Zimmern suggests you boil the turkey’s dark meat before stuffing it and putting it in the oven. What the boiling does is allow the dark meat to get a head start on the cooking process. As Zimmern notes, this head start ends up being just enough so that the white meat can catch up to the dark meat for a more evenly-roasted bird.
To start, bring two inches of stock to a rolling boil inside the roasting pan. You’ll then place the turkey into the roasting pan and boil the dark meat for 10 minutes. As all the dark meat is located in the underside of the bird, the stock will surround it and cook it gently, priming it for the roast ahead. Once the boiling is finished, reserve the stock to make gravy and continue roasting the turkey as normal.
The end result should be a turkey that is moist, tender, and, above all, evenly-cooked. The tip is clever in that Zimmern isn’t asking you to do anything overly complicated. The bird remains intact, which is good for roasting and presentation, and the tip all but guarantees a perfectly-cooked turkey.
