Blast-furnace turkey roasting?

November 15, 2007 10:12 AM

How can I cook a turkey when my oven is, shall we say, overenthusiastic?

Here's the thing: my stove is ancient, probably from the 1940s or 50s. It is adorable and I love it, but the thermostat on the oven is broken, so it just gets hotter and hotter.

I can of course keep turning it on and off, but that's one thing when you're baking cookies for 15 minutes and another when you're roasting something for hours.

So, I wonder if anyone knows a method for roasting a turkey at a very high temperature, say 500 degrees F.

If it makes a difference, the turkey is quite small; I would guess it's less than ten pounds. (It's at home and I'm not so I can't check, but it was a "mini" size.)

Alternatively, if you have any suggestions for how to fix the thermostat, that would be great. I've looked around online but I haven't found instructions that look like I could do it myself, just places that want to buy your old stove and refurbish it.
I think the stove is an O'Keefe and Merritt.

posted by exceptinsects to food & drink (16 comments total)

I'm thinking you may have already been to this website, but just in case you haven't, it looks like they refurbish the thermostats separately from the oven. I know you don't want to ship yours off, but they might already have some rebuilt thermostats in-house that they would be willing to sell you. Alternatively, if the thermostat already doesn't work, send it to be refurbished. At least you wouldn't be sending the whole oven.

As for roasting, if you have a large enough LeCreuset (or similar) dutch oven, you can use them to roast on the stove top, as long as you keep the lid on and religiously baste the bird. It would take much longer, and you'd have to crisp the skin in the oven, but it may be a way to make it work, as a last resort.
posted by mitzyjalapeno at 10:23 AM on November 15, 2007

I can't help with roasting the turkey, but I did find a replacement thermostat. I can't find a repair manual. If you are handy, most appliances are pretty easy to work on. Just remember to shut off the gas and power.
posted by Climber at 10:24 AM on November 15, 2007

If aesthetics are not too big of a concern, I see two options:

Cut it up into small pieces first, as these will cook more evenly,
or
boil it.
Poultry is safe to eat at [internal] temperatures well below boiling, and if you take care to boil it in a tasty broth, your turkey will be juicy and deeelicious. But it will look like boiled turkey.

You could try to take it out of the water and broil it for ~15 minutes afterward to crisp and brown the skin [with appropriate amounts of butter/oil & spices rubbed into the skin, of course], but I doubt it will look like a pretty thanksgiving turkey no matter what happens.

Other than that...
if you have a covered container big enough to fit the turkey in, that will keep it from getting too terribly dried out/burnt at 500 degrees, as the steam will condense and mostly stay put. If you choose this route, meat thermometer the hell out of that bird before you serve it. It will likely look way more done than it is on the inside.
posted by Acari at 10:26 AM on November 15, 2007

Would you be opposed to just buying an electric roaster?
posted by DrGirlfriend at 10:30 AM on November 15, 2007

Well, the other problem with fixing or replacing the thermostat is that I'm renting so I don't actually own the stove, and I'm afraid if I ask the landlady to fix it she'll just think it's cheaper/easier to get a new one.
And I really love this stove!
posted by exceptinsects at 10:31 AM on November 15, 2007

A few thoughts, and I can't guarantee results, but this is what I'd do if faced with a similar problem:

- Get an oven thermometer and a probe meat thermometer - this is a thermometer that has a probe you can insert into the meat while it cooks.

- Get a good stainless roasting pan with a rack.

- Defrost your turkey thoroughly, but store it in the fridge with a few ice packs on top of the breast. This will bring down the breast temperature considerably, and help you not overcook the breast meat, which typically cooks before the thigh and leg.

- Start your turkey off breast side down in a cool oven with a couple of cups of stock in the bottom underneath the rack. Insert the meat thermometer into the thigh. Cover with foil. Turn your oven on.

- When your oven is heated to about 400, open the oven door and leave it open a crack to allow excess heat to escape. Monitor your oven temp. Close and open the door periodically to trap and release heat.

- Roast as usual, monitoring the internal temperature. When it reaches between 140 and 150 I'd say, remove your bird from the oven and flip it over. Insert the probe into the breast meat as far down as you can get it without touching bone or cartilage. Remove the foil and allow the turkey to continue roasting until the internal temp of the breast is 170 degrees, but no more. Really, the issue is burning your skin and overcooking the breast. The stock with help prevent burning the skin and keep the bird moist, as will starting your roasting with a lower internal breast meat temperature than the leg and thigh. Legs and thighs will tend to hold up well to long roasting, as they're fattier to begin with.

- Monitor your bird closely - actually, I usually cook chicken breast side down at around 450 because it crisps the skin nicely.

You should be fine if you keep a close eye on things. If you have to, you can always carve your bird into large pieces and finish them in the roasting pan on top of the stove by putting your roasting pan over two burners, setting it to low heat, and adding a little oil to your pan to help the pieces saute.

Best of luck.
posted by TryTheTilapia at 10:37 AM on November 15, 2007 [1 favorite]

If you have one...a weber charcoal grill does such a good job on turkeys of that size. It's very easy. Have stopped doing turkey's indoors since we learned this method.
posted by greenskpr at 10:37 AM on November 15, 2007

There is no problem whatsoever with roasting at a higher temperature. Barbara Kafka was the first I heard of to espouse this approach with her book Roasting: A Simple Art, but I've seen loads of people talk about it since. See, for example, the Washington Post or The Heart of New England. The upshot is that the bird just cooks faster. It is perfectly juicy and the skin is more crispy. You just have to be very careful with keeping an eye on it. A remote probe thermometer would be ideal.
posted by Lame_username at 10:45 AM on November 15, 2007

Alternatively, you could use this as an excuse to buy a turkey fryer and fry your turkey (with important caveats about that while delicious, frying a turkey can be quite dangerous if done while disregarding safety.)
posted by andrewraff at 10:59 AM on November 15, 2007

If you have a covered roasting pan, place the turkey on a rack in the pan and add water or broth to the bottom of the pan up to but not touching the turkey.

Keep it covered and place it on a a stove top burner(s) over med-low heat. Using an using probe type thermometer will help you keep on eye on the internal temperature. When it reaches around 110 degrees, uncover it and pop it in the oven to brown and finish cooking to minimum internal temperature of 165 degrees.

Another option is to start it in your microwave oven if it fits, then finish it in your oven.

In either case, I probable wouldn't stuff it. :)

Good luck!
posted by ChainzOnline at 11:04 AM on November 15, 2007

Brine your turkey first. This will further reduce any chance of the bird drying out. Butterfly it, and place it on a rack in a roasting pan. Ideally, America's Test Kitchens places it on a broiling pan, on top of a disposable roasting pan, containing the stuffing. The idea being the juices from the bird drip down into the stuffing via the slots in the broiling pan. At any rate, the bird will cook in almost half the time if butterflied. I too highly recommend a thermometer probe. They do great double duty as a frying thermometer. Speaking of which, if you have a deep enough pot, you can cut up your bird (or have your market do it for you) and fry it as you would a chicken, without the cost of a turkey fryer. If you roast, have a foil tent ready to cover it if the skin gets ahead of your final temp. Don't wait too long to use it, so you can take it off at the very end, to insure a crisp skin
posted by JABof72 at 11:20 AM on November 15, 2007

Some broilers have, as a safety feature, a thermostat that shuts the heat off at 500°.

What that suggests to me is that an unregulated broiler would be able to get significantly hotter.

If I were you, I'd consider the possibility that your oven will do the same thing. Sure, the temperature knob only has settings up to 500°, but that's no proof that the heat won't go higher with the thermostat disabled.

On the plus side, you may have the best damn home pizza cooking setup ever. On the minus side, you might burn the turkey. You might also burn the house down.
posted by nebulawindphone at 12:38 PM on November 15, 2007

Seconding nebulawindphone. The first time I used the oven in my old apartment, I burned whatever it was I was cooking. I then put an oven thermometer in there and cranked up the heat. The thermometer topped out at 600°, then the thermometer glass cracked. Who knows how high it actually got? The wallpaper around the stove blistered, and, yeah, I probably nearly set a very nasty fire.
posted by MrMoonPie at 12:45 PM on November 15, 2007

I have a similar problem with my oven, though it's much younger, and I can control the temperature somewhat by setting the gauge to about 150º below my desired temperature. I second buying an oven thermometer, if only because you might be able to perfect an on-off system to regulate the temp.

Nigella Lawson's newest book, Nigella Express, mentions roasting a turkey at 500º for a short time, and the recipe she recommends in Feast calls for a 450º, I think. Anyway, if you brine your little bird for two days beforehand, I doubt you'd be able to dry it out, even in a very hot oven.
posted by tempest in a teapot at 1:23 PM on November 15, 2007

Yes, I have an oven thermometer and it can easily get to be over 600 degrees in there!

It does, in fact, make great pizza (Jeffrey Steingarten would be jealous) but I certainly would never leave the house with it on.

By turning it almost off, I can get it to stay around 500, but that's about it.

I think I'll try the Kafka method and see how that goes.

Thanks everyone for your help.
posted by exceptinsects at 3:44 PM on November 15, 2007

Following up: the Kafka method (cooking a 9 pound bird, unstuffed and untrussed, breast up, for about 1 hr 15 min at 500 degrees F) worked beautifully. Crisp skin, meat not dried out.

I also tried it on a chicken (with potatoes roasted alongside) and that was delicious as well.
posted by exceptinsects at 11:31 AM on November 21, 2007