Sous Vide Turkey Confit

 17 April 2021

Recipe from Cook's Illustrated, November 2020

The title of an article in the November/December 2020 issue of Cook's Illustrated got my attention, "The Best Turkey You'll Ever Eat". I was tempted to make it except for the large quantity of expensive duck fat needed to confit the turkey. Confit is a cooking technique where meat is cured in salt then gently poached in fat, in this case duck fat. I was interested partly because I had never used this technique. Fortunately an alternative recipe was provided using sous vide cooking. It was still confit but instead of cooking the turkey in a Dutch oven filled with duck fat, it was cooked in sealed plastic bag immersed in a constant temperature bath with a much smaller amount of the expensive fat.

I halved the recipe, using one turkey leg (thigh and drumstick) instead of four thighs. Onions, thyme sprigs, salt, sugar, and pepper were finely chopped in a food processor. Some of this mixture was placed in the bottom of a baking dish, the turkey was placed on top, and the rest of the curing mixture was spread over the top of the turkey. The dish was wrapped in plastic wrap and placed in the refrigerator where it sat for four days. This step took 20 minutes to prepare.

The turkey drumstick and thigh were removed from the cure, rinsed well, and patted dry. Each was placed in a vacuum bag with duck fat, powdered garlic, and a bay leaf then vacuum sealed. These were lowered into a 158° water bath and cooked for about 20 hours. This step took 25 minutes to prepare.

Aluminum foil was crumpled, then un-crumpled, placed in a sheet pan, and topped with a wire rack. The cooked turkey was gently removed from the water bath, transferred to the wire rack, then roasted in a 500° oven until browned. After resting for 15 minutes it was served with a sauce made with some de-fatted stock from the sous vide bags mixed with apricot marmalade (I had no orange marmalade), mustard, lime zest, lime juice, salt, and cayenne. This step took 40 minutes. While it took over five days to complete this recipe, the hands on time was under 90 minutes. 

After all that time the resulting turkey was good. We enjoyed the flavor, it was tender but not very juicy.  The sauce was okay but probably would have been better with orange marmalade. However, in the end it was just not the same as roast turkey with gravy that we are accustomed to having from Thanksgiving dinners. It was fun and easy to make and included several new cooking techniques, which is a good thing. However, I don't expect to use this method again. It was not the best turkey I've ever eaten. The trick with the crumpled foil to catch grease and prevent it from moving around, though, is a keeper and I have used it several times since learning of it from this recipe.