Cooking a Turkey at Christmas

Hi all,
I was looking for a good cookery forum and found yours, (this looked the best). This is my 1st post so be gentle lol.
While at work the other day, we were discussing Turkey at christmas and one of my colleages mentioned that in a lot of restarants, they boil the turkey for a while before roasting it in the oven.
This sounded plausable, however he wasn’t sure how they did it. Now I have been the victim of a dry Turkey, and i would love to give it a go. I was wondering if anyone on here does this, and could you give me some advice. Thanks for reading. ATB Neil

Thank you for the reply, I have tried this in the past but my turkey never seemed as moist as some ive eaten in restarants before. Never tried the brine one before though, so i will give this a go this year. Thanks again, Neil.

Thanksgiving I brined my turkey, and then put herbed butter under the breast skin. I basted it frequently and it was very moist. In the past I have cooked the turkey breast side down and then turned it over during last hour or so of roasting to brown the breast skin. It came out well, but turning a hot turkey is not an easy thing to do.

This year I was trying to figure out how to have enough space in the fridge to brine a turkey, and then I came upon this method. Brine the bird in a large plastic box with a lid. Put the box in a large Styrofoam cooler and pack ice all around it. Even here in the tropics the turkey stayed very cold.

I’ve always left the holiday turkeys up to my aunt and sister.
My aunt used to spend hours of care; covering off and on with an aluminum foil tent, and like basting what seemed like a zillion times.
Her roasted turkeys were great.

Now all my sister does is throw the bird into one of those large roasting bags, then cutting it off (the bag) and doing the final 15 mins or so at 450F to crisp up the skin. And it comes out even better than my aunts shhhh~don’t tell her

The best way to have a moist turkey is to deep fry it in peanut oil. I use the electric Butterball turkey fryer, easy and no explosions or fire. I did read the other day that most times someone had created a fire using a propane cooker was because they put the bird in the pot frozen. Duh, common sense tells me extreme cold to extreme heat creates a storm.

Be extremely careful deep frying! Turkey thawed, seasoned (dry inside and out then use dry seasonings) it will take 2 ppl to SLOWLY put into the fryer. (From what I’ve seen)
I’ve done upside down turkey quite a bit…doesn’t matter what it looks like IF you are cutting it up in the kitchen, NOT the table! I’ve also done it my Mothers way…baste then soak a “Handywipe” in butter and lay it over the top of the bird…then when basting every 1/2 hr. you baste the handywipe and the legs, etc. I stuff mine with lemons, oranges, onions and herbs. Always juicy. But, I’ve never tried to brine.
Don’t worry, I’m sure everything will work out fine. Just have a great day! :wink:

Martha Stewart soaks cheese cloth in a butter and white wine mixture and covers the breast while roasting the turkey. I have never tried it, but she claims the bird comes out with moist breast as well as a beautiful mahogany color.

Be careful not to buy a pregnant turkey. :smiley: Someone pranked their daughter in law and put a cornish game hen inside of a turkey surrounded by all the bread stuffing. When the DIL (blond of course) was serving the turkey, she found the cooked cornish game hen and the MIL told her she had accidently bought a pregnant turkey.

Here’s the prank video on Youtube.

Pregnant Turkey - YouTube