A Modernist Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving holds a spe­cial place in most U.S. kitchens because, of all the hol­i­days, it is cer­tainly the most food-focused. Indeed, while we have much for which to give thanks from the pass­ing year, on a more vis­ceral level, we cel­e­brate the abun­dance of deli­cious­ness that graces our tables on this par­tic­u­lar day.

Now, much has been writ­ten about that cen­ter­piece of Thanksgiving deli­cious­ness: the turkey. Whether one is bemoan­ing the painful expe­ri­ence of eat­ing a dry chewy bird, or ana­lyz­ing the best way to rem­edy that fail­ing, cook­books both old and new are burst­ing with opin­ions on how to mas­ter a suc­cu­lent and ten­der roast turkey. Rather than mas­ter­ing the clas­sic inter­pre­ta­tion, the recipe in Modernist Cuisine flips it on its head by focus­ing on refin­ing the fla­vors of a roasted bird and apply­ing Modernist techniques.

In this case, we have cho­sen the turkey wing to be the pri­mary ves­sel of Thanksgiving fla­vor. Specifically, we take the radius and ulna of the turkey wing (the mid­dle por­tion with two bones run­ning through it), cure it, and then cook it sous vide for the most ten­der result.

First, after chop­ping off the joints to expose the two bones inside the wing, we cure the turkey wing seg­ments in a dry rub of salt and sugar for 24 hours.

The turkey wing as it cures in the sous vide bag.

After a day of cur­ing, we rinse the cure off of the wing and vac­uum seal it with a bit of clar­i­fied but­ter. Then we cook it sous vide at 58 °C / 136 °F for 12 hours. Immediately after pulling the wing out of the bath, we pull the bones out of the wing while its flesh is still warm. If the wing has been prop­erly cooked, the bones should just slide right out. Once the seg­ments have cooled, they are ready to be dusted in potato starch and panfried.

The cured and dusted wing prior to being pan­fried.

The fin­ished pan­fried wing.

Once we have a deli­ciously crispy and ten­der piece of turkey, it’s time for the gravy. There is only one pri­mary Modernist twist to our turkey gravy, but it is cru­cial to the over­all fla­vor con­cen­tra­tion of the sauce.

A tra­di­tional gravy requires quite a bit of roux to thicken a fla­vor­ful poul­try broth to the right con­sis­tency. Instead of roux, our gravy has a small per­cent­age of Ultra-Sperse, a pre­hy­drated starch from National Starch. The Ultra-Sperse is whisked in to thicken our broth. The advan­tage here is in fla­vor con­cen­tra­tion: Because Ultra-Sperse is more effi­cient than fat and flour in thick­en­ing liq­uid, we use sig­nif­i­cantly less of it, so the con­cen­tra­tion of turkey fla­vor in our gravy is not diluted, as is what hap­pens when roux is used.

Finished with a bit of diced cran­berry and picked sage, our small bite of Thanksgiving turkey bursts with flavor.

The sauced and gar­nished wing.

How would you refine Thanksgiving turkey? Let us know by leav­ing a com­ment below.