-Day.

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Sous-vide and a turkey

Permalink Submitted by Pat Steer (Gaelen) (not verified) on Wed, 11/18/2009 - 7:34pm.

I have a hard time wrapping my head around sous vide and a turkey.
Then again, without the vacuum sealing, I suppose it might be in the same league with duck confit.
If you really want a Sous Vide Supreme, you might try asking Mike directly. Maybe he'd be interested in providing one for a testing review.

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Hmmm...

Permalink Submitted by Stuart Broz on Wed, 11/18/2009 - 9:17pm.

I made, essentially, chicken confit last week. It was quite good.

I think I will ask about the SousVide Supreme. If I were more gainfully employed, I probably would have pre-ordered one. I think the general readership here may well be interested...