Talkin’ turkey

Nomnomnom. Image: Flickr / Another Pint Please

Before we officially shut shop for a few weeks, we wanted to share some festive food science with you.

What better topic to cover four days before Christmas than the art of cooking and storing your turkey?

We were going to write something about flying reindeer, but that got too long.

So, onto the humble turkey- the centrepiece of most dinner tables at Christmas.

If you’re buying it frozen to cook at home, defrost it in the fridge for two days- longer if it’s a big bird. Store it (and other raw meat) at the bottom of your fridge, and cooked meat and other ready to eat foods at the top so that any germs that drip off the raw meat don’t contaminate other foods. Fruit and veggies in the bottom crisper should be protected from any drips.

The good old home fridge can get pretty full at Christmas time, so leave it for the ‘important’ food and put stuff like drinks in the old fridge in the shed or on ice in an esky.

Keep a thermometer in your fridge – you want it to be around 5⁰C to keep foods safe for as long as possible.

To cook a turkey, just follow the instructions on the pack or from your butcher. It’s really important to cook poultry properly (unlike a steak, say) as undercooked meat can cause food poisoning.  It is OK to cook meat from frozen, but will probably take twice as long to cook.

Stick a cake skewer – or better still, a meat thermometer – in between the thigh and the body (don’t go as far as the bone). If the juices run clear, not pink, and it’s reached 74⁰C, then it’s cooked.

Keep your turkey hot before dinner begins (60°C or above) to keep bacteria at bay. Cover with foil to keep moist. Grab your cranberry sauce and enjoy!

Don’t leave food out for more than an hour or two, especially in warm weather, so put leftovers (cut into smaller pieces) in the fridge as soon as you can.

Turkey will keep for around three days in the fridge and we love it on fresh bread with apple and watercress, or brie and beetroot.

Wishing you all a wonderful Christmas. May it be full of good food, laughter… and flying reindeer.