SC - Dressing/stuffing OOP

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Lilinah biti-Anat wrote:
> 
> As for stuffed turkey drying out, well, i think that depends on how
> you cook the bird, not because of the addition of stuffing. My mom's
> turkey and stuffing were never dry, but, then, she used *major*
> amounts of butter in the stuffing (and i think she "basted" the bird
> with butter), so it didn't seem to be soaking the juice out of the
> bird.

Here's what happens, at least based on my own experience and a
not-very-thorough knowledge of food science:

The bird is a hollow tube-within-a-tube, say, for argument's sake, 10
inches in diameter. When it is hollow in the middle, heat penetrates
both from the outside in and from the inside out. You need to bring the
internal temp of the mass between the tubes (i.e. the meat) to a minimum
internal temp of 157 degrees Fahrenheit to kill nasties such as
salmonella, to which chickens, turkeys, and various other birds are subject.

When the bird is stuffed, the heat penetrates from the outside in, only,
not from the inside out, because the solid mass of the bird is no longer
a tube within a tube, just a solid ball. The stuffing has absorbed
bacteria-laden (in theory) juices from the bird itself, so it now has to
be brought to an internal temp of 157 also. Since it's now cooking only
from the outside in, as has been mentioned in connection with lamb, the
outside is going to be considerably hotter than the inside, which is why
roast lamb can be grey on the outside and pink in the middle. Same for
stuffed birds. You have to bring the stuffing to 157 or above, and the
meat part of the bird will reach closer to 185 or so.

Overcooked poultry is nasty, though, so here are some things you can do.
One is to really sew that puppy up at the openings as best you can. That
lovely look you see on TV with the golden stuffing exploding from the
bird's abdominal apron is not conducive to a juicy bird. You want it
sealed up, either by using a large needle and thin butcher's twine, or
maybe bamboo skewers and twine for lacing. Something.

Realize you will need to cook a stuffed bird longer, so compensate for
carry-over cooking. Bring it to an internal temperature of, say, 140 or
so for larger birds, 145 if you want to be conservatively safe, 150 for
your basic chicken, and take it out of the oven and leave the
thermometer in the bird's butt. Watch it come up to 160 and up through
the Magic of Patience and Conduction. There's always the danger you'll
fall short of the 157 mark, but with a little experience you'll have
this down to a science.

Realize the stuffed, sewn-up bird is a bag whose contents you want to
steep in its own juice. Start cooking the bird on its breast (I like to
spray the oven rack with Pam and cook directly on that with a drip pan
underneath: you get a lovely juicy brown bird and it's fairly easy to
clean the rack; up to you, though, if you want to go this far) and turn
it over halfway through cooking. James Beard used to advise roasting
birds on one side, left or right, and then flipping over to the other
side for the second half of the cooking. This allows not only for even
browniong, but also bastes the bird internally: all the juice that's
drained from the left side (the top?) is now back on the left side (the
bottom) for half the cooking time. Estimate approximate cooking time at
20 minutes per pound of _total_ weight of the stuffed bird, to judge
approximate half-way point.

Finally, under no circumstances should you take a bird, or any other
roast, for that matter, out of the oven and begin slicing into it until
it has rested for at least 15 minutes. It will reabsorb some of the
juices and be tastier, and will leak fewer juices upon carving. The
flesh is less porous at slightly lower temperatures.
  
Jeez, any more of this and I'll have to move to Connecticut and make my
neighbors miserable and call then jealous (thinly veiled Martha Stewart reference).

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com


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