I don’t know how it happened, but I forgot today was Thanksgiving. Which means that I started the day with a turkey fresh from the freezer.
It’s totally possible to cook a turkey from frozen: you cook it for time-and-a-half, and you really want to have a pan big enough to deal with the extra melt juice.
I did not have a big enough pan. But I thought I could fake it with tinfoil walls.
It refused to be faked.
Oil drizzled on the oven bottom, which means it filled up with smoke.
No big. I shut the oven off, took the turkey out, wiped the bottom, and turned the oven back on.
It smoked like crazy.
I cleaned again. Still smoked. Like 4 times over an hour.
I don’t see any leftover spilled oil, but it won’t stop smoking 🙁
I’m not even sure my turkey was done cooking. All the temperature shenanigans leave some questions unanswered. I just couldn’t handle dealing with all the smoke and gross and I smell like a fry cook.
I let the turkey rest–so all the juices didn’t immediately escape–cut off a bunch and threw it in a pan. I made gravy in another pan, then poured it on the turkey and heated it through.
The turkey with the gravy was tender and delicious and great with potatoes, so whatever. Dinner saved.
I just have a whole half a turkey left that’s a big ol’ question mark on the cooked meter. Ugh.
Thank goodness for soup, that’s all I know. I can’t even make a turkey pot pie with my oven smoking like it is.
First world problems, yo.
Hope the rest of you had a good time. Even if you don’t celebrate the day as anything other than a food day–or maybe not even that–I wish you well.
