by Gordon Hamilton

Created on: October 12, 2009

How to cook a perfect Thanksgiving turkey begins at the stage of actually buying the turkey. Although everyone will have a different budget for their Thanksgiving turkey, it is important to buy the best turkey one can afford, in order to stand the best chance of cooking the perfect turkey. Ideally, the Thanksgiving turkey should be free range and organic and purchased fresh from a butcher, rather than frozen from a supermarket.

If one does purchase a frozen turkey to cook at Thanksgiving, it is imperative that one take it out of the deep freeze in plenty time that it may fully defrost prior to cooking. The turkey should be defrosted in its original wrapping in a deep tray in the very bottom of the refrigerator and only opened and allowed to heat to room temperature a few hours prior to the commencement of the cooking time.

The giblets - where present - should be removed from the body cavity of the turkey and the turkey washed very thoroughly in running cold water. It should then be patted carefully dry with a clean dish towel. If the turkey is to be stuffed, the stuffing should be added to the neck cavity at this stage and the whole stuffed turkey weighed to determine the cooking time. The cooking time allotted should be twenty minutes per pound of the weight of the stuffed turkey.

The oven temperature for cooking a perfect Thanksgiving turkey should be an initial 425F/220C/Gas Mark 7. This temperature should be maintained for the first half hour to forty-five minutes of the turkey's cooking time in order to allow the heat to penetrate deep in to the turkey. The oven should therefore be put on to preheat to this temperature. It will subsequently be reduced to 325F/170C/Gas Mark 3 after that initial half hour or so.

The roasting tray upon which the turkey is to be cooked should be covered with two long sheets of aluminium foil. One sheet lengthwise and one across the way. These sheets should be big enough that they can be wrapped up and over the turkey to form a sealed but loose tent in which it will cook.

The turkey should then be placed on the aluminium foil and three to four ounces of soft, unsalted butter rubbed in to the breast and thighs. Enough rashers of streaky bacon should then be used to cover the breast of the turkey, overlapping slightly. The bacon will help to protect the breast during cooking and keep it moist. The foil should then be wrapped up and over the turkey and the tray carefully placed in the hot oven.

If one has purchased a quality,

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