Cooking the Christmas turkey

[Masked Bandit]

So this year we're trying a pre-stuffed turkey. What I'm wondering about is the instructions say to cook it from frozen. It's saying five to six hours but do not thaw ahead of time. Does anyone have any experience with this?

[bulaian]

hmmm that's odd, how big is the turkey? I've only ever cooked a thawed out turkey and it still took 4-5 hours.

[Baron O' Funk]

Best way to do turkey is to soak it in a brine the night before. Makes it so juicy!

[dj_rice]

I don't know about cooking times as I've never cooked a whole turkey before but for the thawing portion, reason being, if you thaw from frozen, theres no way the middle section of the turkey is going to be thawed the same as the exterior section of the turkey, and if your trying to achieve overall thawing (100% everything thawed), then contamination and all the food illness things start to play in (turkey spoiling etc) when you thaw it on the counter. What you can do, is thaw it in the fridge to cut down on the turkey spoiling issues but that is gonna increase the thaw time by half. Also, why they recommend do not thaw from frozen when cooking is, the thawed exterior portions obviously are gonna be fully cooked before the inner breast/thighs etc have even reach optimal cooking temps so by the time the middle is cooked, you have overdone parts here and nicely cooked there. So it aids in even overall cooking of the bird. But also this doesn't guarantee a juicy moist bird, it also depends on your cooking skill. And one word of advice, if the bird takes say 45 mins to cook, take it out of the oven at 40 mins and let it rest, it still has even residual heat to cook the rest of the turkey out of the oven for the 5 mins left. So if you left it in for 45 mins and then took it out, it would of kept on cooking for the leftover time.


Hopefully I made sense with what I am trying to purvey

[SJW]

I thought this was a euphemism for knockin up the ol lady.

[Kritafo]

pre-stuffed frozen needs to cooked from frozen.


Is it a butterball? read through the facts on cooking from frozen.

I buy frozen utility turkey all the time and use a counter top roaster it is always moist and makes great sandwich wraps for the kids, cheaper and not full of sodium nitrate.

But I still prefer fresh on special occasions.

Just a heads up they do have turducken at Sobey's it's in the freezer section and it's about $70.00 though I highly recommend

Railway Deli and Restaurant
& The Griesser Spoon Custom Catering

702 Bow Valley Trail, Canmore, AB

phone: 403.678.3637
fax: 403.678.2343

[Amysicle]

I picked up my Turducken today from the Railway Deli. I was told that the last day to order it before Christmas was on December 15.

But it's possible they may have some left still. $24/kg

I'm excited!

[hampstor]

We did one of those prestuffed turkeys once at the cabin. The instructions also were to cook from frozen.

The thing was good and IIRC a lot of bones had been removed so it was very easy to carve. We just cooked 1 up during a weekend out at the cabin and not christmas. I don't think I could do one of those for christmas tho, just doesn't feel right.

[sloan]

Originally posted by Masked Bandit
So this year we're trying a pre-stuffed turkey. What I'm wondering about is the instructions say to cook it from frozen. It's saying five to six hours but do not thaw ahead of time. Does anyone have any experience with this?

Sounds like it is semi boneless.

[old&slow]

Don't buy a frozen turkey...they be best from the Hutterite colony!

[Supa Dexta]

thawing frozen turkeys:

5 hrs per pound in the fridge

30mins per pound in cold water, change the water every half hour

[USHER]

i cooked one of those lilydale frozen turkeys. comes in a bag, just throw it in the oven, no basting. it was very tasty and the skin was crispy. i would do it again.