Well with the covid seemingly in the rear view mirror the Fixer household was slated to have about 15 fam-damily this year. Now me? I'm ok just me and the dog. But Mrs Fixers family had driven 500 miles to come see her. Ok, it's the day of and I was exhausted from getting the home starboard to stern all mother-in-law approved clean. The Mrs had bought a 20 pound turkey and some of those Reynolds wrap-thin alluminum bird cooker pans.
I had discovered Tuesday night the bird was still frozen so I devised a water bath to get it thawed by this morning. I had not noticed the bird had taken on a few pounds of that water until it had been in the oven 4 hours. We opened the oven, I poked it with my BBQ thermometer and red juice poured out. Ok, 2 more hours. But that flimsy pan made it really tough to lift the bird so we decided to put a baking sheet under that.
I go to lift the bird and the flimsly pan buckled. Suddenly molten turkey broth is pouring out of the pan, down my legs and into my shoes. Yikes. I went to hoist the bird onto the tray when a sports injury reappeared and my shoulder said "uh uh, not today"……more broth everywhere. Mrs Fixer is freaking out thinking my legs and feet are being scalded, but strangely enough I was not. Oh yeah it was plenty hot sure, but my brain was fixated on getting that dang flimsy pan onto the cooking sheet. Phew, finally. My thought was if I drop this bird we've really got a mess and if I move my feet from getting drenched with broth they will slide on the greasy floor and I'll break bones.
We cleaned up the mess, or so we thought. Turns out broth has spilled inside the oven so smoke was rolling out shortly after turning it back on. Yikes. Remembering the oven fried chicken incident while she was out of town or at work or something a few years ago I asked off the oven. That way when the door was popped open and all that oxygen was added, no insta-fire. So we cleaned out the stove good and commenced to de-smoking the house.
Ok, we're good. Bring on the relatives. I lit a Yankee candle to provide a nice strong cranberry smell to mask the burnt turkey broth smell. Mrs Fixer's mom had arrived and was helping cook. I went outside for a smoke. It seems that Mrs Fixer had given her mom her Christmas present while I was outside and her mom had unknowingly placed the tissue paper over the candle. I come back indoors and there's three ladies stomping out burning paper on the kitchen floor.
With luck in my favor (because twice there was nearly a fire but not) I decided to try my luck with a ceramic knife I've always been afraid of to cut the turkey. I'm pulling out the meat thermometer when grandson decides to hug grandpa and the probed missed his eye by what may have been 3 feet but it seemed like millimeters to me. The ceramic knife cut the tender meat like a hot knife through butter and the bird had mysteriously taken on a nice smokey flavor.
It was byfar the best tasting turkey I've ever cooked.
I had discovered Tuesday night the bird was still frozen so I devised a water bath to get it thawed by this morning. I had not noticed the bird had taken on a few pounds of that water until it had been in the oven 4 hours. We opened the oven, I poked it with my BBQ thermometer and red juice poured out. Ok, 2 more hours. But that flimsy pan made it really tough to lift the bird so we decided to put a baking sheet under that.
I go to lift the bird and the flimsly pan buckled. Suddenly molten turkey broth is pouring out of the pan, down my legs and into my shoes. Yikes. I went to hoist the bird onto the tray when a sports injury reappeared and my shoulder said "uh uh, not today"……more broth everywhere. Mrs Fixer is freaking out thinking my legs and feet are being scalded, but strangely enough I was not. Oh yeah it was plenty hot sure, but my brain was fixated on getting that dang flimsy pan onto the cooking sheet. Phew, finally. My thought was if I drop this bird we've really got a mess and if I move my feet from getting drenched with broth they will slide on the greasy floor and I'll break bones.
We cleaned up the mess, or so we thought. Turns out broth has spilled inside the oven so smoke was rolling out shortly after turning it back on. Yikes. Remembering the oven fried chicken incident while she was out of town or at work or something a few years ago I asked off the oven. That way when the door was popped open and all that oxygen was added, no insta-fire. So we cleaned out the stove good and commenced to de-smoking the house.
Ok, we're good. Bring on the relatives. I lit a Yankee candle to provide a nice strong cranberry smell to mask the burnt turkey broth smell. Mrs Fixer's mom had arrived and was helping cook. I went outside for a smoke. It seems that Mrs Fixer had given her mom her Christmas present while I was outside and her mom had unknowingly placed the tissue paper over the candle. I come back indoors and there's three ladies stomping out burning paper on the kitchen floor.
With luck in my favor (because twice there was nearly a fire but not) I decided to try my luck with a ceramic knife I've always been afraid of to cut the turkey. I'm pulling out the meat thermometer when grandson decides to hug grandpa and the probed missed his eye by what may have been 3 feet but it seemed like millimeters to me. The ceramic knife cut the tender meat like a hot knife through butter and the bird had mysteriously taken on a nice smokey flavor.
It was byfar the best tasting turkey I've ever cooked.
