We always have a Turkey at Christmas even though i'm not keen, I would rather have beef, pork or a couple of nice chops but its tradition :) this year we had a crown which even though I say it myself was cooked to perfection :)
But my wife saw this article on the news and she has now swore off of Turkey for ever and all other meat, she never really did eat much meat to be honest but the sight and thought of this finished her, chops for me next year.
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co...ppers-22575160
We ended up throwing a good 80% of our Turkey away, I did sneak a couple of slices to leave out for the fox :)
I love to eat turkey. Any leftovers are frozen for Turkey & Ham Pies through the year. There are just the two of us so leftovers are usually plentiful, including the remains of the giant gammon that forms the other half of the turkey & ham pie.
Cambell's Condensed Mushroom Soup as a "gravy" mix, just a splash of water to let it down slightly, and a layer of fully-open mushrooms on top of the meat before the pie lid gets welded to the base.
I can't wait!
^^^ That sounds very tasty indeed!Originally Posted by unclealec
Not normally a fan of turkey myself but really enjoyed this year. I think the key to it was not over cooking it as it’s a dry meat to me. Had some good sandwiches so far and a turkey curry to finish off tonight. . . . . Though now I wish I’d kept enough back and some gammon for a pie :-)
I love turkey for Christmas, it's the tradition, every time I've deviated it hasn't felt like Christmas dinner, though with a broken oven, I did multiple chickens on the BBQ rotisserie this year) No matter how big a bird we get, the left overs never hang around long, generous portion with dinner, couple of days of sarnies (actually my favourite bit, turkey, stuffing, lettuce, coleslaw doorsteps, epic), then a soup with the carcass and remaining meat and it's all gone
Why eat something you don't like because of tradition?
We substituted the turkey with a couple of roast chickens and a leg of lamb this year. Won't be going back to Turkey.
I ditched the turkey a couple of years ago for good quality fillet steak and haven’t missed it in the slightest. So much time and effort to prepare whats essentially a Sunday dinner - it’s not for me (as long as I’m in charge of the cooking anyway!)
I love turkey and the in-laws did us proud with a local organic free-range bird bought from the village butcher. No complaints here.
I suppose when you're distributing 1000s of birds over a short period of time there are bound to be some gone wrong. I also suspect the ridiculously mild weather didn't help and probably caught a few suppliers out, although you'd expect the birds to be properly refrigerated throughout the supply chain.
But I'm failing to understand why you'd throw 80% of your turkey away just because you read about a problem elsewhere? Unless your turkey was actually off (but you would have known that before cooking) you've chosen to waste nearly an entire turkey. I can't get my head round this at all?
Do you not know anyone locally or a food charity that would have appreciated a whole cooked turkey?
Not hard to understand to be honest, we have between 18 and 26 family for tea Christmas day or boxing day and apart from the normal fair we dish up there is generally Turkey sandwiches but this year my wife would not consider serving it and as my wife his the head of the house I followed her wishes.
No I don't know of any local food charity and I doubt they would of fancied someones left overs if I did but of course I could be wrong I often am :)
Weird post tbh. This story does the rounds every year, people buy way too early in my opinion and expect the bird to "keep" in a fridge for a week or so. I don't believe for a minute that tesco are selling rotten turkeys.
I get mine from the butcher on Xmas eve. Bought (ordered) at the start of december, easy.
We love Turkey at Xmas😁 (I hate fatty meat) Leftovers in a bun with cranberry sauce, oh not to mention a curry! 😋
When I was a kid, we had roast beef very often but Xmas was always a chicken.
Those sold by the supermarkets will have a use by date of 25 Dec (if not later) so should keep in a fridge okay. Maybe fridges are too warm.
I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of people don’t fridge the bird because it’s too bloody big.
I was never a fan of turkey but the last two years we’ve done just a crown which is much easier to roast to moist perfection, plus there’s a bit less meat to get sick of during the following days.
If it was up to me I’d choose a goose or pheasants for Christmas dinner, but stepchildren insist on turkey.
We had a turkey crown and beef - very nice.
I prefer a crown as I can't be eating all that dark meat on the legs although I suppose it's fine in a curry.
Cheers,
Neil.
Managed to get our 9kg+ bird in our small (under counter) fridge.
We spent Christmas there a couple of years ago.
Had fish for Christmas dinner though.
R
Ignorance breeds Fear. Fear breeds Hatred. Hatred breeds Ignorance. Break the chain.
Nearer the bone the tastier the meat.........a bloke your age should've learned that years ago
I enjoy turkey more than I did in the past, I like it cold in sandwiches with brown sauce and plenty of salt & black pepper. I`ve no problems eating cold turkey, I`ll be sorry when it runs out.
As for the 'rancid turkey' tales, they seem to do the rounds every year and I have to question whether folks have stored them badly. We had a frozen one this year which arrived 3 days before Christmas, left it in the garage at around 6°C then brought it into the house for the last 12 hrs. It cooked nicely and tasted good. Both cooked legs have gone in the freezer for some time in the future, I enjoy the dark meat because its tasty and unlike chicken there's a fair amount of meat on turkey legs.
Common sense and basic food hygiene usually works OK, maybe we should teach it in schools! Supermarkets can`t win if someone complains with perishable goods, can`t prove where the fault lies.
Thawing in a garage & not in the fridge is not sensible, the outer edges of the meat will be exposed to 6C temperatures and that is too warm.Nearer the bone the tastier the meat.........a bloke your age should've learned that years ago
I enjoy turkey more than I did in the past, I like it cold in sandwiches with brown sauce and plenty of salt & black pepper. I`ve no problems eating cold turkey, I`ll be sorry when it runs out.
As for the 'rancid turkey' tales, they seem to do the rounds every year and I have to question whether folks have stored them badly. We had a frozen one this year which arrived 3 days before Christmas, left it in the garage at around 6°C then brought it into the house for the last 12 hrs. It cooked nicely and tasted good. Both cooked legs have gone in the freezer for some time in the future, I enjoy the dark meat because its tasty and unlike chicken there's a fair amount of meat on turkey legs.
Common sense and basic food hygiene usually works OK, maybe we should teach it in schools! Supermarkets can`t win if someone complains with perishable goods, can`t prove where the fault lies.
I’m hoping the final 12 hours was in a fridge vs simply indoors otherwise you are likely to be pushing your limits on having a healthy bird.
If a proper winter temperature in the garage then it could be fine as in your case. Some of the other supply chain may have also tried this due to a lack of space. This combined with a mild temperature can lead to many issues.
Sometimes people are genuinely unlucky and the temperature abuse happens well before it has been commercially frozen / at the pre / butcher stage of fresh.
Even a couple of hours over 5C can cause issue. I have purchased frozen birds in the past only to find on defrosting they are rancid. It can happen and having studied food technology and microbiology for my first career I am extremely retentive about temperature abuse / raw meats.
Temp in my garage was 4° when the turkey arrived otherwise it would've been in the (spare) fridge that currently lives in the garage and is unused. I wouldn't dream of doing this in warm weather!
Final 12 hrs was in an indoor room that isn`t heated, temp estimated at 10-12°C.
This turkey was freshly delivered from a deep freeze, I estimate the temperature to be around -16°.
Despite thinking this through carefully, I'm open to suggestions for future regarding the thawing of a frozen turkey. There are several variables; size of the bird, initial temperature, thickness /heat transfer coefficient of the covering polythene layer, fridge temperature (nominally 6°C?), air temperature if stored in an outside unheated garage.
What the buyer can't control is the process prior to freezing the bird and the potential for significant levels of bacteria to be present prior to freezing, that always concerns me, but I`ve never had a problem.......yet.
Last edited by walkerwek1958; 28th December 2021 at 17:42.
This is our last year for turkey. We'll get a couple of large chickens next year.
Just had 2nd day turkey curry.
Bloody lovely.
https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/eat-wel...turkey-safely/
Every day's a schoolday, 10-12 hrs/kg in a fridge at 4°C is the way to do it!
I'm not a turkey fan but had a wonderful turkey this year. Bought from local butcher and sourced from local farm. Provided two roast dinners, a big round of turkey sandwiches and a fantastic turkey curry. Like anything chose your ingredients carefully.
Bacteria should be killed on cooking so unless there's enough to actually spoil the bird isn't really an issue unless warm enough for them to start multiplying. Not supposed to wash them which will spread them around.
Mine was 9.2 kg and packaging stated thaw for 89-106 hours in fridge. First 2 days was cold enough outside then put in fridge.
Which to be fair is bloody cold for a fridge, we have just had a new kitchen fitted & 4C current setting is very cold for drinks, I always serve my white wine too cold & this is worse!
Slowly is the secret. My outside fridge sometimes surprises me by freezing fresh meat, just to really keep me on my toes.
That said, if you think about a 9kg turkey for 10-12 hours per kg, that is more time that anyone would ever believe!
There is so much up-stream issue with any food type, my first grad job involved telling someone cooking ham in a factory for 20yrs that he was leaving it undercooked. He enjoyed that a geat deal...I ended up calling in a huge clean up team with fogging and factory closure as found salmonella & listeria all over the place. Used to pop in to surprise the night crew & find the oven doors between high & low risk areas open, so that they could chat to each other. Was an interesting year to say the least!
4C Might seem cold but think <5C needed to inhibit bacterial growth.
It does indeed, I just need a fridge for drinks instead!
In the good old days when I was involved with food, anything that broke the 5C temperature during transit was written off & disposed of. We used to log it through the chain & advise on any issues. Given the higher number of things that go off prior to the Use By Date, I am suspicious there is a lot of supply chain abuse going on these days to protect profit / staff in store who really don't care much.
Off-topic but I’ll share this tale whilst we’re on the subject:
In 1973 (aged 15) I worked part- time in a small supermarket. Cheese was cut up on site and packed in clingfilm, with a weight, price and date attached. If it hadn’t sold and the date was exceeded it was taken off the shelves and ‘recycled’. This involved shaving a layer off the outside, re- wrapping, weighing and labelling with a fresh date! The ‘lady’ who did this job wasn’t ideally suited to a food handling role, her personal hygiene standards were somewhat questionable to say the least and her nickname (sweaty betty) was well- deserved.
Needless to say I advised my mum against buying cheese and several other items from the establishment.
Hopefully food hygiene standards have come a long way since those days.
One of my IT jobs years ago was looking after some PCs in a Turkey factory, they killed and froze 47,000 a day leading up to the Christmas period. From live bird to frozen solid wasn’t long, since then I don’t eat frozen Turkey or cheap ice cream, that was another rancid place I went. I suppose the workers got used to the environment.
Sent from my iPhone using TZ-UK mobile app
It's nothing new. I told my story 13 years ago on the UKGSer forum about my rancid Tesco Turkey being kicked across the floor in front of the customer service desk on Christmas eve in 2008, it usually gets resurrected (the story, not the turkey) each christmas..
I used to work in a supermarket after school and can corroborate that Paul.
Nobody thought any different then and I guess nobody died.
Cheers,
Neil.
The biggest problem is with most people being at home the fridge door is being constantly opened
So even tho the fridge is set to the right temperature, the products inside will not be at the desired temperature.
I see this a lot in commercial kitchens with meat not keeping for very long as they store it with other products that are in contestant use and the door being opened every few minutes.
The last time the fridge was set to +4 but all the stuff inside was +9.
Last edited by golf; 30th December 2021 at 17:50.
I'm curious as to why you threw out 80% and not just carve it up package and freeze
Only time I eat turkey is with BLTT sandwiches
DON
Sorry but I have to disagree.
In the 1950s I too worked after school in a corner shop with similar attitudes to hygiene, and I'm afraid that most of my customers died.
Basically we were not going to eat it at Christmas or at anytime in the future so why waste space freezing it ? and "our" fox enjoyed it :)
A vastly over rated burd . Much rather have some good quality chickens . And a nice ham .
We had a Turkey Crown from M&S this year, as previous years. This one was a bit disappointing, lacking in flavour and a bit tough compared with the farm shop large chickens we have more regularly. At least it'll be another year until we eat turkey again.
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