How To Carve Turkey

How do you go about carving turkey for Thanksgiving, or that special Christmas family meal?

Using the right approach will make all the difference between impressing your guests with apparently effortless carving, and hacking slabs of meat onto their plates.

Preparing To Carve Turkey

Before you even start, make sure that you are properly equipped, with a good sharp carving knife. Without it you won’t even get to first base and you will never be able to carve turkey properly. Your carving knife should be fairly thin, made of tempered carbon steel and have a comfortable handle.

Using a well-known brand will be an assurance of quality. Then make sure the knife is sharp, either by using a proprietary sharpening block or if you’re confident, a steel which you draw obliquely across the edge of the knife. Do this before the meal, not at the table; but don’t do it days before because a sharpened knife very rapidly loses its edge, even if it is not used. Don’t forget – knives should always be stored in a wooden block or a box, not left to knick against other knives in a drawer, which will blunten them further.

Lets Get Down to Actually Carving The Turkey

Now to the crux of the matter. Learning to carve turkey properly is in some repects easier than carving some joints of meat. Granted a turkey is a more complicated shape but at least the direction of carving is usually pretty obvious. Also the meat is more tender and will cut more easily.

Even if you have one of those spiked carving dishes, you will still need to hold the turkey with a two-pronged carving fork in your non-cutting hand.

First of all, slice down between the body and the leg, to separate the leg out. Then cut the leg joint and carve meat off the leg bones – try and make the pieces as large as possible.

Set that meat aside, and then separate the wing from the turkey, setting that aside. This gives you a clear line on which to carve the breast meat.

Carving The Breast Meat

Starting at the end furthest from you, use the knife to cut downwards and towards you, cutting thin slices parallel to the peak of the breast bone, working inwards towards the centre of the turkey. When you need more meat, turn the turkey round and repeat the whole process with the other side. Do not cut more meat than you will need at that meal, because it will keep much better for a while on the bird rather than sliced off.

So that is basically how to carve turkey. Its not all that difficult really, and like anything else you wil get better with practice.