Cooking the turkey | Turkey recipes | Jamie Oliver recipes (2024)

FAQs

How to cook the perfect turkey Jamie Oliver? ›

Preheat your oven to full whack, get the turkey in the roasting tray and cover with foil. As soon as it goes in the oven, immediately turn the heat down to 180ºC/350ºF/gas 4. As a rough guide, you want to cook the turkey for about 35 to 40 minutes per kilogram, so a 7kg turkey will want about 4 to 4½ hours in the oven.

Covering a turkey with butter (under and over the skin) serves to flavor and moisten the meat, as well as help the skin get crispy and golden brown.

Ramsay's key for a guaranteed delicious and juicy turkey is a parsley and garlic butter that gets generously slathered both under the skin and on top of the turkey. While the turkey is cooking, you'll want to baste the bird with the melted butter pan juices to ensure a crispy skin while cooking.

The most straightforward approach is to roast an unstuffed turkey, breast-side up, for 13 minutes per pound of turkey at 350°. That works out to approximately 3 hours for a 12- to 14-pound bird (a 12-pound turkey is pretty standard).

Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF/gas 4. You want to cook a higher-welfare bird for 25 to 30 minutes per kilo, and a standard bird for 35 to 40 minutes per kilo. Higher-welfare birds generally have more intramuscular fat, which means they cook quicker than standard, lean birds.

Roast the turkey in the hot oven for 10–15 minutes. Take the tray out of the oven, baste the bird with the pan juices and lay the bacon rashers over the breast to keep it moist. Baste again. Lower the setting to 180°C/Gas 4 and cook for about 2 1⁄2 hours (calculating at 30 minutes per kg), basting occasionally.

Rub the skin with fat

Fat is going to help the skin get brown and crisp, and contrary to what most might think, butter isn't better. Butter does an okay job, but because it contains a lot of water, oil is a better fat to rub on the skin to ensure it gets extra crispy.

To achieve a perfectly golden, juicy turkey, let the bird spend time both covered and uncovered in the oven. We recommend covering your bird for most of the cooking time to prevent it from drying out; then, during the last 30 minutes or so of cooking, remove the cover so the skin crisps in the hot oven.

Roasting Tips

Place roast, skin side up, on a flat roasting rack in a 2-inch deep roasting pan. Do not add water to pan. Roast uncovered according to Cooking Schedule or until meat thermometer in center of breast roast reaches 170° F and in center of turkey roast reaches 175° F.

Your turkey will cook more evenly and faster if you start it out at room temperature so remove the turkey from the refrigerator 1 hour before roasting. If you plan to stuff your turkey, wait until you're ready to put it in the oven before putting the stuffing in the turkey.

What are 2 ways to keep turkey from drying out? ›

Before it goes in the oven, the turkey should be at room temperature, so take it out of the fridge (1 hr for a whole turkey, or 30 mins for a cut) before cooking. Keep it covered in a cool place.

It's better to cook a turkey at 350°F after preheating the oven to 450°F. This makes the skin crispier and ensures the turkey will get cooked evenly.

Calculate turkey cooking time and temperature. The simplest way to figure out turkey roasting times is to calculate 13 minutes per pound at 350°F for an unstuffed turkey (that's about 3 hours for a 12- to 14-lb. turkey), or 15 minutes per pound for a stuffed turkey.

To achieve a perfectly golden, juicy turkey, let the bird spend time both covered and uncovered in the oven. We recommend covering your bird for most of the cooking time to prevent it from drying out; then, during the last 30 minutes or so of cooking, remove the cover so the skin crisps in the hot oven.

Cook for 30 minutes. Using a pastry brush, baste cheesecloth and exposed parts of turkey with butter and wine. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees. and continue to cook for 2 1/2 more hours, basting every 30 minutes and watching pan juices; if the pan gets too full, spoon out juices, reserving them for gravy.

Lift up the skin of the turkey with your fingers and separate it from the flesh. Divide the herb butter and spread it under the skin. Season well, place in a roasting tin. Cook the crown for 15 minutes, then reduce the heat to 180C/160C Fan/Gas 4 and cook the turkey for 1½ hours, or until the juices run clear.