It did not occur to me until quite recently that some people purchase pre-cooked turkeys to serve on Thanksgiving. Not only am I far too much of a control freak to trust the wellbeing of The Bird to someone else, the concept seems flawed right out the gate. Turkey is already incredibly prone to drying out, and the act of reheating cooked meat drives out even more moisture.
But one day I drove by my local Popeyes (the best Popeyes in Portland), and saw they were advertising Cajun Turkeys infused with “zesty Louisiana-style seasonings.” As a lover of all things Popeyes, I was immediately intrigued. I called the restaurant and asked how to order one and was told to “just come in and ask for a turkey.” (According to Thrillist, you can also preorder the bird, so call your local Popeyes and ask them what is the truth?)
I got my turkey as a walk-in, and took the frozen, pre-cooked bird home in exchange for $49.99. After letting it defrost in the fridge for four days (the amount of time prescribed by my local Popeyes manager), I was ready to eat some zesty turkey.
It’s not quite as simple as “heat and serve”
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Two reviews of this turkey describe the Popeyes Cajun Turkey as “flash fried,” but the skin tells another story. Straight out of the packaging, the cold bird was beige and grey, with splotches of cajun seasoning speckling the skin and lots of congealed drippings, both inside and outside of the body cavity. Personally, I thought preparing this turkey for the oven was slightly more off-putting than dealing with a raw bird carcass, but I am used to breaking down a wide variety of fowl, so you might not feel the same way. (It reminded me of the Aqua Teen turkeys that “exit the womb doused in gravy,” but not everyone’s brain has been poisoned by Adult Swim.)
The instructions on the packaging are simple:
Preheat conventional oven to 350℉. Remove all packaging, reserving juices. Place turkey on a rack in a large roasting pan and pour juices into pan. Cover with aluminum foil, forming a tight seal around the edges of the pan. Reheat on lower rack in oven for 1 1/2 hours. Remove foil and cook for 30 minutes uncovered AND [sic] until internal temperature reaches 150℉ as measured by a meat thermometer inserted into the deepest part of the breast meat (not touching the bone). Let stand for 20 minutes before carving.
I do not have a traditional roasting pan, both because I usually spatchcock my bird, and because the high walls of a roasting pan shield the thighs and legs, which is counterproductive—you want the dark meat to cook faster than the white, as a higher temp is required to break down their connective tissue. I did have an aluminum roasting pan, however, so I sat the bird in that, along with its congealed juices, which were plentiful. I sealed it all in foil and cooked it for 90 minutes as instructed, then transferred it to a wire rack set inside a rimmed baking sheet to crisp up the skin. It took and additional hour for the breast to reach 150℉, but taking it to that temperature turned out to be a mistake anyway (more on that in a moment).
It wasn’t the most aesthetically pleasing turkey I’ve ever cooked. The skin had torn in multiple spots, there were a couple of bones sticking out in the middle of the breast, and the meat peaking out of the drumsticks was dry and grey. In spite of all of that, it was still pretty good.
The flavor is incredible (if you like Popeyes)
As I mentioned earlier, 150℉ is far too hot of an end point for an already cooked turkey. While the wings and thigh meat were some of the best I’ve ever had (an entire leg fell off the body of the bird when I took it out of the oven), portions of the drumsticks were almost desiccated, and the breast was fairly dry throughout, though still moister than half the breast meat I’ve been served in my 35 years of eating Thanksgiving dinners.
The entire bird was infused with the flavor of Popeyes, which is one of my favorite flavors: salty and a little tangy and deeply savory (thanks to the presence of onion and garlic powders). I was surprised to find MSG was not listed as one of the ingredients. The Cajun seasoning on the skin was quite zippy, and mildly spicy, though I have read that paler palates might find it “hot.” (I am very pale with a low tolerance for heat and I was not overwhelmed.) It was not the definitely worst turkey I had ever eaten, but it could be even better, with a little tweaking.
How you should prepare your Popeyes turkey
Instead of heating the whole bird at 350℉ until it reaches an internal temperature of 150℉, drop the oven temp down to 300℉ and the target temp to 135℉-140℉. If I were to do it all over, I would heat the foil-covered turkey in 300-degree oven for an hour and half, until it reached an internal temp of 135℉, then uncover and broil to crisp up the skin. The meat will be warm enough, especially once you douse it with the gravy made from the pan drippings, a move I cannot recommend enough. (More on that gravy in a moment.)
The breast meat probably won’t be as tender and juicy as a buttermilk brined breast you prepared yourself, or anything sous vided, but it will most likely be more moist than the turkey at the Thanksgiving dinners you grew up eating.
About that gravy
One great thing about this pre-cooked and prepackaged bird is that you get over four cups of Popeyes-flavored pan drippings, and those drippings make an incredible gravy. But, much like the package instructions for preparing the turkey, the instructions for making the gravy need a few modifications.
The gravy, when prepared as written on the shrink-wrapped plastic, has a very noticeable, flour-forward flavor. This is because the instructions tell you to make a “paste” with the drippings and flour but fail to have you cook the would-be roux before incorporating the remaining liquid.
Luckily, this is very easily fixed. Instead of using the drippings to make the roux, I used butter, and cooked the mixture of butter and flour for a few minutes to get rid of that raw flour flavor. I also decreased the amount of water from 1 cup to half a cup, and upped the amount of drippings from 1 cup to 1 1/2 cups. It tasted much better with these adjustments. (I like this gravy so much, I plan to save the remaining drippings and make it for my actual Thanksgiving meal.)
Improved Popeyes Turkey Gravy
Ingredients:
- 3 tablespoons butter
- 3 tablespoons flour
- 1/8 teaspoon white pepper
- 1 1/2 cups reserved pan drippings
- 1/2 cup water
Melt the butter over low heat in a 2-quart sauce pan, then add the flour and pepper, stirring and scraping with a wooden spoon or silicone spatula to create a paste. Increase the heat to medium-high, and cook the roux for a couple of minutes, until it smells like cooking butter, instead of raw flour. Slowly incorporate the liquid ingredients while whisking, and continue to whisk until the mixture reaches a boil. Let boil for 5 minutes until thick. Serve immediately over turkey and mashed potatoes.
So should you buy a pre-cooked turkey from Popeyes?
That all depends. If you are an experienced turkey cooker able to turn out juicy, flavorful birds year after year, you can probably skip it. At $50, this particular turkey is around the same price as a heritage bird, and it takes nearly as long to heat as a spatchcocked turkey takes to cook. (Though you do save a lot of time in the seasoning department.)
But if you are worried about undercooking The Bird, don’t want to deal with dry or wet brining, or simply love the taste of Popeyes, you could do a lot worse. Even with the modified instructions above, the breast meat may come out slightly drier than a lovingly prepared spatchcocked, sous vided, or smoked turkey, but the thigh meat will be beyond reproach, and it will—as whole—be better than most of the turkey you ate as a child. Plus, you can always moisten any dry portions with gravy. That gravy is incredible.