Cooking turkey

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What's the secret to a stress-free Christmas, crunchy roasties and a perfectly cooked bird? We've got the answers below, from top celebrity chef Antony Worrall Thompson.

1. Don't buy a self-basting turkey. Either wrap it in foil or if small enough pop it in a roasting bag. Fold back the foil half-an-hour before the finished cooking time. One of the best forms of baking is to buy some muslin and dip it in melted butter and lay it over the whole turkey. Some chefs cook the turkey breast-side down so that most of the juices run into the breast instead of the back which isn't used.

2. My top tip is to wrap the whole baking tray in foil rather than just the turkey. Make a cross with two large pieces of foil over the roasting tray, sit the turkey on a bed of root veg and throw in some onion, carrot, celery, thyme and a couple of cloves of garlic. Pour over a couple of glasses of wine (red or white), and some stock and fold up the cross. Wrapping the entire thing in foil reduces your cooking time by about a third and all the juices run down into the vegetables and create a base for your gravy.

3. About half-an-hour before the turkey is expected to be done, carefully open the foil to expose the turkey surface for browning, keeping the drumsticks wrapped in foil. During the last half hour of roasting, baste occasionally with juices in pan to encourage browning.

4. Most people have one oven and struggle with coordinating the turkey, potatoes and roast veg. My suggestion is to cook the roast potatoes for 40 minutes, take them out and then put the turkey in. The turkey needs to then to come out of the oven and rest covered in foil for about 20 minutes so in that time you can finish off the potatoes.

5. One of the biggest problems people have is undercooking or overcooking the turkey. The answer is to use a meat thermometer, or our turkey timer; you can pick one up for about £6. Push it through the thickest part if the thigh, hold it there for five minutes and if it registers 75 degrees that's perfect because at that temperature you will have killed all harmful bacteria and your turkey's safe to eat. And you'll have a nice juicy breast and your brown meat will be cooked as well.

6. Make sure your roast meal has a good balance of colours, flavours and textures and take into account oven space and ease of cooking. Have one puree which can be made in advance, stored in reusable food storage containers before freezing and can then be defrosted and reheated when needed (broccoli and potato, parsnip and potato, swede and carrot etc). One green vegetable;
sprouts, can be cooked the day before and reheated with butter and one roast vegetable.

7. To achieve a perfectly roasted turkey, don't stuff the main cavity of the bird, cook your stuffing separately; this will enable the heat to cook the bird from inside out.

8. If you miss the traditional stuffing, you can stuff just the neck end i.e. the round end so that the heat still penetrates the centre. Or instead of stuffing the bird traditionally just pop half a lemon, half an onion, a few garlic cloves and a sprig of rosemary and thyme in the cavity.

9. You can always cheat with the stuffings - many of the leading supermarkets have excellent ones and you can always zap them up with a bit more onion and bacon pieces.

10. Place some butter between the body and each wing and leg joint to keep the bird moist when cooking.

11. Use an aluminium roasting pan for easy clean-up. No messy turkey pan to scrub!

12. For the best roasties, use a floury potato such as vale sovereign, blanch for approx 10 minutes until the edges start to break up, strain and put back on the heat to dry out. Toss in seasoned flour and then put into reasonably deep hot fat (oil, dripping, duck or goose fat) and roast at a high temperature for 40 minutes, strain off the fat and finish for a further 20 minutes until crispy.

13. For many, carving the turkey can be the most intimidating part of preparing the meal. To produce nicer looking slices of breast meat, treat the turkey as a rectangle - don't follow the shape of the breast when cutting but cut straight down vertically, which makes nice neat long slices.

14. Using up leftovers:

Try a Christmas colcannon - Chop turkey into small pieces and mix into mash, cauliflower and leeks. Serve piping hot as a main dish with a little cranberry sauce.
Turkey patties - Mix chopped turkey with an egg, breadcrumbs, a pinch of sage and pepper. Shape into patties and fry in butter. Serve hot in burger buns.

15. If you are in a reasonable state at the end of your Christmas day celebrations, strip the turkey meat from the carcass the same evening and place in the fridge for sandwiches. Put the carcass in a large pan with some root veg and stock to create a base of a soup or stock, this will give you a bit more space in your fridge!

16. Instead of wrapping chipolatas in bacon, buy some of your favourite stuffing or make it yourself, make into a little disc and wrap in streaky bacon and bake until crispy and thoroughly cooked.

17. Try and keep Christmas eco-friendly. Go to your nearest farmer's market and buy local. Stick to what's in season; root vegetables are best for the winter and they haven't travelled thousands of miles across the world and lost their flavour along the way and are great for roasting along with the turkey.

Celebrity chef, Antony Worrall Thompson has teamed up with BacoFoil. Visit www.baco.co.uk for more information.

Cook your turkey to perfection with our instant defrosting and cooking times:

Where to next?
Turkey recipes gallery
Christmas recipe guide
Christmas food countdown

Stay within budget this year with our Christmas budget calculator

Send in your Christmas recipes and you could win celeb cookbooks.

By Jennifer Shepherd

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