Carved A Turkey
"A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue, but the parent of all the other virtues."
--Cicero
Today is Thanksgiving, and the family came over for a traditional Turkey Day dinner. Every year, George Lucas gives the employees of his company an organic, free range turkey from Willie Bird. I secured our bird, and after my awesome mother in law brined and roasted it for two and a half hours, I got the opportunity to carve it up.
I went online to see if I could find the best way to carve it, and I ended up going with a combination of Alton Brown's method and J's excellent instruction.
I started by removing the thighs.
I pressed into the joint and pulled down. This eventually releases the hip joint from its socket and then I just cut through it to remove it.
After removing the other leg, I started on the breast. I cut along the breastbone and down.
I carved along the bone and removed the breast meat from the carcass. I repeated this for the other side of the bird.
Next, I took the wings off by pulling them down and pressing up where the shoulder joint is. I took a knife and cut through the joint. I had some help from my lovely assistant.
I sliced up the breast meat the short way because it gives people smaller options for dinner, and it also provides a wonderful size for leftover turkey sandwiches.
There was still quite a bit of meat left on the carcass, so I started pulling it off by hand. This gave me a ton of great small pieces, which would be good for a salad.
Knowing how to carve a turkey is a useful skill to have, and it's something that I actually had fun doing. It may not be used a lot of the time, but when it is, people are usually happy. I look forward to many future Thanksgivings that I get to carve again.
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