Chances are good that many people will at least take a peek at what AI recommends for roasting a beautiful turkey this holiday season, whether it’s for Thanksgiving or for Christmas.
The advantage to an AI-generated recipe, in theory at least, is that AI can draw from a vast reservoir of online information when it comes to roasting a big, beautiful turkey for a special occasion. Ideally, that would produce a fusion of all of the most helpful wisdom in one souped-up, master chef kind of recipe, helping guide home chefs to next-level results.
Unfortunately, though, what actually happens and what’s ideal are often two different things. And that’s the case with AI’s instructions for roasting a special Thanksgiving Day turkey. The exercise produced an almost-right, just-OK kind of method.
Experienced home chefs will likely navigate the almost-right parts just fine, quickly recognizing where AI has gone astray. But less experienced cooks who don’t realize where AI is glossing over things or just not quite right could be in trouble.
The method AI generated for Cowboy State Daily also didn’t draw much on the more advanced techniques most chefs would use to really kick things up a notch, and the instructions also glossed over points that can make or break a turkey dinner.
“It does give proper ways to thaw the turkey and the appropriate time in the days before,” Cheyenne-based Chef Petrina Peart told Cowboy State Daily. “But it seems to skip over brining and goes straight to seasoning.”
Peart is well-known for her celebrity television appearances, cooking on shows like “Beat Bobby Flay” and Martha Stewart’s “Yes, Chef!”.
For her, brining is not a step that should be glossed over and mentioned in passing as a potential option.
Brining is fundamental. It’s how she creates an unforgettable turkey every time whenever she’s cooking for a special occasion.
Typically, Peart prefers a wet brine for turkey, and it’s something she would do once her bird is thawed. But it can also be done as the bird is thawing, she added, if time is running short.
To make it super easy, and as no-muss, no-fuss as possible, she gets what’s called a brining bag. This is just a large plastic bag that is big enough to envelop the bird. The brining solution and the bird are added to the bag, sealed up securely, and the bird then goes in the refrigerator until it’s roasting time.
“The brine would consist of water, a little bit of vinegar, some aromatics like oranges and fresh herbs,” Peart said. “You could do lemon, onion, garlic, and fresh herbs like rosemary, sage, thyme — the stronger aromatics.”
Brining helps break down proteins in the turkey, making it easier for the meat to absorb both moisture and flavors.
“That’s something the AI did skip, which I think is a good step to add,” Peart said. “I don’t think it’s something you can necessarily skip, and it’s just so easy to do.”
Dry Brining Vs. Wet Brining
Brining is a must as well for cookbook author and chef, Piper Fenimore, but she prefers dry brines to wet, partly due to Wyoming’s altitude and partly because she just loves a crisp skin on her turkey. Since dry brining adds no moisture to a bird, it makes getting crispy skin a little bit easier to nail, versus submerging the bird in liquid brine and patting it dry before roasting.
Submerging a bird in liquid also comes with its own set of logistics, which can sometimes mean taking up more space in an already crowded refrigerator. Dry brining is just a little less fussy in some respects, and may suit a busy home chef, who is already juggling a lot of things.
“The dry brine just seems to work a little bit better,” said Fenimore, who also works in advertising for Cowboy State Daily. “And I would add aromatics to the cavity. Just make sure you get all of the ice out of there. A lot of people forget that but do dry it out and salt and pepper it.”
Fenimore also felt the AI recipe was “pretty good” on most points.
“At least it doesn’t tell you to thaw the turkey in the back of your truck,” she said, chuckling a little bit. “That’s what a lot of people do here.”
Outdoor temperature can fluctuate too much to safely do that, Fenimore said. And this year’s unseasonably warm temperatures in November are a case in point.
“The refrigerator is 40 degrees or below, to keep things at the right temperature,” she said. “So that part is accurate. And refrigerator thawing is my preferred method. It’s slow and easy and keeps it at the right temperature.”
How To More Quickly Thaw A Bird — Safely
But refrigerator thawing does take up a lot of room in a refrigerator, during a time when there are lots of other things that need to be refrigerated. It also takes three or four days, so requires a bit of advance planning that is beyond a lot of work-pressured Americans.
If someone has to buy their bird the night before Thanksgiving to cook the next day, they’ll have to kick things up a notch to thaw it in time.
“You can cook it frozen,” Fenimore added. “It will just take longer. It’s going to take 50% more time.”
Thawing also helps the bird cook more evenly, so both Fenimore and Peart recommend it.
To speed the thawing process, a turkey can be kept in a cold, water bath where the water is changed out every 30 minutes.
“It’s actually most ideal if you can keep the turkey in a water bath, with like a drip of running water,” Piper said. “That will accelerate the thawing process and, in the industry, that’s what we do. You can have it thawed so quickly — 30, 45 minutes, or an hour at the most with a constant drip, because it’s keeping the water moving.”
But most home chefs won’t have that kind of ideal setup, Fenimore added, which makes rapid thawing for a turkey more difficult to do safely at home.
What To Do With Butter
One of the other areas that both chefs differed with AI was on what to do with butter. AI wanted to smear compound herb butter both under and on top of the skin before roasting, after patting the skin of the bird dry.
While both chefs agreed with patting the bird dry, butter also has moisture in it, so might not be the best go-to if crispy skin is desired. Chefs who want to go ahead and use butter on the skin might consider going half butter, half oil, Peart suggested.
“It’s going to add flavor, but compared to oil, it doesn’t have a high smoke point,” Peart said. “You could do half melted butter, half avocado oil or olive oil, to create a flavorful mix (for) a crispy-skin turkey.”
Underneath the skin, Fenimore said she would prefer to use something like an olive-oil based mayonnaise instead of butter.
“I know it sounds weird, but it will keep it more moist,” she said. “And that’s just an altitude kind of thing.”
Both chefs would still use butter for the bird, however. They would just melt the compound herb butter instead and place it in an injector. Then they would shoot the bird up with delicious butter all over, thighs, breast, and legs.
“That would be amazing,” Fenimore said. “Garlic, salt, pepper, and herbs — I would melt it, put it in the injector and inject the bird with the whole thing.”
Fenimore said she would recommend preheating the oven to 425, to kick start things, then reducing the temperature to 325 degrees. The oven door will steal a lot of heat the minute it’s opened, Fenimore explained. Starting out at 425 helps with that issue.
Hands Off The Bird!
One of the most important points that the AI instructions glossed over is the fact that breast meat and thigh meat don’t cook at the same rate on a whole bird.
Chefs have come up with various approaches to deal with that, such as tying up the legs to keep them very close to the turkey’s body, or spatchcocking the turkey so that it cooks more evenly. AI didn’t mention the spatchcocking option, which involves splitting the turkey so it can lay flat. It did mention trussing up the legs, but with no explanation why that’s actually important.
AI also didn’t really explain why the bird should rest for 30 minutes after cooking, before even one slice is made. This, too, is a critical, make-or-break step.
Failing to wait the required time results in drier meat. When meat cooks, the proteins contract and squeeze out juices. The resting period gives those muscles time to relax. They can then draw moisture back into the meat.
“It’s going to take just a little longer at altitude for those juices to soak back into the meat,” Fenimore said. “It’s just, everything at altitude works a little slower.”
Fenimore added she personally would not cook a turkey all the way to 165, as recommended in the AI method. She would instead pull the bird out when it reaches 160, because during the resting phase, the temperature in the core of the bird will continue to rise.
“By the time you’ve let it rest for that 30 to 45 minutes, you’ve now raised the temperature another five to 10 degrees, because of residual cooking,” Fenimore said.
Keeping guests busy while the immediately attractive turkey sits around resting, though, is an art form all its own. People see that turkey come out and the immediate impulse is to snag a quick piece of it to taste.
Peart said she hides her turkey under a tent of aluminum foil while it rests, then distracts with attractively plated appetizers.
"That is where deviled eggs come in handy,” she said. "Or do your bacon-wrapped dates to keep them busy while you work on the good stuff.”
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
