A turkey has a long way to go before it goes from annoyingly feathery to stuffed Christmas turkey or stuffed turkey with sarmas. The first step, as you all guessed, is cleaning the turkey.
Many would suggest skinning the turkey directly to avoid the tedious task of removing feathers and they would be wrong. Removing the skin from the turkey will prevent the meat from stewing in it and instead of being juicy and flavorful, it will become dry and rather tough.
Even if you have experience in the kitchen, cleaning a turkey can be quite a challenging task, because we all know that the best turkey is fresh turkey and the freshest turkey is a freshly slaughtered one.
The first step in cleaning a turkey is to scald it to make it easier to remove the feathers. Scalding the turkey is done with boiling water, by adding 1 teaspoon of soda to every 1 liter of boiling water.
The time for scalding is 2-3 minutes, during which time the turkey is shaken several times.
After scalding, it is advisable to let the turkey drain and dry, so that the feathers can be easily removed. It is recommended that you then scorch the bird with alcohol evenly on all sides to ensure that you have removed the last remnants of feathers.
Next is gutting the turkey and removing the entrails. All that remains is to rinse it from all sides and choose your favorite recipe for stuffed turkey.
It is important to note that turkeys that are sold commercially are cleaned, they do not need to be washed. What's more, experts recommend not washing defrosted turkey, because of the increased risk of spreading bacteria. Therefore, when working with frozen birds, including turkeys, the main rule is - don't wash the bird, but wash your hands, as well as all work surfaces.
If you love turkey, be sure to try our recipes for:
- turkey soup;
Comments