Chef Matt's Chef Hacks - Turkey Carving

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The holidays are an amazing time to spend with family and friends. It’s also a great time to enjoy incredible food and wine with them! I love preparing a great meal for my family to enjoy together. Here are some tips and tricks on what I do before serving our Thanksgiving meal.
Rule #1 - Rest, rest, rest. A well-cooked bird needs to rest for at least 30 minutes to one hour.
Rule #2 - Make sure you have a sharp boning knife and slicing knife and plenty of kitchen towels or paper towels.
Rule #3 - Throw out most things you have seen on TV about carving a turkey. If you want to get a great yield and feed your whole family and not leave a lot of “meat on the bone,” so to speak, then listen up! Unless deboning, this is the best way to carve a turkey!
1) Place your turkey on a good solid cutting board. Make two 4” slits between the leg/thigh and the breast, one on each side. This will release a bit of heat and show you where you will cut the leg/thigh off the carcass.
2) We are going to remove the wishbone! With the legs facing away from you, find the top of where the wishbone connects to the top of the breast and make an incision with the knife along the right side of the wishbone from top to bottom, about ¼”-inch deep. Repeat on the other side. Using your fingers, follow the bone to make sure the meat has separated from it. Next, using your index finger, break the cartilage at the top under the side of the wishbone that connects it to the top of the breasts and pull it back toward you.
3) Next, make an incision on the top of the breast plate or on each side of the “keel” bone. One side at a time, gently begin separating each breast from the rib cage until the breast is fully removed. It will take a little work with the tip of the boning knife at the thickest part of the breast. Repeat with other breast. Keep them warm on a platter under foil.
4) Next, flip the turkey over on the cutting board. Starting with one leg, pull it back toward you until you hear a “crack” or separating of the thigh joint. Using the knife, begin separating the thigh from the carcass, making sure to use the tip of the knife to “scoop” out the oyster meat, that small round pocket of dark meat on the bottom of the turkey. Once you get the thigh about halfway removed, the leg/thigh should just pull off. Repeat with the other leg/thigh.
Now that you have the breasts and legs off, you can start slicing.
5) Using a slicing knife, against the grain, slice on a diagonal about ¼” thick. Place on a platter and slightly fan the meat out to display nicely. Repeat with the other breast and keep covered with foil in a warm place.
6) With a boning knife, separate the leg from the thigh. Beginning with the thighs, make one incision on either side of the bone. Follow the bone with your fingers to twist and remove the bone, using the boning knife to remove any meat if needed. Repeat with the other thigh and slice in ½” slices, doing your best to keep the crispy skin intact.
7) With the legs, it is usually easy to just take the back of the knife and scrape the meat off, being careful to remove the long, soft, pointy tendons. Pull this meat to add to the platter.
We hope these tips could be of help while preparing this delicious meal for friends and family this year!
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[@Marx-Lennon]

There are so many turkey carving videos on TH-cam…this is BY FAR the best. Thank you!!!

[@doctari1061]

That was very well demonstrated. Thanks.
If you’re going to make more instructional vids in the future just be aware of yourself say “Okay” repeatedly. I’m not trying to be picky, just a piece of content-creation advice because you do extremely well presenting your instructions.
Cheers

[@vitoscatigno4207]

That turkey is perfectly cooked! That is one juicy turkey and not dried out...Beautiful!

[@victorbenner539]

I'll keep it simple, Merry Christmas to all. 🎅👍🎄😋

[@mclark2330]

Great video!

[@BobbieGWhiz]

Works completely fine without removing the wish bone.

[@Entonces]

thanks

[@simongriffiths2705]

Mmmmm raw turkey 😅

[@MrCodeslinger]

Thank you for this. Very helpful. In your experience what led you to remove the leg and thigh as a single piece, versus popping the leg off while the thigh was attached then just slicing the thigh off? I've seen it done both ways and (as someone who is about to cook his first turkey for 15 people), I'm curious. Is either approach fine or is there a "yeah, but if you do it that way you're going to run into this problem" reason behind it?

[@CHWinery]

From Chef Matt: I find it easier to take the whole leg and thigh off together and then put it on the cutting board to have a flat surface to separate them into two pieces.

[@MrCodeslinger]

@@CHWinery Please send my thanks. It wasn't until after I asked the question that realized this was the official CH channel and not "someone's" channel. Our family loves your restaurant and wine. We actually just used a few of our free bottles to stock up for Thanksgiving day. Thanks again!

[@BuzzCovington]

When he went in for that wishbone tho… 😳

[@bobkabis2379]

k ok K K OK k OK .......K ok k K k

[@shellym4241]

Please stop removing the bones. Where I'm from meat with the bone is the best part.