You don't always have to separate turkey thighs from the drumsticks, but there are some compelling reasons.

In the late 1990’s, Chef Thomas Keller began extorting $50 from every line cook and chef in North America by publishing The French Laundry Cookbook. Since that wasn’t enough, he published Bouchon shortly thereafter and extracted yet another $50 from all of us. You simply couldn’t–at that point in time–not own these books. And, while, ahem, $50 isn’t too much to ask for for a cookbook these days, it was quite a bit back then when we were making $8 an hour.

Besides groundbreaking standards for precision and attention to detail, Chef Keller was fond of inserting little chapters into the books about “The Importance of” certain ingredients or techniques. Some examples would include “The Importance of Hollandaise”, "The Importance of Staff Meal" or “The Importance of Trussing Chicken”. In our young chefling brains, this was formative doctrine straight from The Man himself.

Many years later I’m sitting in on a podcast with my friend Ryan Callaghan. The topic was not feral hogs, but turkeys, and their usefulness as food. Ryan outlined his personal approach to turkey butchering, which included separating the turkey thighs from the turkey drumsticks and also cooking them separately. 

My personal style of turkey butchery had always involved leaving the thigh and drumstick attached in what would be called a “leg quarter”. Since these two portions cook in roughly the same amount of time and have similar textures, it just made sense. Ryan politely and convincingly did make the point, though, that the thighs and drums were different enough to possibly warrant separation and individualized approaches to cooking. I was intrigued. I was also a little embarrassed, as once you publish a book on turkey butchery and cooking, you can’t unpublish it and go back to add in a little section called “The Importance of Turkey Thighs”.  

Turkey Thighs are Important, and I’ll tell you why. Let’s first go beyond congratulating ourselves on saving the legs and thighs in the first place. These account for more than half of the edible volume on a turkey, and are not really that difficult to cook once you accept the fact that they A) take a long time to cook and B) probably need to be slowly cooked with some liquid to become tender. After driving for hours, hunting for many more hours and generally dedicating nothing but time in the pursuit of turkeys, allowing for a few minutes of active labor to remove the legs is minor, nor the passive addition of a few hours to let them get good.

So, now we have leg quarters. What to do? In the past, I’d package these whole quarters in a vacuum sealed bag and freeze them singly, as a thigh/drumstick combo. These were generally braised, or sometimes slowly poached in a slow cooker to yield both flavorful broth and also shredded meat from the thigh and drum. These days–thanks in part to Ryan–I simply separate the thighs and drumsticks, and package the thighs together in one bag and the drumsticks together in another bag. The finished weight and portioning is roughly the same, but I’m now dealing with two unique, though similar cuts.

The drumsticks are the most labor-intensive part to work with, mostly because of the high volume of “ossified tendons”, or the roughly fifteen thin, flexible and bone-like shards running from the ankle joint upward through the drumstick. These, in my opinion, are best removed after cooking the drumstick to complete tenderness, and aren’t that much of a pain in the grand scheme of things. They do add body to the broth or sauce, too, so there is also a culinary value. So, we have the following qualities in a drumstick which informs our usage of them in the kitchen: 

• They’re high in gelatinous materials, making for richer broths and sauces.

• The meat shreds into tender, small pieces.

• Cooking them first allows for easier removal of non-edible pieces (bone and tendon).

Conclusion: Turkey drumsticks are best for making stocks/broth (and the resultant shredded meat) and items that benefit from shredded meat (enchiladas, pasta sauces).

Turkey thighs are different. While they have also done a lot of exercising (foraging all day, running from predators, assuredly walking in the opposite direction of wherever I’m set up) and therefore require a requisite amount of cooking, they’re a little drier than drumsticks once cooked. Turkey thighs are:

• Leaner and therefore a bit drier once slow cooked; the muscles are also larger and not separated by layers of silverskin or even trace amounts of fat, which contributes to a slightly chalkier texture.

• Divided simply by one straight bone (the thigh bone) tipped by ball joints on each end, which is very easy to remove.

• Able to be precisely cooked to tender, but not falling apart/shredded (which is probably their optimal texture).

The Importance of Turkey Thighs extends beyond this part of the turkey, too. Turkey thighs allow us to explore an esoteric texture in cooking: “fork tender”. This is a level of tenderness that’s not melting or shredding, but with a textural integrity that doesn’t fight back when chewed but maintains its shape. Turkey thighs are the perfect part of a turkey for creating this texture; drumsticks are not. 

Conclusion: use turkey thighs for stews and braises where the cooking can be precisely accomplished. This is essentially poultry stew meat and can be utilized in all of the recipes that would benefit from cubes of tough meat made tender in a sauce. If making turkey sausage, they are superlative because they convey lots of turkey flavor, have minimal tough sinew and are easily cubed for grinding.

The method: My preference would probably lean towards boneless thighs, diced into bite-sized pieces. These can be browned first in fat before being braised in a sauce, or simply added, un-browned, to the sauce and cooked until tender. This timeframe will still require some time, maybe 2 or 3 hours, but not as long as a whole leg quarter, which can often push 4 to 5 hours until very tender. 

Once tenderness is achieved–and you’ll know by checking–I recommend that you remove the pot from the heat and allow it to sit for about an hour. During this time, the turkey thigh tends to reabsorb some sauce and coast into a perfect tenderness without falling apart. This initial tenderness is hard to define, but when bitten, the turkey meat isn’t springy or tough, but is just able to be easily chewed. The thigh will still be far from falling apart tender.

Recipes that will work well with turkey thighs:

Tom Kha Turkey

Turkey Scarpariello

All sausage recipes from The Turkey Book (pages 202-221)

Turkey Giblet Pate (TTB, page 182)

D’inde au Vin (TTB, page 240)

Turkey Vadas (TTB, page 248)