Rich Zeoli Gets Some Thanksgiving Tips From A Celebrity Chef
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – Ryan Scott, Host of the Food Rush on the Living Well Network, provided some tips for improving on your Thanksgiving dinner and avoiding some common mistakes.
Scott gave Rich Zeoli on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT some advice on how to cook the perfect turkey.
"Sounds a little grotesque for some people, but if you would actually take the backbone out of your turkey and flatten you turkey, it's like an old method of brick chicken, it's going to cook evenly all the way through and you're not waiting for this big monstrosity inside your oven and you don't know if it's cooked or not. 160 is the internal temperature that you're going to be looking for your turkey. Not 165 or 170 which the Health Department and everybody will tell you because there's something called carry over cooking. You're going to carry over 15 to 20 [degrees], so when it says it's at 160, it could carry up to 170, 172, 175 depending on which area and which turkey."
He said don't panic if you have a frozen turkey, just allow enough time for it to properly thaw.
"A half an hour in cold water [for] every pound. I know this sounds like a lot of time but you have a good eight to ten pound turkey, it's not going to take that long, five or six hours. You strain the water every five hours, you thaw the turkey out and if you have time, you do a quick brine. There's a couple of different ways, you can do a salted cured brine or you can do a brine in a liquid with just salt, sugar, bring it to a boil and then cure it real quick. Just make sure the breast side is down because that's where you're going to infuse all that great flavor into your turkey."
He also advised against taking too many risks on a traditional holiday.
"Thanksgiving is the time that you do not get adventurous. Now remember, this is when people go Google crazy and, 'I should try something different.' Try what you know. Do exactly what you know. Thanksgiving is not the time to be super experimental. If you want to do roasted garlic mashed, it's perfectly fine. But if you've never done it before, don't do it."
