Planning to sous vide my thanksgiving turkey(separating legs and breast). Will need to reheat at family’s house in their oven.
What is the best way to reheat in the oven?
Do I crisp the skin before I get there?
Any tips appreciated.
Can you take your sous vide setup to your family’s home? And reheat in that? Then crisp as you usually do. I’m afraid reheating in the oven will dry your perfectly cooked turkey out…
E, best results are usually from as direct to service from cooking as possible.
Are you able to disclose any more information about your Thanksgiving plans? Why have you been particularly economical with useful details.
It would be helpful to have all of the important details of your important meal revealed. For example:
The amount of turkey you plan to cook is of significant interest.
Time factors are always critical to safety and a successful meal. None revealed.
Distance might be too. Will you be traveling out of state?
When you say reheat do you plan to SV cook significantly in advance of service? Like days ahead?
That’s a cook-chill-hold cold in transit-heat and serve plan.
Or are you planning on a cook-hold warm in transit-reheat and serve?
You likely know it makes a difference.
In case you don’t respond to this request for some critical details, - and if you have no flexibility other than the oven-reheating method, for best results foil wrap the segregated turkey parts. Wrap in smallish, evenly sized packages and as flat as possible to have the best outcome. Great lumps of meat seldom reheat successfully.
I recommend reheating foill wrapped and chilled food from the still-chilled state at 270ᴼF/130ᴼC/Gas Mark 1. Always use convection heating if it is available. Reheat either directly on oven racks, or on a cooling rack set on a sheet pan. You want as much hot air circulation as possible.
Bring to family’s house your trusty instant read digital thermometer or a remote reading one if you are so fortunate to own one. (Santa List possibility particularly if you do a lot of smoking or outside grill roasting.) You want to attain a core temperature of 165ᴼF/74ᴼC before serving.
Now, about that skin? Usually SV cooking and crisp turkey skin are counter intuitive. Can you just heat the skin with the breast meat?
Or are there some family members with an OCD-like turkey skin obsession? If so, then you better get it right. However, this response has gone on more than long enough without sufficient information from E.
Some day, the technique for serving shatteringly crisp turkey skin that’s still delicious will be revealed to someone who cares enough to provide complete information on a request regarding a challenging Thanksgiving meal.
Maybe another less grumpy Community member can support E?
That’s for the very indepth response. I’m making a 12ish lb turkey, whcih I will cook in two separate sittos, one dark meat, one breast. It’s about an hour drive to dinner and I assume well sit down an hour after we there. I can probably time my turkey to finish right before we have to leave, so can reheat from room temperature, as opposed to cold. If not, it will be done the day before. Not feasable to bring my setup with me, I think it will be too complicated. I was thinking reverse sear to crispt the skin then reheat in the oven, but dont know if that’s the best method
E, i appreciate your providing useful information. Just a few more suggestions.
Room temperature is the friend of food borne illness and to be avoided if at all possible.
If i were preparing your Family’s dinner i would do it somewhat as you have planned but with the following changes:
Cook turkey as planned ending soon before your planned departure time.
Got a insulated cooler chest? If not get one. Preheat chest with ample boiling water an hour before departure.
Remove turkey from ccoking water and decant from bags reserving liquids for use in gravy, etc. Or. - label, date, and freeze liquids for future use.
Remove skin from turkey and reserve wrapped in cling film then foil.
Season and pan-sear turkey parts.
Empty chest of water.
Double foil wrap seared turkey pieces. Use a Sharpie to lable parts if you need to.
Wrap turkey parcels in towels and stack in cooler chest. Place skin parcel on top.
Close chest and don’t open it again until you reach Family home.
At Family home preheat oven to 400ᴼF.
Quickly remove skin and close chest to preserve heat.
Spread pieces of skin on a sheet of parchment paper set into a sheet pan. Season with S & P.
Cover skin with another sheet of parchment paper and smooth paper against skin while pressing down to express any pockets of air.
Cover with another sheet pan pressing it down and place in oven for about 40 minutes.
That will give you just enough time to finish side dishes, warm dinner plates along with service bowls and platters, make gravy, organize garnishes, set out condiments and service cutlery, light candles, etc.
Slice turkey, remove now crisp skin from oven, cut it into portions and set alongside turkey.
Serve, sincerely give thanks, and enjoy.