At Thanksgiving time, most people cook a turkey. That’s pretty standard. But what isn’t standard is the brand of oven in everyone’s home. That’s why I used a weekend leading up to the holiday to test out the same 7 LB turkey breast, seasoned the same way and at the same time, in 3 different ovens in the showroom: the Viking Turbo Chef, the GE Profile Series 30 in. Combination Double Wall Oven with Convection and Advantium® Technology, and the Jenn-Air® 27″ Built-In Microwave Oven with Speed-Cook.
The turkey was seasoned with a mix of:
- Salt
- Pepper
- Onion powder
- Meat tenderizer
- Paprika
- Cajun seasoning
- Herbs de province
- Ground nutmeg
- Garlic butter under the skin
Feedback: It’s hard to choose a favorite among the brands; they are all great and super fast. The fact that you can cook a turkey in less than an hour is pretty amazing. Below is my feedback on the cooking experience and final product.
Turbo Chef: With a 33-min initial time to cook, the internal temperature wasn’t where it needed to be so I cooked it for another 10 min to finish cooking. The skin was good and crispy. The look was a tad over what I like, which is a golden brown. The meat was tender and juicy.
GE Advantium: 52-min total cook time. This oven cooks with two halogen light bulbs, one on top and one underneath, while the microwave cooks to the interior of the food. After monitoring the cooking of the turkey for 30 minutes, I noticed that the top was browning faster that I wanted, so I adjusted the halogen lamp on top to a lower heat and added heat to the lower lamp. The final product was great. Beautiful golden brown and crispy skin. The only down side was that because of the high temperature of the upper lamp, it caused a little of the top layer of meat to dry out. The remainder of the turkey was cooked perfectly.
Jenn-Air Speed Oven: I feel most comfortable using this oven. Its cook time for the turkey was based off a weighing sensor in the oven. Total finish cook time was 45 min. The skin was a nice crispy golden brown, and the meat was tender. Although the Jenn-Air oven was smaller than the other two, the final product was still great.
