Pouring Boiling Water Over A Whole Turkey Is A Holiday Game Changer

The close of the year brings many joyous and indulgent celebrations, the fellowship of friends and family, and the wondrous cornucopia of holiday banquets resplendent with food and drink. Alas, for the uninitiated, the season also entails the nightmare of attempting to properly cook a whole turkey. In addition to dry breast meat, a greasy, limp outer skin is something to be avoided at all costs. Alongside our tips for roasting the perfect turkey, we'd like to offer one more technique that will meaningfully address the turkey-skin challenge: Pour boiling water over that sucker to set yourself up for crispy skin goodness.

We've already explored using boiling water showers on whole chickens and, at least in this respect, turkeys are a distinction without a difference. The basic goal is to shrink the skin, doing away with its overabundance of moisture as well as the excess fat underneath, because both are impediments to crispness. The heat of the boiling water neatly accomplishes all these objectives, basically removing the element of chance from the cooking process and guaranteeing crispy skin.

Read more: 11 Cleaning Tips For Keeping Your Oven Spotless

The Science And Art Of Crispy Turkey Skin

The first step to ensure crispy turkey skin is to dry the bird prior to cooking. However, this can only address the outside of the turkey's skin and does nothing to the moisture and fat within it and under it. That fat usually comes in the form of collagen, and it's important to partially break it down into gelatin in order for the crispy magic to occur. This is where the boiling water shower comes in handy, prepping the skin for the oven's work.

The next issue is how to do this safely and effectively. You can either pour boiling water over a chicken, or submerge it in boiling water to accomplish this goal. We don't recommend submerging a whole turkey, for the simple reasons that you'd need a stock pot big enough to hold it, oodles of time for all that water to boil, and a block and tackle to get the bird in and out of there. Instead, securely place a rack large enough to accommodate the bird over the sink and slowly pour boiling water over it. You will have accomplished your task once the turkey's skin has shrunk and turned translucent. Pat it dry thoroughly with paper towels, then it's ready to cook while you get ready to eat some cracklin' crispy skin.

Read the original article on Tasting Table.