Hi I’m Marty Richardson from chefmartyrich.com. Welcome back to our daily tip series.  Today’s topic is Thanksgiving food safety.

Fresh Or Frozen?

It always starts with the turkey.  Fresh or frozen?  Well, if you buy a frozen turkey, your only constraint is whether you have enough room in the freezer to store or the refrigerator to start thawing.  If you buy fresh, purchase only 1 to 2 days ahead.  Most fresh turkey is sold semi-frozen.  The turkey is frozen to 28 degrees at the most.  It is not frozen solid like a rock.  Turkey sold “frozen”, is generally frozen at zero degrees.  That is the difference.  So don’t be shocked when you go to pick up a fresh turkey and it seems frozen.  The general guideline is that it takes about 24 hours of thawing in the refrigerator for every 4 to 5 pounds of turkey. After it is thawed out, you can leave it in the refrigerator for 1 to 2 days.  If you have a small turkey, (up to 12 pounds), it might take up to 1 to 3 days to thaw.  Medium size turkeys (16 to 20 pounds) may take 4 to 5 days to thaw.  And a great big turkey, (up to 24 pounds), may take up to 5 or 6 days to thaw.

Cold Water Bath

Now, if you don’t have room in your refrigerator, or you were not planning to have Thanksgiving dinner, or twice as many guests come than you thought, or you just plain forgot to thaw out the turkey – don’t panic.  You can thaw out your turkey in cold water. That’s right…Cold Water. Do Not, even in a panic situation, use hot water to thaw out your turkey.  It creates a really dangerous bacteria environment.  To rush it up the thawing process, change the cold water more frequently.  It is suggested that you change the water every 30 minutes.  If you are in a panic – try every 15 minutes.  The government (USDA) suggests that it takes about 30 minutes per pound to thaw a turkey using this technique.  Once the turkey is thawed, you must cook it immediately.  Do not use this cold water submersion technique, and then leave the turkey in the refrigerator for a few days.   Again, I think this is a long time to thaw out the turkey.  This formula means that a 20 – 24 pound turkey is going to take 10 to 12 hours to thaw.  Those are government (USDA) guidelines, your results may vary.

Time To Make The Turkey

Now, I want to talk about cooking times.  325 degrees.  Do Not cook your turkey at any lower temperature than 325 degrees.  This is another activity that invites bacteria growth.  You can cook higher temperatures than that, obviously, but don’t cook below 325 degrees.  An unstuffed turkey cooked at 325 degrees that weighs up to 12 pounds, might take 2 ½ to 3 hours.  Turkeys up to 18 pounds might take 3 ¾ up to 4 ¼ hours.  A great big turkey weighing up to 24 pounds might take 4 ½ to 5 hours to cook.  Now, if you must stuff your turkey, (which I wholly disagree with), but if you must, then, do not stuff the turkey in advance.  Do not buy a turkey that is already pre-stuffed.  This is another bacterial disaster waiting to happen. And stuff the turkey loosely, rather than packing it in there tight, so that the temperature of the stuffing reaches 165 degrees. 165 degrees is the golden number that you need to burn into your memory because it is the temperature at which the majority of harmful bacteria is killed. Use an instant read thermometer to be sure.  I say that all the time, but it is a very important point.

Mmmm Leftovers…

Once the turkey is cooked, let it rest for 20 to 30 minutes outside of the oven and you will be rewarded with a much juicier turkey.  The time frame from when you have taken it out of the oven, (let it rest, carved and served) until you need to get the leftover turkey back into the refrigerator is only 2 hours.  Do Not leave your turkey sitting on the table for hours and hours and hours.  When you are ready for leftovers, reheat them to 165 degrees to make sure that you have killed the bacteria. Hopefully, your leftovers are not going to last more than 3 to 4 days. If not they should be frozen or discarded.  You should have already cooked turkey soup and gotten rid of all that turkey before the holiday weekend is over.

If you have any other questions about turkey, make sure you leave a comment on the website or call in and register for a 30 minute free consultation.  I’ll call you and then you can ask me any questions you might have, right up until Thanksgiving Day. I will also leave the numbers for the Butterball Turkey hotline and the government (USDA) turkey hotline if you have any last minute questions/problems.  I will talk to you tomorrow.  Thanks.

Hi I’m Marty Richardson from chefmartyrich.com. Welcome back to our daily tip series.

When Is The Turkey Done?

Today, I am going to continue the discussion about turkey.  Today’s topic is, when is your turkey done?  Ok, I am always talking about the instant read thermometer and why is it so important.  Well, there’s a very fine line (10 degrees to be exact) between the temperature that the breast meat is cooked and the dark meat of the leg and thigh is cooked.  When the temperature of the dark meat reaches 163 degrees to be exact, that is when all the redness around the bone is totally cooked.  Now, here’s the problem. When you add 10 degrees,  – 173 – and add to that, carry over cooking of maybe another 5 to 10 degrees…now, the breast meat registers 180 degrees, way too hot.  Any meat cooked to 180 degrees is going to be completely well done, lacking in any juice whatsoever.  The turkey breast is infamous for being a diet food because there is very low fat content.  So with no fat, there’s no flavor and no moisture.  That is why we brine.

Not Convinced?

If you are still not going to brine your turkey because you are not convinced, I have a couple of tips for you.  One – you can roast the turkey breast side up and cover the breast area with some tin foil, and remove it during the last 45 minutes so that the skin can brown.  Or, you can roast it breast side down in one of those V-racks that I talked about in the last video.  Then, the breast meat self-bastes. Turn it right side up for the last 45 minutes for the same purpose.  So that you can brown the skin covering the breast.  The third point I wanted to make is if you stuff your turkey (which I am completely against, even though my Mother still does it…) you will probably over cook your breast meat. The problem is exposed by the meat thermometer.  Your stuffing needs to be at 165 degrees to kill the harmful bacteria, and if it is inside the turkey, then it means that the breast meat must be over 180 degrees before your stuffing gets to 165.  So you still loose.  If you pull the turkey out when the breast is done, then you have “salmonella stuffing”.  Neither alternative is desirable, so that is why I argue against stuffing your turkey.

Time To Brine

There are three benefits to brining.  One – moisture retention, two – you end up with seasoned meat and three – the turkey can also withstand higher oven temperatures which gives you really crisp skin and that is what you are looking for.   The basic formula for brining is 1 cup of table salt dissolved into 1 gallon of water.  Then, you brine your turkey for about 4 hours.  If you are going to brine it overnight, you need to reduce the amount of table salt down to 1/2 cup per gallon of water.  The next consideration is, what type of container to use?  I used to own a convenience store, so I had, and I still have, 5 gallon pickle buckets which are very convenient for me to brine a big turkey.  Or you can use a beverage cooler, to do that in.  You can also find brining bags at the grocery store, if you have room in the refrigerator. You want to continue to add ice to it the brine if it is not refrigerated, so that the temperature stays below 40 degrees.  I still am planning to speak about sanitation before the holidays, but that is for a later discussion.

Too Much Sodium?

Another tip about brining is that if you buy a self-basting turkey do not brine it.  It has already been injected with sodium and usually turkey stock to give it some flavor.  If you brine it as well, your turkey is going to end up being overly salty.  Same thing with a kosher turkey.  You want to beware of a double dose of sodium. You probably want to stay away from that.  Speaking of sodium, is it just too much salt?  If you use a 4 hour brine and a 12 hour brine (using the proportions that I discussed earlier) the resulting turkey meat is going to be .22% sodium level by weight.  Now, if that is too much sodium for you, don’t brine.  I don’t think it is too much, but I am not a doctor.  I don’t pretend to be a doctor.  And if you are trying to keep your sodium low then maybe you should skip the brining.  Lastly, after you brine, make sure you rinse the turkey completely and pat it dry. If you have time and refrigeration space let the turkey air dry for the crispest skin possible.

Tomorrow we are going to talk more turkey.  We are going to stay right on this topic for 5 videos in a row.  So hopefully you will know everything you need to know about turkey by the end of the week. Thanks for watching.

Hi everyone. Marty Richardson here at chefmartyrich.com with today’s tip series. Well the last few days I have been doing labeling and it turns out today we are on a totally different track. You might remember from one of the earlier episodes Ms. Barbara and her anniversary party. Well that is tomorrow and I have been the designatee for making rolls for 75 people. So a couple of hundred rolls easily, I have to make. So I wanted to talk a little bit about that today. Here I have my “mise en place” which is culinary school terminology, French, for everything in its place. Rather than doing 4 batches in one bowl and just multiplying everything times 4 and putting it all together I am doing 4 separate batches of rolls. They make 24 so I am going to do 8 and then see if I have time to do more than that. That will be a bonus.

Here you have my warm water with yeast. Remember 110 degrees, and I knew that because of my handy dandy instant read thermometer. And then I have my melted butter and eggs. And then I have ½ cup sugar goes in. And then into each bowl will go 1 tsp. salt as well. And 4 ¼ cups of flour. So the recipe again is

1 C water (110 degrees)

2 pkg. yeast (not quick rising type)

½ C. butter melted

½ C. sugar

Mix together. Add three eggs and 1 tsp. salt and 4 ¼ C. flour.

Refrigerate for at least 2 hours or up to three days. So I have plenty of time to have them rise. And I will take them out, roll them into rolls and put them on the pans to let them rise a second time before I bake them off.

So there you have it. There is my tip for the day and I will come back and shoot the video later and I will post it tomorrow or the next day on how they came out.

Make sure you visit the website. Leave a comment. Call me, or actually, I can call you so all you have to do is register for a ½ hour free consultation and I’ll call you and we will talk about whatever you want to talk about.

Thanks very much for watching and we will talk to you tomorrow.

Wow. Is it tomorrow already? Well, I am a beginner at this video thing, so a little time lapsed photography. Welcome back. I’m going to show you what that yeast looks like today.

Test Results

Okay, here’s the two cups and you can see the one on the right is just a bubbling and foaming away. Which means your yeast is active. The one on the left, all the yeast has settled on the bottom and nothing is happening. Now this is only a 20 degree change in temperature. It is a very subtle thing and I suppose I could do a series of experiments to find out exactly what temperature is going to kill your yeast.

Blooming Yeast

But again it only takes an Instant Read Thermometer and you know that you have the right temperature. As I said, the recipe calls for 110 degrees and when you have the right temperature you have the best product. Look at that yeast go. It looks like it is growing right before your eyes.

Time To Make The Dinner Rolls…

Okay I hadn’t really thought about what I was going to do with the yeast. One package of yeast was sacrificed for this experiment. So in the spirit of conservation and good cooking, I am going to make dinner rolls. Literally, tomorrow, or maybe I’ll shoot the video later and post it tomorrow, you get to see what they look like.

Again, keep those questions coming. It has been great talking to everyone and I am really enjoying myself showing you a little bit about food here and there. So, come on back. Like I said, opt in at the bottom, on the left. Join our community. Go to the blog which is www.chefmartyrich.com/blog and post a question. I will get a video out to you as soon as I can.

Have a great day. See you tomorrow.

Hi and welcome back to Chefmartyrich.com. I shot a video, one of the first videos that I did and it was about Miss Barbara and easy dinner rolls. I am not sure if I really represented everyone properly.

My Apology

She saw the video and here is my apology. Okay, it wasn’t boiling water, but it was still too hot. So then I probably blamed the recipe, and talked about Recipe Rebel and then I got the recipe.

Easy Dinner Rolls

It was Easy Dinner Rolls. I got it right off the internet. Off of Recipezaar and right here it says that even the beginner cook can make these. They are true homemade rolls. They must chill or you can make them up to three days in advance. Now right here (I don’t know if you can see that) but right here it says “2 packages of yeast. Do not use a quick rising yeast in this recipe. 1 cup of water (110 degrees)”.

This One is Just Right…

Now granted again who knows what’s 110 degrees? But that is why we have our trusty Instant Read Thermometer. And today I am going to show you what bloomed yeast looks like. (Water running). It’s really pretty simple. Perfect, 110 degrees and I need 1 cup. And I just pour in the yeast.

This One’s Too Hot…

Now this water is too hot. Let’s just kick it up to about 130. So use 1 cup and we will put in another package of yeast. And we will see what happens. Now yeast feeds off of sugar. So a little pinch and a little pinch. Stir it up a little bit.

I will come back tomorrow and we will see what they look like.

Okay, take care. Keep coming back. Keep sending in questions. We will get a video just for you. Thanks.