To be worried about the turkey?!

[Piewife]

We're hosting some family for Christmas dinner tomorrow and a family member kindly offered to provide the turkey.

She bought a large frozen turkey joint and gave it to me late this afternoon. She's not being clear on this, but I think it's been out of the freezer for around 24 hours (it was out yesterday evening), mostly in a fairly cold kitchen but definitely not in the fridge the whole time.

The packaging says to defrost 48 hours in the fridge. Google tells me that turkey shouldn't be defrosted at room temperature, so now I'm stressing out that it might give us all food poisoning. AIBU??

Also, the pack leaked a lot of juices and it has a strong (but not bad) turkey smell. It looks ok, I think (don't cook turkey often!).

From experience they never really defrost properly in the fridge despite the advice on the packaging.

thank god i'm vegetrian [not helpful]

We’ve defrosted our in the bath every year! Never been ill, so long as it’s cooked properly it will be fine

Aand this is why frozen turkeys are grim.

I've always defrosted out of fridge ( no room in fridge ) and it's been fine never ill . Try and find cool place in house .

I think the room temp advice is for a 'hot' room, if that makes sense. I always have to defrost meat out of the fridge. If it's been kept cool it should be fine.

I would've bought fresh turkey myself! No worries like this.

I was originally concerned that it wouldn't be fully defrosted but since it's been out of the fridge I don't think that's a problem!

Like PP it won't ever defrost in the fridge. People tend to defrost out of the fridge or in hot water.

I've always found that they don't defrost in the fridge. Have you a cold room? Put it in there. As long as you cook it properly it'll be fine.

Oh this is reassuring, thanks!

It still felt cold to the touch when I got it, and it's in my fridge now.

My mum is successfully (so far) defrosting our turkey in the fridge. It is only a turkey crown though so probably easier. I would imagine any turkey defrosted at a cool temp will be fine

I've defrosted all meat on my kitchen counter since I could cook and I'm still alive.

I thought the issue would be that they said they'd provide the turkey but then they provided you with one un-cooked and expected you to 'do everything'

I bought a turkey breast as only 3 of us for Xmas. Took it out of the freezer on Sunday morning. 24 hours later it was still completely frozen, so was the joint of beef. I've left them both out in the kitchen all day to defrost them. It will be fine OP, I usually defrost all meat out of the fridge, for once I thought I'd try to do it properly!