“Do you remember Thanksgiving 2013?” we’ll ask in a few years. “Oh yeah! Wasn’t that the time we butterflied the turkey and caught a rooster?”<\/p>\n
h2. The turkey<\/p>\n
This is the first year I have ever been in charge of making a real turkey. Exciting! Of course, I can’t just roast a turkey like a normal person — I have to find a _special_ way to do it. So, after browsing magazines and searching my favorite food blogs for the last few weeks, I finally landed on “this recipe”:http:\/\/media.npr.org\/programs\/morning\/features\/2006\/nov\/test_kitchen\/roasted_turkey.pdf from _Cook’s Illustrated Magazine_ in which the turkey is “butterflied” (that is, flattened after having its backbone removed) and roasted on a broiler pan set above a roasting pan full of stuffing, thus allowing the turkey juices to soak right into the stuffing. Yummy? Check. Unique? Check. Just hard enough to make things interesting? Check.<\/p>\n
As cooking day approached, I realized I was going to need some serious help after studying the recipe closely. On the morning of the backbone-removal, I read these introductory notes aloud to Jon over breakfast:<\/p>\n
bq. … however, *butterflying a turkey is a whole lot harder than butterflying a chicken,* a feat I\u2019d accomplished many times with only a little help from a good pair of scissors to cut out the backbone. Because scissors are no match for the sturdier bone structure of a turkey, I found a good-quality chef\u2019s knife was necessary to cut along either side of the backbone. Even with a sharp blade, *I still needed to apply some serious pressure to cut through the thicker bones, sometimes literally hack-ing my way through.* Once the backbone was removed, I found that the sturdy rib cage would not flatten under the heel of my hand, as a chicken\u2019s would. I reached for my heavy-duty rolling pin, placed the turkey breast-side up, and *whacked the breastbone until it flattened* — aggressive culinary therapy, if you will. *All of this means getting quite physical, but there\u2019s no way around it* if you want to turn out a perfect high-roast turkey.<\/p>\n
Jon was not frightened away. What a good man.<\/p>\n
Later that day, Jon rolled up his sleeves and got to work. Watch him in action here, in a couple of time-lapse videos that show all the action in just a couple minutes:<\/p>\n