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Check out Linda hints and tips on preparing your holiday turkey dinner
(Click on the underlined below):
Turkey Terminology - Types of Turkeys
Guidelines for Brining Poultry
Linda's Favorite Turkey Stuffing
Advice on Stuffing a Turkey Safely
Using a Cooking or Meat Thermometer
Perfect Turkey Gravy
Gravy Making Tips
Make Ahead Mashed Potatoes
Advice on Handling Leftovers Safely
Let's
Make Turkey Stock
Barbecued Turkey
Cajun Fried Turkey
Oven Roasted Turkey
Smoked Turkey
Turducken
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Turkey
Roasting Hints and Tips
Do you know that a
"frozen" turkey is fresher than a "fresh" turkey?
The
frozen turkey have been frozen immediately upon preparation. The so
called fresh turkeys can sit in your store for days. I always buy a
frozen turkey because of this.
Check out my article
Turkey
Terminology - Types of Turkeys.
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It takes a full 24 hours
to defrost every five pounds of frozen turkey in the refrigerator
(the only safe method). A 20-pound turkey needs to defrost
for a full four days. Remove the giblets and neck from the cavity as
soon as they can be removed (which will be before the turkey is
fully defrosted).
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Use a shallow roasting
pan. If you use a deep roasting pan, you wind up steaming
the meat.
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Do not stuff your turkey
ahead of time as harmful bacteria growth could spoil the uncooked
turkey. Just before roasting, stuff the body and the neck
of the turkey. Do not pack in as the stuffing will expand during
cooking. If packed in too tightly, it will be very dense instead of
light. Sew the abdomen closed and sew the legs together close to the
body so that the stuffing cooks evenly. Check out my articles
Linda's Favorite Turkey Stuffing
and
Advice on Stuffing a Turkey Safely.
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Roast your turkey
breast-side down on a v-shaped rack until the last hour or so in the
oven, then turn it to brown the breast. The result is a
moister white meat.
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To prevent the breast meat
from drying out, loosely cover just the breast with a triple thick
sheet of aluminum foil, butter on on the inside to prevent sticking.
Remove after the first hour of roasting so the breast has time to
brown.
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Never rely on the
little plastic thermometer in some turkeys to pop out.
If you wait for it, the turkey will overcook. Instead stick an
instant read thermometer several inches down through the skin
between the thigh and the breast so the tip ends up about an inch
above the joint. They turkey is ready when the thermometer reads 165
degrees. Check out
my web page on
Using A Thermometer - Take
The Guesswork Out Of Cooking.
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Let the cooked turkey
"rest" after it have been removed from the oven. While the
turkey cooks, the juices are forced away from the heat to the middle
of the turkey. Cover loosely with aluminum foil and let rest for 20
to 30 minutes after it is removed from the oven. This allows the
juices to redistribute throughout the turkey. A moist turkey is
easier to carve.
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Baste, baste, baste.
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If you need your oven to
reheat or cook side dishes, it's better to serve the turkey at room
temperature with hot gravy than to reheat it. Reheating
dries out the meat. The interior of a large turkey will stay quite
hot for at least an hour.
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Using A Cooking Bag:
This is an easy way to cook your
turkey. It keeps all the juices and flavors in the bag and the turkey is
automatically basted while it cooks. You end up with more juices than
cooking the conventional way because they do not evaporate during
roasting. The juices also do not burn and stick to the pan.
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