Mustard-Crusted Turkey: Virtual Progressive Thanksgiving Dinner

We are talking turkey today of the mustard-crusted variety. It may not be as traditional as your favorite roasted one, but it’s juicy and delicious, and it fits in with all the traditional Thanksgiving fare perfectly, livening up your table and giving those relatives something to talk about.

One of my favorite movies of all time is Jodie Foster’s Home for the Holidays. Maybe it’s the dysfunction that it portrays that makes me feel at home. (Snicker) Still, it’s the feeling of coming together for the holidays that gets me and makes me feel nostalgic and keeps me coming back for more.

Our family holiday schedule can get to be hectic, with us fitting in at least three Thanksgivings between Ole’s family and mine. Luckily for us, this year one of them isn’t on Thanksgiving Day itself, but it’s the weekend after in brunch form, which means French toast bakes and coffee and everything else that comes with a good breakfast meal.

Still, though, driving nearly two hours between two Thanksgiving meals may seem a bit crazy to some of you (and you haven’t even heard our Christmas schedule), but to us it’s worth it. We get to spend time with family members that we sometimes haven’t seen for months, catching up on their lives, letting them know we’re all still thinking about each other and caring for each other even when the busyness of life seems to distract us from the things that really matter, and so we go and squish and try to fit it all in. Twice the hugs and cheek kisses, twice the cousins and aunts and uncles and two giant Thanksgiving meals.

With the Thanksgiving focus being all about community and connecting with friends and family, it makes sense that here on Food for My Family I celebrate that same community here in the online world. Today is the start of the Virtual Progressive Thanksgiving Dinner. We’re starting with turkey and stuffing, and we’ll make our way through apples and cranberries from Eat at Home, carrots and mashed potatoes from Real Mom Kitchen, cranberry salad from Unsophisticook and pumpkin gingerbread trifle over at Hoosier Homemade, who was wonderful enough to set up this dinner.

First, you should know that I don’t stuff my birds. There are several reasons for that, ranging from it takes longer to roast the turkey, the stuffing doesn’t reach the right temperature to kill all the salmonella that it can get from coming in contact with raw meat, and it’s soggy and slimy. Aimee has these reasons and more detailed in her post today where she shares her bread stuffing with seasonal fruits and herbs on Simple Bites.

This turkey is going to start with a rinse and a salt before we start on anything else. Then I’ll let it sit and come up to room temperature as I prepare the mustard coating: coarse ground Dijon with plenty of seeds, along with thyme, sage, pepper and garlic.

Once my turkey is ready, it’s time to spread it on. [Note: We were cooking a full, in tact breast with cavity for this because (1) it saves money and (2) we have already roasted two turkeys since September and (3) SALE!]

You can do this with your fingers (gloved if you’re Ole), a butter knife or with a spatula.

No need for perfection here, but try to get it on evenly and covering as much as possible. This will help the bread crumbs to stick more easily.

Now it’s time to press on the panko bread crumbs. I find this is done most effectively by taking a small handful and then pressing it up against the side of the turkey as I go around, working from the bottom to top.

To help the panko brown, we’re going to drizzle with olive oil. Misting with olive oil will make this step easier and provide a more even coverage, so if you have a misting bottle, mist away. Ours was destroyed at the hands of a very curious two-year-old with a penchant for anything that sprays. Your turkey then gets tented with foil and sent to the oven for less time than you probably think.

You’ll want to remove the foil after the first 45 minutes to an hour of cooking time to allow those bread crumbs to brown. The kids, the husband and my parents and siblings all approved of our mustard-crusted bird. We loved how juicy it was, and the added crunch and flavor was a nice change from the roasted variety. Plus, when you’re going to multiple meals, it’s fun to have them serve up different turkeys so you can enjoy and appreciate more than one way to cook the bird.

Looking for a traditional roasted Thanksgiving turkey? I’ll show you how to roast a turkey in 5 easy steps.