Reply With QuoteLarge free range chicken for us.
Can’t be doing with dry tasteless turkey, no matter what tradition says.
What with the Avian Flu issue with Turkey stocks in the East, what are you paying for your Christmas Turkey.
I’ve bagged a cheap and nasty frozen thing from Aldi’s for £15.
Not sure I would want to cough-up the £147.50 Morrisons want:
B
Large free range chicken for us.
Can’t be doing with dry tasteless turkey, no matter what tradition says.
The local farm shop are selling fresh turkeys at around £7.50/lb which is similar to the photo.
SWMBO said no so I bought a frozen one got £30
Are you cooking it right? We get a crown and cook it upside down. Makes a whole lot of differenceOriginally Posted by noTAGlove
Crown is the worst. Mostly white meat of the turkey is tasteless IMO. Don’t know how turning it upside down helps and there is no grey fattier meat on a crown to baste it.
Even with chicken I prefer the thigh. That is where the taste is.
Pheasant for us this year, with pigeon breast for starters. Yum !!
Just going to tell my lads that it’s turkey otherwise they will moan for the sake of it.
Last edited by gorrie; 21st December 2022 at 19:13.
Got a beef rib, Turkey crown and a duck on order. Won't eat all at once but will use them over the holiday. There will be sprouts and pancetta as well
Jeeeezus! £150-ish for a turkey!!!
I usually get a big rib of beef for £120 from Costco (albeit last was 2yrs ago) - but that was enough to feed as much or more than a Turkey!
Turkey is a difficult one to get right, needs a lot of monitoring and sympathetic shielding with foils. When we did do ‘bird’ at christmas - a Capon was the choice or mostly GOOSE lends itself to a more powerful red wine.
Turkey crowns are the smart purchase nowadays, I think - easier to cook well, takes up part of the oven rather than the whole oven and is generally more appealing to the invitees for dinner (and easier for the cook!)
[edit] Capon has been bought in the past - but I favour goose for the combo of meat and wine
Last edited by blackal; 21st December 2022 at 19:46.
5 rib of beef, and a capon (or whatever the politically correct term / equivalent is now)
I want to cook turkey again. I’m in the minority who enjoy it cooked well. I just don’t get much practice.
Prices of everything are daft currently. Was amazed at the price of lamb mince recently.
Also excited with all the left overs to make some amazing stocks to add to the depleting freezer.
No turkey for us for the first time this year. Can’t be bothered with the stress to get it right and even then I’m not that keen. Chicken and salmon for us
Missus bough a fresh 7kg one which feeds 15-17 from Sainsburys today for £27. Over the past few years weve had the M&S crown which hasn't been great.
Seems an incredible yield from 7kg, but if you get that- well done!
£30 for a frozen Norfolk Black free-range from Sainsbury's.
I got spooked when there were no turkeys of any description in the store last week, save a very few frozen ones mostly way too big for the two of us, so I grabbed the only one small enough. All the talk of shortages, Avian 'flu, I thought there may not be any around.
This week you can't move for them in the store. I could have bought a smaller fresh one, albeit a bit more expensive. never mind, the only difference is that I will have to make my Turkey Ham &Mushroom pie on Boxing Day due to the refreezing protocols.
I wouldn't want to be without my turkey on Christmas Day, and my love for the thighs and wings rules out a crown.
I'm with ya there. Love the thigh and leg. Only really eat turkey at crimbo. I didn't like turkey much either but after cooking it upside down it keeps it very moist and tasty.
This! So many other meats available, no idea what all the fuss is about with turkey!
Well………. It is traditional but also can still be a pretty cheap way of feeding a big family for one day or even two.
For the last few years we have got a free range turkey from a farm about 30 miles away, and it has always been excellent -tasty and not dry at all. It comes with detailed instructions on how to cook, a pop-up thermometer to tell when it’s done and a recipe booklet for the leftovers. It works out about £60 for a 4kg bird which is plenty big enough for us.
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What the packing says, I'm guessing they wont be portions id be dishing up!
Ah - that’s more like it!
Are you in marketing perhaps?
No chance.Ah - that’s more like it!
Are you in marketing perhaps?
Same for me too
Agreed
Cooking it upside down makes a difference.
Also stuff butter right round under the skin.
We have Turkey,leg of lamb, gammon joint slow cooked with cloves and treacle and lastly salmon en croute.
Boxing day leftovers are the best meal of the year.
We have a Pipers Farm “Simplest Turkey” (rolled breast and leg, stuffed and with pigs in blankets and stock to make the gravy). 3.6k total weight for £106. No messing around, easy to cook and serve.
Also gone for a grass fed 1.5k sirloin for the day after Boxing Day and a saddle fillet of venison for New Year’s Eve.
I’m intrigued by the refreezing protocol you mention. Do you usually carve off a portion of raw turkey and freeze it for use later?
If something is frozen (raw) and you cook it, you can then freeze what has been cooked & use it later.
I’m unable to work out how it being previously frozen changes your plans. Unless you carve some raw meat off as my first post - which is slightly strange.
Ours says feeds 18 from 8.5kg. Only 3 of us though so should be enough.
Squirrel for us.
The way I see it is that I defrost the bird, cook it on the big day, eat 25th & 26th, then for the freezer, carve thin slices for sandwiches and salads later in the year.
With a fresh bird, I would cube the bulk of the remainder and freeze it for making pies later in the year. The pies, when made, would be eligible for portioning and freezing, making a total of twice-frozen at the point of defrosting and consuming.
With the frozen one, I will have to make the pies on Boxing Day, then freeze the pies, otherwise I would be reheating frozen turkey a total of three times (if I did the same as I do with fresh birds) which I am told equals instant death. No biggie other than it destroys my hopes of being Slumpmaster General on Boxing Day.
Last edited by unclealec; 21st December 2022 at 20:51.
Turkey crown is very good for portion assurance/control.
Or those ones packed from breast/thigh/leg meat.
Still reckon Goose with something like a bottle of Penfolds RWT - is the best (of the flying meals)
Once your fresh or frozen bird is cooked they are effectively the same. I wouldn't treat the one bought frozen differently.
Well. yes, I would agree.
But AuntieAlec is adamant that if I try to feed her with thrice-frozen turkey ( totalled from it hatching, through any cooking process, to being eaten) she will report me for attempted murder.
I do need her on side on this; I do make quite a lot of turkey& ham pie.
Same here with sage and cat stuffing.
Lamb shanks for us this year. Not great fans of Turkey, so decided on a change and get something we actually want to eat.
The OPs photo must be a beast of a bird though. “Feeds 8-12”
Sous Vide crown here, finished in the oven.
"Bite my shiny metal ass."
- Bender Bending Rodríguez
£150 for a turkey.wow.
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That is what I thought you might type, and is very common thinking.
KS has it completely correct in his reply, but appreciate you needing to keep her onside....or lie!
Studied food at uni for 4 years, so tell her to give me a call for science if she needs it :D
for those not wanting to pay the 150 quid you can make a faux turkey with sawdust and woodglue - you just need to shape it.
capon is much better imo.
Lidl bronze for us, brined for 24 hours and not over cooked, tasty and succulent every time.
Ross
I had Xmas dinner last weekend. Turkey and all the trimmings. Kelly bronze, 6.5kg.
Gorgeous when cooked right:
Stuff some butter under the skin, stuff, cover in bacon, then foil.
Cook in the oven until the internal temp is 75C. Rest for 45 minutes. Cooking to temperature rather than time is a lot shorter than the traditional 20 minute per lb or 40 minutes per kg. No wonder people dislike it when it's been nuked for an extra 1.5 hours unnecessarily.
We get our orgasmic Turkey from Riverford. They deliver so no queues. Cost just over £100 I believe.
Orgasmic ? Did you collect it or did it cum to you ? 🤔😂
Exactly. The old school cooking to time is the problem for most foods that are deemed dry. The downside is you are never really sure when to start the spuds!
Good things come to those that wait!
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Don’t eat Turkey anymore, used to do some IT work in a Turkey factory on the chick way cutting line. They killed, plucked, froze and packed 47,000 birds a day. The place was not for the faint hearted but they would sharpen your kitchen knifes to like a razor. One of only 2 places i would take a puke bucket in the back of my car. Beef for dinner.
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Well done. I am sure it will taste even nicer.
Good things come to those that wait!
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A trip to M&S at 5.30pm on Christmas Eve is worth it.
We live across the road from one of those local convenience supermarkets and they always reduced the food by 70-80% around 7pm.
I sometimes drop in and you see a couple of people stood back eyeing the bargains but feeling a bit ashamed of being too obvious.
I just push my way through them and rummage for the good stuff with no shame.
30% off? There's more like 70% off - no wings, no legs, no neck.......
Good things come to those that wait!
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No more turkey for us, gertie and I preped it last night and today it's about as edible as hot cardboard,
"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action."
'Populism, the last refuge of a Tory scoundrel'.
Cooked over a candle I presume?
"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action."
'Populism, the last refuge of a Tory scoundrel'.
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