English Mum’s trouble free surgically enhanced turkey
Golden rule first then. Christmas day is is a happy, family day. If you’re cooking, don’t stress about it, just think of it as a big roast dinner. It’s just a roast and some veg. I mean, open any food magazine or cookbook and there’ll be a different way to cook your turkey on every one – timetables for this, that and the other and enough information to turn you several different colours of panic. I read a magazine recently where the instructions for cooking a 5kg bird were as follows:
Preheat oven to 200 degrees. Lift foil and add 200ml water. Roast for one hour. Reduce oven to 180 degrees. Add another 200ml water. Roast for one hour 45 minutes. Remove foil. Add 100ml water. Remove bacon. Put oven temp back up to 200 degrees. Roast for further 50 minutes.
Now I’m sorry, but this is waaaay too much effort. As if the humble housewife doesn’t have enough to contend with on Christmas day without fannying about with the oven temperature every ten minutes. Anyhoo, because you’re my beloved readers and I lub you, I’ve done the research for you, and here is the absolute, gospel, simple, perfect and most importantly easy way to cook your turkey. Firstly, here are the perfect cooking times according to the British Turkey information website (no, it really exists):
Turkey under 4kg: 20 minutes per kilo, plus a further 70 minutes
Turkey over 4kg: 20 minutes per kilo, plus a further 90 minutes
Remove the foil for the last 40 or so minutes to brown the top
As for prep, here are a load of helpful don’t bothers:
DON’T BOTHER messing with veg and potatoes, etc. Get them all prepared beforehand and keep them in bags in the fridge ready to plop straight into boiling water. Boil the potatoes in advance for about ten minutes, bash them about a bit, open freeze them on a tray in the freezer, then bag them up and store in the freezer. On the day, they can go straight from frozen into the hot duck fat (or whatever you’re using).
DON’T BOTHER washing the bloody thing in the sink – the hot oven will kill any germs and you’ll just succeed in covering yourself and your sink in all manner of bacteria. Just take the giblets out (use to make stock), pluck out any stray feathers and get on with it.
DON’T BOTHER stuffing it if you don’t want to – I don’t stuff the bird, partly because eating something out of a turkey’s innards puts me off a bit and partly because I think it’s better for the hot air to circulate inside it. I make the stuffing separately and cook it in a terrine in the oven once the turkey’s resting. I do surgically enhance its bosom a bit (see below). If you want to, though, by all means stuff the neck end just before cooking.
DON’T BOTHER giving yourself unnecessary work on Christmas day. Do it all on Christmas Eve (before you’ve had too many beers):
- Take your turkey, cut up a couple of lemons, squeeze them over the bird and then stick them into the body cavity along with a nice bunch of bay or rosemary or whatever you have and some salt and pepper, then tie the legs together. Take a load of sausagemeat from your butcher (just ask him to bag you up some of the sausagemeat he usually uses for his sausages), then separate the skin from the breast with your fingertips (you don’t have to be too careful, turkey skin is like leather), then squish the sausagemeat all over the breast under the skin in about an inch thick layer. This will keep the turkey breast nice and moist, and you get to eat it afterwards too. Result. Then just smooth the breast back down (you can take this opportunity to give it a bit of surgical breast enhancement – everyone needs a little help). You might need to secure the end with a skewer. Rub it all over with butter, sprinkle with salt and pepper and cover with streaky bacon.
- Weigh your bird and work out the cooking time. Write it down somewhere while you’re still sober.
- Cover the bird with a huge sheet of turkey foil (make a fold in it so the air can circulate), then just leave it somewhere cool until you need it. Mine’s going in a plastic box in the garage as it’s nice and cold in there, but if we have a sudden warm snap (heh, yeah right), I’ll pack some ice round it (it needs to be less than 4 degrees).
And that’s it. Seriously. On Christmas day, just slosh a bit of water in the bottom of the roasting pan, then stick the turkey on at 190/gas 5 (180 for fan ovens) and go and have a glass of champers. Take the foil off for the last half hour and then you can take it out and it’ll sit happily for up to an hour while you sort out your roasties and stuff. If you want to, you can baste it every so often, but if you forget, don’t worry as it has its little sausagemeat breast enlargement. Oh and sláinte!
Happy Christmas.
The lone voice of reason above the cacophany of Yuletide Obsessive Compulsion!
Thank you Missus!!
(PS – forgot your fada! Sláinte!!)
I am SO printing this, because I was laughed at by a neighbour last year for cooking everything (really, everything) on Christmas Eve every year and just reheating it all the next day. HEY Stupid Man (I said) ain’t it Christmas for ME TOO? I need to play with my toys, not cooook….
Brilliant post, thanks!
Mary: Exactly! I mean, what’s the worse that can happen? If you sod up the turkey and end up eating ham sandwiches, so what? It’s Christmas! x
Jen: Thanks for my fada, I just cut and pasted it, although I’ve just looked up how to do it now (altgr and a). Yeh, sorry about the pork though, I know you’re not keen. Still, a whole pack of butter and plenty of herbs will work too
Susan: too bloody right! I have my precious family coming and I want to spend all my time having fun with them, not slaving over a hot bird (although Hubby might like that LOL!). Actually I’ve heard of quite a few people that cook the turkey beforehand, slice it all off the bone, then shove it in the fridge and reheat on the day.
If you want to have a go, people, place your sliced meat into an ovenproof dish, cover with gravy, then a lid or foil and make sure it’s piping hot! (God, I’m such an old woman).
Looked yummy, shot it himself too, respect.
Have a fantastic holiday and speak to you in the new year.
PS Wish me luck for Saturday!
xx
Jen: Well look at that – we have the same taste in weird, unkempt men. Separated at birth, see? x
Nutty: Have a fab one. And hope all goes well Saturday for your party, I bet it’ll be a blast! x
Kate: Good idea. My entire Christmas seems to be nestling in my freezer or in the garage – let’s hope there’s not a power cut, eh?!
Baino: Corrr, that sounds bloody gorgeous. There’s a fab young English chef called James Tanner, who did a gorgeous ham glazed with maple syrup. And obviously there’s still Nigella’s coca cola baked ham – the original and best in my humble opinion. Have a wonderful feast – wish I could gatecrash! x
Milla: You too with the Alzheimers? I thought it was just me. I actually drove to the shops today completely forgetting that my tire was flat until I was halfway there. Sad.
Baino – the absolute BEST EVER turkey I ever had was done on a barbeque spit over REAL coals and basted with Coke – (that’s Coca COLA you naughty thing!) something like Nigella’s, I imagine, but doing it over coals put it over the moon!
Happy Holidays to you and yours…lucky girl getting all your family over…
I’m not a fan of brining the turkey, but I do think Nigella’s recipes are fab, especially out of her Christmas book. Have a fab Christmas and enjoy the rest! x
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