Sometimes it is good to break from tradition and take the road less traveled and I would say that a bright red turkey with the scent of the orient would be a bit of a departure from the norm for our holiday table.
This months Daring Cooks challenge involved Char Sui, an asian barbecue preparation that often produces a beautiful red glazed meat. I thought since it was a meaty holiday, I would try char sui turkey. How exciting would that be? I had to do lots of improvisation, as I was not able to find a recipe for a whole turkey with a char sui treatment.
I started the process by spatchcocking the turkey, making the char sui sauce and marinating the whole 13 pound turkey in it for about 30 hours. I reserved about a third of a double recipe of the char sui to baste the turkey with as it cooked. After the marinating, the turkey took on a very distinct rosey hue and smelled fabulous. I may be a risk taker but I do so with a back up plan. I made sure that I cooked another turkey that would be more acceptable to the masses if the char sui was just too far afield for some for the Thanksgiving crowd. To accompany the char sui turkey I made a cranberry molasses glazed turkey. The latter turkey was spatchcocked and brined for just over 24 hours and then put in the fridge uncovered for another 6, as this appears to help make the skin crispy.
Here are the birds just before I began the cooking process. Brined bird on the left and char sui on the right. (did I really need to tell you that?)
The char sui bird was cooked at 400 degrees for about 50 minutes and then the heat was turned up to 450 and the bird was basted with char sui and cooked for 7-10 minutes. This was done in three installments, till all of the sauce was gone, the turkey had a crispy red exterior and reached 165 degrees in the breast.
The cranberry molasses bird was baked low and slow at 275 degrees for 2.5 hours and then the oven was turned up to 425 degrees and it was basted with the glaze till it was a beautiful molasses color and 165 degrees in the breast. Here is what they looked like after the cooking was done.
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| Up close and personal with the Cranberry Molasses Glazed Turkey |
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| Lovely Char Sui Turkey leg |
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| Photo by: Jeff Foy Photography |
I would guess that both the turkeys were a hit since there was very little left over. Thanks to my family who are generally pretty patient with these funky food escapades. Of course, I did set aside enough of the char sui turkey to fill my little buns. I followed the recipe and made the buns on Friday with the wings that I saved. It was a great recipe that Sara posted with the challenge! Look how cute they are.
They went really well with the homemade cranberry sauce. See it there in the background? So there you are, another fun Daring Cooks Challenge completed and my family didn't throw me out into the cold night to ponder what horrible thing I had done to the sacred Thanksgiving Turkey. Whew!
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| Photo by: Jeff Foy Photography |
As always, make sure that you check out the Daring Kitchen to see all of the other fabulous challenge results. There are an awful lot of crazy talented people who hang out over there. The recipes for both the turkeys are linked below.
Char Sui Turkey
Cranberry Molasses Glazed Turkey
Our Daring Cooks’ December 2011 hostess is Sara from Belly Rumbles! Sara chose awesome Char Sui Bao as our challenge, where we made the buns, Char Sui, and filling from scratch – delicious!
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11 comments:
Wow, you did an excellent job! And way to go taking this challenge to a whole new level by making it on Thanksgiving! (and your family, too, for letting you!). Your turkey looks amazing, and so do your char sui bao!
You are braver than I am, plus cooking two turkeys? Wow, impressive. I will have to try this on some poultry, maybe just a turkey thigh or two, though.
I'm in the picture, but won't reveal which one of the crazy people is me. The turkey wasn't traditional, but VERY tasty in both incarnations. We are all willing to experiment when the results Renee achieves are always yummy.
Renee's male parental unit
You were brave to try this on your Thanksgiving turkey but looks like you got great results!
I am so glad you had fun with the challenge. A turkey, amazing! Looks fantastic.
Yum the Cha Siu turkey looks so delicious! Great job!
I love that you did this with the turkey! Totally cool & I am sure it was a fun gathering all around.
That is so awesome that you used this recipe for the Thanksgiving turkey. I so wish I could have tasted that!! Awesome job on the buns too - great work!!
OMG what a wonderful job you did on this challenge I love how you did the whole bird that is stunning and the family snap says it all "fabulous" thank you sharing your thanksgiving with us. Cheers from Audax in Sydney Australia.
HAHA!! Thanks everyone for the nice comments. It was indeed a lot of fun. Really, what can you say about a bright red turkey?
That sounds like an amazing turkey! Very creative and a beautiful job on the challenge.
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