Ways to roast a turkey

Roast turkey is traditionally served for Thanksgiving in the USA and for Christmas in the UK. There is so much advice out there: stuff the neck end, stuff the cavity, put butter under the skin, cook it breast side down, brine the while bird first, take the legs off - and so on!

Do you have a favourite way to roast turkey?
 
Morning Glory
Morning Glory
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I like stuffing raw jalapeno slices and garlic cloves under the skin before roasting it in the oven. I don't stuff the cavity, I make stuffing when the bird is nearly done and use the juices from the turkey to make both gravy and to use in the stuffing, so it has a really great garlic flavor and a kick from the jalapenos.

I think breast side down makes for a moister bird. This year we are not hosting Thanksgiving and my nephew and his wife are smoking a turkey, which I absolutely love!
 
Brining the bird and then covering the whole thing in a jacket of streaky bacon has always delivered the best results for me.

This year I’m going in a different direction though, it’ll be either be sous vide or if it’s too big for that pot then I’m going to use the ‘Gourmet Roast’ setting on the outside oven which gives a very high heat blast followed by a low temp cook and smokes it at the same time 🤤
I’m quite keen on the idea of the turkey cooking outside leaving the kitchen ovens free for the other stuff.

Only problem is I have a terrible habit of taking a menu that I can handle easily and thinking well in that case I’ll have time/space to do - insert extra superfluous dishes that create a lot more work in this space _______ 😂
 
As it's just us two for years now, I usually make a split breast.
I saw a ATK program and took notes as it went along, Turkey En Cocotte, nice and moist with pan sauce to boot!
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For years, I have started it breast side down, then flipped about half way through. But, lately, unless there's a reason to keep it in its natural form, I've been spatchcocking, starting on a flat sheet pan, then sliding it onto a big pan of stuffing so that we still get stuffing with turkey juices, but also juices for gravy. I've been roasting chicken that way as well. Cooks much, much faster and more evenly.

If Craig cooks the bird, it's brined, then on the smoker, which is how the turkey is going to be cooked this year.
 
When I was first passed the baton of cooking a holiday Turkey, I was gifted at work a "Butterball Turkey".
Never having cooked one before, I did a bunch of research and noted that I needed to brine the bird
💁‍♀️
OKAY
I got an old ice chest and went to work
Dinner was NOT, I repeat, NOT edible!
Thank goodness for loads of side dishes
🤷‍♀️
 
kaneohegirlinaz said:
When I was first passed the baton of cooking a holiday Turkey, I was gifted at work a "Butterball Turkey".
Never having cooked one before, I did a bunch of research and noted that I needed to brine the bird
💁‍♀️
OKAY
I got an old ice chest and went to work
Dinner was NOT, I repeat, NOT edible!
Thank goodness for loads of side dishes
🤷‍♀️
Click to expand...
Well, at least you didn't leave the giblets and gravy bags in.
 
One year I saw that some Americans deep fry their turkey in these big vats of oil with a burner underneath.
I got very excited and purchased a kit with a big vat to fry the turkey.
After nearly bankrupting myself buying enough oil to fill it I set it up on the balcony and armed with all the wildly varying advice the internet had to offer I plunged the turkey into the bubbling cauldron.

Unfortunately I had not picked the right advice and the turkeys internal temperature took an eternity to reach the safe to eat zone by which time the outer turkey was drier than the proverbial - insert Sahara or nun joke here depending on your disposition 😇

Grappling that desiccated monster from the enormous witch’s vat to be greeted by a Christmas vision Stephen King would fail to top still haunts me now 😂
 
We haven't cooked a turkey for Xmas since 2017; the last time the kids were here. When we did cook them (and they were usually 8-9 kgs) we'd defrost (obviously) then inject the turkey with orange juice, white wine and rum, about 24 hours before cooking. We tried stuffing the cavity several times and were not really convinced; when we carved the bird, the inside was sort of wet. Then we decided to just stuff the cavity with peaches. that was great because then we used them to make the gravy.
Before roasting (40 minutes per kilo, + 40 minutes more) we smothered the bird in about 250 gms of butter and then covered it with strips of bacon.
 
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