Turkey Roasting Times

The safest way to cook turkey and stuffing is to cook them separately as a stuffed bird may not cook as evenly.  Cook the stuffing in a separate little casserole dish therefore. 

If you’re going to ignore me (!) and stuff the bird anyway, you’ll need to calculate cooking times by weighing your bird after it’s stuffed – you might well have to use bathroom scales in order to do this.  There is a cooking chart below but as an example, for an 8 – 12 pound bird allow 20 minutes per pound (40 minutes per kg) at 170C (325F), gas mark 3. 

Remember that if you are usng a fan oven, cooking temperatures are generally lower (usually 20C lower than in the conventional oven…consult your manufacturer’s manual).  

If you don’t have a meat thermometer, the way to test whether the bird is cooked is to pop a knife into the area between the turkey body and leg (drumstick).  If the juices coming out look clear and not pink or bloody then the bird is done.  

If it isn’t ready yet, return it to the oven for 20 minutes and test again.

A good meat thermomter will show when the meat is cooked.  Latest guidlines state that the minimum safe temperature is 165F. Check the temperature by placing the thermometer probe in the thickest part of the inner thigh.

The folowing chart is for a whole turkey cooked at 325F / 170C. In all cases the temperature of the meat (if you have a meat thermometer) will be 160 – 170 degrees.

4 – 8 lbs……….325F / 170 C ………2 – 3 hours

8 – 12 lbs……..325F / 170C ……….3 – 4 hours

12 – 16 lbs…….325F / 170C ………4 – 5 hours

16 – 20 lbs…….325F / 170C ………5 – 6  hours

20 – 24 lbs …… 325F / 170C ……..6 – 7 hours

There are some great recipes available for cooking the turkey.  If you don’t have one don’t be scared by the whole prospect of doing one just because it’s The Big Day. 

For the novice cook – remove the bag of giblets from the body cavity (these make wonderful stock but now may not be the time to be telling you that)!  Now just think of the turkey as a large chicken that you have to roast.   Maybe loosely pop some pieces of raw onion,  and herbs (say, thyme) in the body cavity, rub the outside of the body with butter, season with salt, pepper and perhaps a further sprinkling of herbs and then put the bird in the roasting tin (I tend to roast my birds on a base of root vegetables – onions, carrots etc).  Cover loosely with foil to stop the breast burning.  Cook for the required time (chart above), removing the foil for the last 20 minutes to allow the bird to brown. 

All roast meat benefits from ‘resting’ for a period after being taken from the oven.  This allows some of its juices to be re-absorbed back into the meat. Turkey is no exception. If you can manage to tip the bird to drain any juices from the body cavity into the roasting tin then do so (enlist someone’s help if you can).  Put the bird on a warm plate, cover loosely with foil and let it sit while you finish off things like the roast potatoes and gravy.  You can leave it like this for 30-60 minutes.  

There are some helpful notes here and charts here. 

Happy Christmas!

Basic Kitchen Hygiene

It’s coming up to that time of year again, when we wrestle with a behemoth of a bird in order to feed the gathering hordes family.  I often think that handling poultry is a bit like preparing fugu fish.  Get it wrong and you’ll pay – big time!  Don’t get in a panic however, the Gentle Voice is here to dispense a few words of wisdom that will help you through.  To begin with…

Should you wash poultry before cooking?  Simple answer: No. 

• Salmonella cannot be washed off meat and can only be destroyed by the heat of proper cooking.  Washing poultry only raises the risk of splashing raw juices around sinks and work surfaces.

For further information, please visit the USDA site here and/or the Food Standards Agency site here. 

Here are a few other facts, pointers and tips:

Harmful bacteria can be found in all poultry: chicken, duck, goose and turkey as well as game birds like partridge and pheasant. 

Store raw birds in the bottom of your fridge to reduce the risk of cross contamination.

Keep cooked meat away from raw meat.

Thoroughly thaw frozen meat – plan ahead and follow instructions on the packaging ‘to a T’, defrosting in the safe, cool environment of the refigerator (in other words, below 40F). Use your own judgement too – if you see ice crystals, or the flesh is ‘crunchy’ with ice when you start to handle it then it needs longer to defrost!  Some more information specifically to do with thawing can be found here.

Be aware that any / all packaging around the meat may well be tainted with harmful bacteria.  If you’ve touched it, you need to wash your hands.

Use separate cutting boards for raw meat

When you have handled raw meat, make sure that you thoroughly wipe down and clean anything that it has touched, together with all nearby surfaces, with hot soapy water.

~~~T O P~~T I P~~~

When I’m about to handle raw meat, I first fill a bowl in the sink with plenty of warm water, make sure that I have one of those soap dispensers with a push top nearby, and a few sheets of kitchen roll.  Once I’ve finished handling the raw meat I can plunge my hands straight into the clean water, press the top of the soap dispenser with my forearm and dry my hands with kitchen roll.  That way I don’t have to touch kitchen taps with ‘meaty hands’.  (To be honest I am so careful about raw meat that I usually wash my hands once in the bowl of water and then in running water from the tap, finishing by washing out the bowl and around the tap anyway!  Obsessive?  Yes maybe, but I have never made my family sick from the food I have prepared and I intend that things stay that way)!