Tips on the perfect turkey please!

[country_girl8]

ive never cooked one before and im slightly panicking about it incase i burn it, dry it out or poison everyone can u all share u tips on how to cook the perfect turkey

 

[NuKe]

i do a roast chicken most sundays and no matter what u do, the BEST tip i can give u is this:

slide your hand up between the skin and the breasts, try not to make a hole in the skin. seperate it from the meat the whole way back, then shove a LOAD of butter under the skin. as much as will fit! then massage it in from the outside. and baste, baste, baste!! if u do both these things theres no WAY it will be dry!

 

[odd_socks]

Wrap it in foil, we put an onion (in the hole lol) some people put bacon over the skin and always baste, baste, and baste like every 20-30mins. We always cook it slightly over the time on the packet (poisoning scares us bigtime)

 

[NuKe]

^^ yes stick an onion up the jacksie! and do cover in foil, but take it off for like the last 20 mins/half hour to let it go nice and brown!

 

[future_numan]

Make sure you tie the legs nice and tight to the bird do they don't cook faster than the bird !!

 

[future_numan]

Hey Nuke...our daughters share the same birthday..
I know...off topic !

 

[Blah11]

Do Nigellas turkey. Seriously the nicest, juiciest turkey EVER.

 

[Vickie]

Hubby brines our turkey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brining which pretty much guarantees a juicy (not dried out) bird

 

[Blah11]

Hubby brines our turkey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brining which pretty much guarantees a juicy (not dried out) bird

yeh thats what we do too! and you dont need to cook it as long

 

[v2007]

i do a roast chicken most sundays and no matter what u do, the BEST tip i can give u is this:

slide your hand up between the skin and the breasts, try not to make a hole in the skin. seperate it from the meat the whole way back, then shove a LOAD of butter under the skin. as much as will fit! then massage it in from the outside. and baste, baste, baste!! if u do both these things theres no WAY it will be dry!

That just sounds so rude



V xxx

 

[TattiesMum]

Here's my tips for a hassle free and perfectly moist turkey

Peel an onion and cut in half then slice a lemon in half - put both in the turkey cavity.

Lay out two HUGE sheets of turkey foil on your worksurface - overlapping each other about 6 inches on the long sides and thenanother huge sheet 'crosswise'. Place your turkey in the middle.... there should be enough foil to meet over the top of the bird in both directions.

Then cover the whole of the breast and legs with overlapping rashers of unsmoked streaky bacon - you want as much fat on the bacon as possible.

Bring up the sides of the foil and 'crimp' the edges together to make a tight seal - then do the shorter edges - patting them into the whole package to make a parcel.

Place the whole thing in a roasting pan - cover that with one more layer of foil crimped into the edges of the tin, and put into your oven on the highest temp it will go. After 1 hour turn the oven down to 170c (or your equivalent) and leave well alone.

Once you start to smell it cooking then leave for another half hour and then take it out, partially unwrap and syphon off the excess juices (if there arent any yet then wrap back up and leave for another half hour/hour and try again). Use some of the juices to baste the top of the bird and put the rest by for gravy (YUM!!). Wrap back up and pop back in the oven... keep checking it every half hour or so.

Once the turkey has got to the point where the legs are loose and starting to flop away from the body then it's essentially cooked , so then remove all the crispy bacon (yummy for impromptu bacon sandwiches) and put back into the oven, uncovered for about half an hour to allow the skin to brown a little (not too much or it will start to dry).

Remove from oven, re-cover with foil and then cover the whole thing with towels and leave to stand for an hour - it won't go cold but all the juices will sink back into the meat making it nice and succulent. Then serve

I actually cook mine on xmas eve - it comes out of the oven at about midnight - and cover with an old flannelette sheet overnight and for xmas morning. It's still hot for xmas dinner, I have room in the oven for veggies etc and it's always really moist and yummy

 

[country_girl8]

thank you all its made me feel alot more confident about cooking for everyone x

 

[pinkclaire]

Wow tatties mum you sound like a professional! Do you stuff with anything?