Episode 045 kicks off a series all about turkey! Taryn will be going over how to smoke a turkey start to finish, including what to do with the leftovers. This first episode in the series is about how to spatchcock a turkey, which means to remove the backbone and get it to lie flat. Listen in to hear why you’d want to spatchock a turkey, plus lots of helpful tips!
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TRANSCRIPT
Taryn Solie: Hello grillers, and thank you for tuning in today! I am your host, Taryn Solie, and I am here to give you some grilling inspiration. Typically I go over one recipe in detail, but today’s episode is a little different – it’s the start of a series on smoking a turkey. I will still be going over directions and helpful tips, but it’s more of a how-to than previous episodes.
So over the next 4 or 5 episodes I’m going to walk you through all the steps you need to know to make the best turkey – either for the holidays, or if you just want to have a turkey for dinner.
We always smoke our turkey, and we prep it by spatchcocking it and dry brining it. Today I’m going to talk about the first step in that process.
When you spatchcock a turkey, it just means you remove the backbone and lay it as flat as you can when you cook it. It may sound intimidating – and possibly a little dirty, but it’s really very easy.
Before we get into the specifics, I want to mention why you would want to spatchcock a turkey. First, because it helps the turkey cook more evenly. Sometimes with a whole bird you can get one area dried out while another is still not quite done. By exposing more surface area of the bird all laid out at the same level, it helps everything cook more consistently.
Second, because cooking a spatchcock turkey takes less time than cooking one that’s isn’t. Again it goes back to the surface area – more of the bird is exposed to heat so it all heats up faster. When cooking at higher temps, like in a oven or on a wood pellet grill, a 12 pound bird that hasn’t been spatchcocked will typically take 2.5 to 3 hours, whereas cooking a spatchcocked bird will take only 1 to 1.5 hours. The same goes for if you’re smoking a turkey – it will take more time to cook through if you don’t spatchcock it versus if you do.
Okay, now that we’ve covered the why, let’s get into the how.
To spatchcock a turkey you’ll need:
- the turkey itself;
- a pair of poultry shears (or kitchen shears will also work);
- a sharp knife (or if your shears separate you may not need the knife); and
- a large cutting board.
You can also wear a pair of disposable gloves if you don’t want to touch raw meat, but it’s not necessary.
To start you’ll want to have a totally thawed raw turkey. A lot of turkeys come frozen and you will not be able to cut into a frozen turkey. To thaw it you can either put it on a platter in the fridge for several days, or try thawing it in water. There are recommendations for doing both and I’ll link to those resources on the show notes page. For now, I’m going to assume you have a completely thawed turkey on your hands.
Go ahead and place the turkey on the cutting board. Whole turkeys usually come with the neck and several organs inside them, the latter of which sometimes come in a paper bag. There can also be a plastic handle near or around the legs. Remove the plastic (if there is any) and anything that’s inside the turkey and set it all aside.
Set the turkey breast-side down so that the backbone is facing up and grab your shears. You can cut the turkey from either end, but I typically like to start cutting at the head of the turkey, meaning the wings are closer to you than the legs.
You’ll be cutting through bone so make sure you have a good handle on the shears. There will be some resistance, but as long as your turkey is thawed then you definitely should be able to make the cuts.
Place the shears just to one side of the backbone and start cutting, making an incision all the way down until you finish cutting down that side of the backbone. Then you’ll do the same thing on the other side. You may need to grip the shears with both hands to make the initial cut, but once you get going it should get a little easier. Then once the backbone has been cut out you can remove it and set it aside with the neck and organs.
Take your knife – or if you can separate your shears you can use the sharp edge of one of the shears – and make a cut right in the middle on the inside of the turkey, where the breast bone is. Doing this will cut into the cartilage a bit and help you get the turkey to lie flatter.
Now take your hands and press out against the ribcage of the turkey on both sides to make the bird lie flatter. Then flip the turkey over so the insides are lying face down and push with your hands on the breasts to flatten it some more. There may be some cartilage or bones breaking, but that’s okay.
And that’s it! You’ve just spatchcocked a turkey. You can throw away any of the plastic parts that you previously removed, but I would place the organs, neck, and backbone in a sealable plastic bag and put them in the freezer to save for making turkey stock. If you want a recipe for that I will link to one on the show notes page. If that’s not something you want to do, then you can just throw them away.
I have a post on my website, Hot Pan Kitchen, with pictures and directions for how to spatchcock a turkey. I’ll put a link to that post in the show notes page for this episode. To get to it you can either go to my main website at Hot Pan Kitchen dot com and click on podcast in the main menu, or you can click on the link provided in whatever podcast app you’re listening on.
If you enjoyed this episode, I would love it if you would subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast platform. And don’t miss out on the next episode in this turkey series, where I’m going to tell you how to dry brine a turkey – it’s how we keep our Thanksgiving turkey juicy and flavorful. So be sure and listen in for that.
That’s it for today, thank you so much for listening, and until next time, keep grilling like a mother.
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