Turkey Confit

[Porthos]

Has anyone done a turkey confit using the whole bird, not just the dark meat? I want to do a whole bird but want to make sure I'm not going to mess the the breasts by doing this.

[Porthos]

Well, I tried it with a 16 lb bird cut into pieces and all laid flat in the roasting pan and added butter and olive oil. It went for 8 hours at 215 degrees F . Dark meat was fabulous, breast meat was Sahara desert dry. I won't try that again with a whole bird! I may do thighs this way someday in the future.

[Kouign Aman]

Why not add the breast part way thru, so it all finishes together?

[Porthos]

Why not add the breast part way thru, so it all finishes together?

I could try that. This time the idea was for it to cook unattended while I ran errands. The bird was a food donation to serve at our Renaissance Faire noon-time feast tomorrow and I needed to cook it ahead. My DW and I have taken over responsibility for the faire kitchen this year and I wanted to cook the turkey before taking it out.

Edited April 10, 2010 by Porthos (log)

[a.lee.hagen]

You could try to brine it before hand...

[Shalmanese]

Cooking Issues did a segment on turkey and concluded that, even using sous vide, turkey got worse the longer it was cooked past ~1 hour.