Capitol Hill Blue Forums Misc. Topics Food, Drink and Cooking What's cooking?

This may amuse all y'all...

Interesting that cured meats are in the news as a major source of cancer. Meats like hot dogs, bacon, and ham contain about 10 parts per million of sodium nitrite as a preservative. But beets, arugula, and celery all contain hundreds of time that level of nitrites! Human saliva itself contains far more than 10 PPM of nitrite.

Some nutritional authorities claim that "vegetable nitrite" is harmless because those vegetables contain ascorbic acid which prevents the conversion of nitrite to carcinogenic nitrosamines... But so do bacon, hot dogs, and ham: The pickling solution contains ascorbic acid and has for many years.

So what is going on here? Is this just the latest of so many food scares? I have never heard of a high vegan cancer rate, and they are consuming way more nitrite than the rest of us.

A later report said that we would need several times to reach the amount that is dangerous. That eating processed foods in moderation is the key. But eating anything in moderation is what is recommended, so this is a scare tactic, or someone wants to be the new media darling.

I'm gonna spatchcock a turkey this year.

I’m a hongree ma!

If you and the Mrs. aren't busy come on down! I'm sure I'll have plenty.

Greger~The spatchcocked turkey sounds great? We always carve the turkey with no presentation beforehand. It goes on a platter in two groups. White meat and dark meat. the carcass gets broken up to make Juk(a Chinese-style turkey and rice soup). I use the giblets to make stock for the gravy. I like the idea of using the mire pois to roast the turkey, too.

Juk!!

Hadn’t thought about that in a long while. Famous hangover cure in Hawaii. Or used to be anyway.

That kinda looks like a wild turkey hit the windshield at 70 MPH, and then you scraped it off and cooked up the roadkill.

I'm quite impresses with the reduced cooking time. Anybody running late on Thanksgiving should consider this just for the time savings. It only takes a few minutes with poultry shears and it is ready to cook. And you can lay the carcass on a whole pan of stuffing. No more trying to fit it all in the cavities.

Generally speaking, I hate turkey. Breast is always overdone and dry.
This recipe is supposed to fix that.
They don't recommend you do it to a bird over 12 pounds though because once it's spread out it's too big to fit in a standard oven. If you need more than a 12 pounder do two of them.

PIA, the heat is too high to cook it over a pan of stuffing. 75-90 minutes at 450 degrees would toast your stuffing.
I'm gonna be making a sausage, apple, and cranberry stuffing and baking it separately. Fortunately, I have three ovens so all those casseroles and pies and rolls and whatnot aren't fighting for oven space. Most recipes recommend you put it on a rack over aromatic vegetables which will help keep the drippings from drying out then use the drippings in the gravy.