On Cooking That Turkey, Or, What To Do After The Sarah Palin Press Conference

So it’s more or less 30 hours until Americans enjoy Thanksgiving dinner, and you’re asking yourself the annual question: “Isn’t there a simple way to cook a turkey?”

Well, America, there is...and it does not involve bags, or injections, or even stuffing. No fancy preparations and no fancy equipment are required (with the exception of a large flat pan with metal handles, a carving fork or large tongs, and a food thermometer).

Here’s the cool part: this method for cooking turkeys isn’t just a method for cooking turkeys...and if you follow the directions, you’ll soon discover that not only have you learned a new way to cook a turkey, you’ve learned a new way to cook almost anything that can walk or fly.

We only have 30 hours, so we better get right to it...

Now before we go any farther, let’s relieve some of the Thanksgiving cooking stress with a video that is as topical as it gets.

Some of you may not know about the most unfortunate aftermath of Sarah Palin’s recent effort to pardon a Thanksgiving turkey...and I won’t spoil the fun if you have not yet seen it...but I will tell you that what is attached to the next link may the single funniest—and most disturbing—piece of political video I have ever seen; and somehow Palin remains blithely unaware of the events occurring just over her shoulder the entire time.

Take three minutes, watch the video, have a sip of the first glass of wine of the day...and when that’s done, we’ll get back to work.

So, are you laughing now?
OK then, let’s have some fun.

You may recall my telling you that what we are about to do can be used to cook any number of things; and to make for a better explanation I’m actually going to discuss cooking a boneless chicken breast first, and then we’ll move up to turkeys, using essentially the same technique.

So here’s what we do: turn the oven to 375 F. (190 C.), and turn the stove to either medium high (electric stoves) or nearly as big a flame as the burner will make, if you’re using a gas stove.

Grab the pan and toss it in the oven to heat.

Now what we are going to do is brown the chicken breast on top of the stove, flip it, and then cook it the rest of the way in the oven. The reason we are going to do this is because when you cook on top of the stove, you cook from bottom to top, creating a breast that’s “done” at the bottom but still “rare” at the top (you compensate for this by flipping the breast in the pan, but I have a better plan).

Cooking in the oven exposes the chicken to heat from all sides, creating an item that’s cooked on the outside and into the middle evenly (for a steak: done on the outside, perfectly pink in the middle...yummm).

So now that the pan’s hot, let’s try it: pull out the pan, put it on the hot burner, pour in just a bit of oil...and lay the breast in the pan by putting it in the part of the pan that’s closest to you first, then letting it fall away from you. (This prevents the hot oil from spattering on you...which is always a good thing.)

After a minute or so, you should see the breast browning, and that’s when we flip it over and then just put the pan right in the oven, then shut off the stove.

If you are a fancy high-falutin’ cook, you can tell when it’s done because it will feel like a well-done steak—and if you are a cooking mortal, it’s done when the thermometer tells you the temperature at the thickest part of the breast is 165 F. (75 C.).

The reward for your experimental effort should be an especially juicy breast that is not dried-out and tough. Pretty cool, eh?

“My cooking is so bad my kids thought Thanksgiving was to commemorate Pearl Harbor”

--Phyllis Diller

So how do we scale this process up to a turkey?

It’s actually really simple.

We need a substantially larger pan (I have a 14” restaurant-style sauté pan that I use for this application), and any metal pan with a reasonably thick bottom, relatively shallow sides (no saucepans or kettles), and heat-resistant handle(s) should do just nicely.

We also need to make a temperature adjustment.

As we move into larger items, we lower the oven’s temperature. We do this because we don’t want to overcook the outside before the inside is done. Instead of 375 F. (which is great for chicken breasts and steaks), we would lower the oven to 350 F. (175 C.) for something like a boneless pork loin or a small roast of beef or a whole chicken, and we would go down to 325 F. (165 C.) for something as large as our turkey.

For food safety reasons, we don’t want to use lower temperatures.

It is imperative that you raise the internal temperature of anything you cook from 40 F. (4 C.) to 140 F. (60 C.) in under two hours to avoid foodborne illness...and cooking turkeys at 275 F. (135 C.), as some suggest, is just a bit too risky for my taste.

Now a few words about measuring temperature in a bird.

Unlike “walking” meats, birds have hollow bones that do not transmit heat well. Therefore you do not want the tip of your thermometer touching—or very close to—bone when checking your turkey. (Beef, and the other “walking” animals, are the exact opposite. Their heavier bones transmit heat quite well, and the meat closest to the bone will often be the first meat below the surface to be fully cooked on a large roast of beef.)

Instead, use a location deep into the breast, away from bones...and as with all birds, a 165 F. (75 C.) internal temperature is the goal. And as with all birds, that temperature will give you a juicy, not-dried-out, result.

We are not going to stuff our bird.

This is also for food safety reasons.
The stuffing makes it take even longer to raise that turkey’s internal temperature (not to mention the stuffing’s)...and that’s a bad thing.

Bake the stuffing in its own pan...do not cook it in the bird.
Trust me on this.

There is no need to “prepare” the turkey—no rubs, no flouring the skin, nothing.
As an experiment I did a sea salt “rub” about 10 days ago on a turkey breast...and to be honest, all it did was make the skin salty.

OK, so our big pan is in the oven, getting hot...and the stove is on that same setting we used for the chicken breast...and now we take the pan, put it on the stove—and in goes the turkey, breast side down (remember, place it in the pan moving away from you to avoid splashing oil, just as with anything else you put in a pan with oil...).

You’ll have to brown one side at a time...and your fork or tongs (BBQ tools work if you don’t have big kitchen tongs or a carving fork...) can support the turkey so you don’t have to hold on to it.

It’s gonna splatter a bit (the less water, the better), but don’t be scared...and after a minute or so one side will be nicely browning, so do the other side next, and then flip the whole thing breast side up, and put the pan in the oven.

Except for taking the bird’s temperature from time to time (again, 165 F., or 75 C. internal temperature) and taking it out when it’s done, you are completely finished with the work on this project.

In fact, it’s probably about time for that second glass of wine.

So let’s take a moment and summarize.

Hot oven, hot stove, hot pan, put object to be cooked face down in pan on the stove, don’t splatter yourself, get it brown, flip it, put it in the oven, have a second glass of wine, remove from oven when done.

And just like they always tell you at the Fair: “It’s just that easy”.

So have a great day, don’t stress over the cooking...and remember, this technique works great on anything from a partridge to a steamship round.

On Turkish Politics, Or, Are Headscarves A Constitutional Threat?

When you live in the place where Europe and Asia meet, you are just bound to be strategically important, and so it is for Turkey, so it was for Turkey’s antecedents Anatolia and Ionia in times past, and so it will be long into the future.

When you’re that strategically important and your Supreme Court is going to hear a case that could result in your President and Prime Minister—and the Nation’s majority political party—being banned from politics, it’s big news.

For some reason that news is not in the headlines in the United States—and it absolutely should be. Lucky for you, your friendly fake consultant has been on the case, and you will get a story today that touches on the confluence of Islam and secularism, military coups, and the desire of one of our allies to become a member of the European Union…and the European’s fear of what might happen if they do.

We cannot tell this story, however, without understanding the nature of Turkish secularism. I’m going to abbreviate the story here, but I strongly encourage those seeking a deeper history to review Thomas Patrick Carroll’s Middle East Intelligence Bulletin article “Turkey's Justice and Development Party: A Model for Democratic Islam?”.

The continuum of Islamic influence began before the Ottoman Empire, and was supposed to be ended by the founder of the Republic of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Sharia Law was replaced by a secular legal Code, and the concept of laiklik (national secularism) was introduced. Carroll describes laiklik this way:

“...This term is often translated into English as 'laicism' or, more commonly, 'secularism,' which implies the separation of religion and state into two distinct and autonomous realms. But laiklik, as practiced in Turkey, is not so much the separation of religion and the state, as it is the subordination of religion to the state. As one prominent expert notes,

“This is a crucial difference in the Turkish context. The state controls the education of religious professionals and their assignment to mosques and approves the content of their sermons. It also controls religious schools and the content of religious education and enforces laws about the wearing of religious symbols and clothing in public spaces and institutions.””

In the 30 years between 1950 and 1980 governments came and went—and when the military establishment determined some of the political parties involved strayed a bit too far from accepted secular norms a coup would follow (there were three coups during that time); along the way political parties were banned and reformed under new guises. The military actually banned all political parties in 1980 and supervised the writing of a new Constitution which includes these provisions:

ARTICLE 2. The Republic of Turkey is a democratic, secular and social state governed by the rule of law; bearing in mind the concepts of public peace, national solidarity and justice; respecting human rights; loyal to the nationalism of Atatürk, and based on the fundamental tenets set forth in the Preamble.

ARTICLE 4. The provision of Article 1 of the Constitution establishing the form of the state as a Republic, the provisions in Article 2 on the characteristics of the Republic, and the provision of Article 3 shall not be amended, nor shall their amendment be proposed.

“ARTICLE 14. (As amended on October 17, 2001) None of the rights and freedoms embodied in the Constitution shall be exercised with the aim of violating the indivisible integrity of the state with its territory and nation, and endangering the existence of the democratic and secular order of the Turkish Republic based upon human rights.

No provision of this Constitution shall be interpreted in a manner that enables the State or individuals to destroy the fundamental rights and freedoms embodied in the Constitution or to stage an activity with the aim of restricting them more extensively than stated in the Constitution.

The sanctions to be applied against those who perpetrate these activities in conflict with these provisions shall be determined by law.

ARTICLE 24. Everyone has the right to freedom of conscience, religious belief and conviction.

Acts of worship, religious services, and ceremonies shall be conducted freely, provided that they do not violate the provisions of Article 14.

No one shall be compelled to worship, or to participate in religious ceremonies and rites, to reveal religious beliefs and convictions, or be blamed or accused because of his religious beliefs and convictions.

Education and instruction in religion and ethics shall be conducted under state supervision and control. Instruction in religious culture and moral education shall be compulsory in the curricula of primary and secondary schools. Other religious education and instruction shall be subject to the individual’s own desire, and in the case of minors, to the request of their legal representatives.

No one shall be allowed to exploit or abuse religion or religious feelings, or things held sacred by religion, in any manner whatsoever, for the purpose of personal or political influence, or for even partially basing the fundamental, social, economic, political, and legal order of the state on religious tenets.”

What’s all that mean? It means Turkey shall be secular, that this cannot be changed, that no group may seek to restrict secularism, that the State shall determine the manner of religious instruction (and by extension, control the instructors), and that no one may use religion as a means of creating a change in the secular structure—or for advancing their own personal influence.

And now we get to the part where headscarves have come to be a Constitutional problem. The hijab is worn, Canadian Government officials tell us, by at least 2/3 of Turkish women—but it may not be worn “in public institutions...including schools, universities, and the civil service...”

As you can imagine, those restrictions have profound impacts on Turkish women particularly, and the entire population generally. Add into the mix the efforts on the part of the Turkish “secularist establishment” to encourage the use of Islam as a stabilizing force upon the population and you have the need to resolve some serious societal conflicts. (This is hardly a uniquely Turkish problem, by the way—-several European nations are struggling with this issue.) Ataturk’s old Party, the CHP, has seen its influence wane as a new secularist Islamic political movement has emerged—most recently in the form of the Justice and Development Party (known by its Turkish initials AKP).

Since 2002, the Party has been quite successful in expanding its reach and influence; and today Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, President Abdullah Gül, and the largest group of representatives in Turkey’s Parliament are all members of the AKP. (That success has been so complete that Mr. Erdoğan is today Prime Minister--despite having been banned from politics for life in 1998.)

The Party also had great electoral success in Turkey’s local elections of 2004, and they today control the entire country’s local political landscape—except for a region of Kurdish influence near the Iraqi and Iranian borders to the southwest, a few spots near Georgia and Armenia to the northeast, a region of the central interior, and, ironically, the regions of Turkey that were the first areas of Greek colonization so long ago, where the CHP still holds sway.

It has been suggested that the AKP’s ability to incorporate Kurdish political aspirations toward a more pro-Turkish orientation, ands away from Kurdish nationalism contributed considerably to that success.

The AKP, upon assuming power, had sought to moderate some of the secularism restrictions (which they perceive as not just secularist, but anti-Islamic, and prohibited by the Constitution’s guarantee of religious freedom), and to that end they introduced a Constitutional amendment that would allow everyone equal access to government services. The effect of the amendment would have been to permit the wearing of the hijab in universities. The CHP filed suit seeking redress, and the Constitutional Court ruled on June 5th that Article 2 of the Constitution had indeed been violated, relying in part on precedent from a 1989 ruling:

"The basis of the democratic structure is national sovereignty. The democratic order also opposes the supremacy of religious values, the Sharia. A ruling giving particular prevalence to religious values cannot be democratic. A democratic state can only be secular. Regulations contingent upon religion are accompanied by religious zeal and constraints, which cause religious conflicts. This eventually leads to a loss of quality in the freedom, majority control, and tolerance of the democracy."

In March charges were filed against the AKP itself alleging that the Party has a secret agenda to promote Islam to the detriment of secularism, again in violation of Article 2. Today Turkey’s Constitutional Court will hear the arguments of Chief Prosecutor Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya, to be followed Thursday by the AKP’s defense presentation.

Should the Prosecution prevail, the court would ban the Party from further activity, and 71 current elected officials—including the President and Prime Minister—would find themselves similarly banished from political life.

And that’s where Europe gets involved. The AKP has been highly successful in leading Turkey into a period of economic liberalization—and prosperity. All this success has given Turkey a shot at being invited to join the European Union...and banning the AKP may “throw a spanner” in those chances.

So that’s the story: a secularist country with a population that is majority Islamic may ban a political party that has sought to resolve some of the tensions inherent in this contradictory situation...and that ban might be important to protect the Turkish nation, or a political ploy designed to return a minority Party to power.

As we said at the top, this is a huge story with profound implications for an important strategic ally...and just as has happened so many times in the past, what happens on the Bosporus has the potential to be felt all the way from Gaul to Persia.