To dread cooking the blasted turkey every year?

[Mrswhatsit40]

It's always dry and tasteless no matter what I do. I'm generally very laidback but this is the worst bit about Christmas for me - worrying about cooking the turkey. Worrying it's going to defrost properly in time then wrangling with a beast the size of a large toddler, removing the disgusting giblets, then in and out of the oven for hours from 9am onwards basting, giving myself third degree burns in the process, stuffing inside or not blah blah.

What the the absolute BEST way you cook your turkey to avoid meat dryer than a nuns crotch? And please don't suggest that Jamie Oliver thing of smearing butter underneath the skin bc I tried it last year and it was impossible (disclaimer:I am not a great cook).

Help me please oh wise MN-er's so I can sleep tonight..what's your failsafe tip for tender turkey? Or does it not exist?

YANBU: It's a pain in the bloody arse and turkey tastes terrible no matter what
YABU: It's easy to cook a nice turkey and you are clearly doing it all wrong

I purchase a bacon wrapped turkey crown stuffed with sage & onion stuffing for £6 every year. Feeds 5/6 of us and we have leftovers for boxing day buffet.

It's one of those peel the plastic lid off, cover with foil and chuck in the oven for 90 minutes type joints, been using them for 4 years now, never failed us, always juicy and full of flavour.

I find the effort of a full turkey ridiculous and stressful

M&S do a crown that serves 14-15, it's 3.5KG and is £75. Bit spenny but prob worth it.

I know but I’ve bought the blasted thing now! The train is in motion and it’s too late to stop it. Dh and the boys are already arguing over who gets a leg. And dh has to make his turkey joke every year (after everyone has opined why no one has invented an 8 legged turkey)
Q:”What did the farmer say to the 8 legged turkey”?

A: “Nothing - he couldn’t catch it”!

Sorry.

DH method, firstly allow some butter to soften then push under the skin, stuff the cavity with either loosely packed stuffing or a lemon and an orange. Then cover the bird in bacon and pour a bottle of cheap white wine (or possibly stock) into the pan. Place the turkey on a trivet and place in a hot oven 220°C for half an hour, remove, baste and cover with foil then return to a 180°C oven for 20 minutes a pound plus half hour for this last hald hour remove the foil. Remove your turkey and put the roast potatoes, parsnips etc in the oven.

Cover the turkey with foil and then put towels on top to allow it to rest.

This looks like a a palaver but the only thing that really takes any time is doing the butter bit.

This will give you really succulent turkey.

Always cover it. Don’t stuff it (it will dry it out)

the Phil Vickery method works well. Plus they don’t take hours, they really don’t.

That’s a genius idea actually 😂

The person doing the cooking gets to decide what gets cooked. End of. If you don't like doing turkey, cook something that you do like! What's the worst that can happen? I can't stand it when people who don't even know where the roasting tins are kept offer their helpful opinions on what should be cooked and in what manner. So rude!

best way i've found of doing this is to smear it with butter and wrap in a layer of foil, loosely, so there are no air gaps. you pinch it together at the top. this uses quite a lot of foil. then you cook it as per usual in oven (i can dig our times/temps if anyone wants them). Then for the last 30 mins you remove foil on top of turkey and baste. so basically it sort of steams it. it also has the most important benefit that once you have stuck it in the oven you do nothing till the last 30 mins.

Ok, so they clearly only care about the brown meat. Get some turkey drumsticks next year and be done with it

Years ago my turkey was off and I didnt realise until too late, DH managed to get a rolled turkey joint from an M&S attached to a petrol station on Christmas morning.

I've never cooked a whole turkey again, so much easier and tastier because it doesn't dry out, Im hosting this year and Ive just brought two - I cook everything else form scratch and that's enough work as it is, Im never going back 😁

We go to Booths and buy fresh Turkey slices from the deli counter. No mess no waste.

I just don't bother. Everyone is just as happy with frozen chicken breasts so I just do some of those in the airfryer.
Tbh Christmas dinner is no different to our usual fayre - mashed potatoes, carrots, frozen peas, frozen sprouts, frozen yorkshire puddings. Roast potatoes depends how I'm feeling as to whether I do them 'properly' or get a bag of mini roasties from Tesco.

I shove butter under the skin, cut lemons/oranges and stuff them inside the turkey with some thyme then cook mine upside down so all the fat runs down, and the fruits create a steam, turn it right way up for last 15 mins. Easy.

Stuffing in a separate tray.

It's too late this year but I wouldn't say anything next year. Just let them assume it's all going along as usual and buy the meat you'd actually like to cook (or a big chicken, that's a genius move upthread) and do the trimmings you'd actually like- not sprouts because you have to and so on.

Would anyone else at home actually notice the prep / items in fridge etc before it hits the table done? They can buy and make it themselves then. Or accept that not noticing until the joint/chicken/whatever is in the oven means they don't care as much as they think they do.

We're at my mothers this year. She'll do a roast (chicken or beef, none of us like turkey and we're only 4 people anyway) because that's what she wants to cook and finds easy but I never make a roast for Christmas. I'm lazy. I usually make a goulashy thing and chocolate mousse if it's my turn as both recipes can be made ahead (Christmas Eve when DH is either at work or off family visiting) and pulled out of the fridge ready or in need of nothing more than the hob being turned on and a drop of water to get going. 15/20 mins tops. I won't give my day over to all the prep and oven-bothering. Or the faff of making decent gravy (always Compsons gravy salts, never Bisto). I don't mind a little time spent the day before to make Christmas Day less work.

Good luck with your turkey! Hopefully it's the last one!

I haven’t gone through all the replies so this might already be covered.

if you really can’t face butter under the skin, then but on the skin, it’s not so good but ok, I did this for years before learning to go under the skin.

stuffing, don’t stuff the cavity do the other end where the wish bone is, lift the fold of skin, and stuff a big ball of stuffing there then cover with skin tucking under neath. You can always cook the stuffing separately, I lay bacon on tinfoil or cling film, but a sausage shaped stuffing on then fold bacon round - think sausage roll, roll tight with film/ foil pop in fridge to set over night then roast. It’s lovely.

once you have stuffed the Turkey if doing. Butter well then cover with bacon, cover with tinfoil loosely and seal round edge of tin to make a tent of tinfoil.

it’s worth buying a baster, just inject the juices into the breast 2 or 3 times during cooking.

last half hour remove tinfoil to crisp bacon.

when cooked, lift out oven, wrap tight in foil, then cover with as many tea towels you can spare. This will keep the Turkey hot for a good hour or so while you cook everything else. This resting time is important you really need to let it sit for a good hour gently steaming in its bed.

Try Nigella's turkey recipe where you brine the turkey for a day beforehand. Always works well for us and it massively reduces the cooking time (if you don't have all the spices to hand then I wouldn't worry, the main ingredients that you need are salt, sugar and citrus juice).

If using a frozen turkey I'd defrost and remove giblets before brining.

Re the ham - Nigella's coca cola ham is always lovely too.

Don’t do one?

We do chicken and beef. None of us are fussed about turkey. No matter what you do it always ends up dry

I forgot to say the lemon/oranges / onion into the cavity.

I have cooked mine upside down, it does keep it more moist, but isn’t very pretty to serve !

I find resting is the answer

Turkey tastes horrible and they have an awful cruel life.

Buy an organic something-or-other next year. Anything but turkey.

Fresh turkey roasted upside down in a turkey bag. Turned right way up and out of bag for last 20 minutes.

The juices drain down into the breast as it cooks rather than out of the meat so it is moist rather than dry.

Not RTFT but our turkey is always moist.

My dad's secret was to put some water in the roasting tray. So I get the turkey, put flora (am intolerant to butter) on the skin and lots of herbs. Stick some stuffing in the cavity and put a couple of garlic cloves where the wings join the body. Put around 5mm of water in the tray then seal it up carefully with foil. It means that the turkey starts to steam once the oven gets to temperature. After 90 minutes or so, I take it out, unwrap it and baste it. Normally someone helps by tipping the tray then I pour the juices over the breast & legs. Then seal it back up and give it another hour. I repeat this every hour until the end of the cooking time. Then take it out of the oven, pour off most of the juices for gravy then leave it wrapped up really well with towels over the foil to rest.

I CBA with the roasting it upside down malarkey. We don't eat bacon, so never use that to wrap it in. DH carves it straight from the roasting tray. So far, so good, and I've cooked Christmas lunch almost every year for the last 25 years.

Simple answer is to not have a turkey. We have not had one for years and usually get a couple of joints of beef and lamb or pork, and sometimes a good chicken. But mostly we have more of a gamey meal which is different to the usual Sunday roasts we have most weeks

Get a turkey crown

Brine it overnight 23-24 December.
Cook it on low overnight in a range (my dad put it in a gas oven on 2 or 3 at 11pm just before leaving for midnight mass, basted on return from mass, then at breakfast, then every hour, then taken out at 1pm).
Cook it upside down in a foil tent to circulate hot air and so the juices run into the breast.
Cook it right way up for the last 15-30 minutes.
Rest it in tea towel wrap for at least an hour.
Seriously get a beef joint for 2025 and tell the family this year.
Do not be persuaded to revert to turkey.
If they insist, they can cook all of the food next year.
Alternatively, go away for Christmas 2025.

We used to buy Kelly Bronze turkeys, and the main thing I learned is that they need far less oven time than you might think! No wonder the turkey of my childhood was so dry: the damn thing had been cooked for 5 hours more than necessary! I used to buy a really small one and they’d take 2 hours or so… DM was convinced I would poison us all!

I have Nigella’d the turkey for the last few years, and must admit that the frozen one I bought last year tasted just as good (although I don’t pretend to be a turkey expert).

Go online and check how long to cook it, depending on weight. Get a meat thermometer, and consider the Nigella bucket of brine!