Get Carving, Ye Turkeys!

A very piratey thanksgiving, fellow swashbucklers. A couple years back I was working at a large hotel restaurant on Thanksgiving and had to carve up  25 fat birds for over 2,000 people. Carving to order, taking requests for light meat, dark meat, this bit, that bit, extra this and that, I instantly became an expert Turkey Carver. Here are some tips and recommendations for tearing apart your own bird-beast this turkey day:

After its roasted, let it sit!!!
Let it sit an hour for all I care (just serve it with piping hot gravy), but your turk needs at least 15 min. to settle after coming out of the oven (or grill, or fryer) before you start poking it with a knife.

Which knife to use? Having a couple available is nice. Tag-teaming with a Slicer and a Boner seems to be the most effective. Loosening up and separating bits with the Boner, and slicing them with the, well, slicer.

Boner

Slicer

I recommend trimming the whole carcass, separating all the meat from the carcass in the kitchen and serving it on a platter, pre-sliced. Carving table-side is dramatic and all, but it takes forever and people don't really want to watch you struggle through it, the mutilated bird getting uglier and uglier, bits of flesh and skin flying off into the potatoes and fruitcake. It looks a lot better all sliced and laid out on a giant platter. Throw a couple sprigs of rosemary or thyme on there and it looks freaking gore-met.

Check out this step-by-step photo sesh to see how the pros get it done:

Happy Carving ye Scurvied Scowlers!