stuffing a turkey - in body cavity, or neck, or under skin?

I haven't cooked the Christmas turkey for a few years since the younger generation took over, but I stopped stuffing the body cavity of the turkey or any other poultry ages before that, although I used to put sausage meat in the other end.

Sometimes I would put a small onion and a handful of sage leaves in the cavity and always cook the stuffing separately.

I don’t put the stuffing in the bird anymore I cook it separately but when I did it went in the neck.

Ps sausage meat held in place with skewers

And butter under the skin.

I believe it is not safe to stuff the body of the turkey, the heat doesn’t get through enough to cook it thoroughly.
Just loosely in the neck, more to flavour the meat than to eat.
I like mine cooked in a tin and crispy round the edges.

If you add sausagemeat to the neck cavity, don't forget to add the weight when calculating the cooking time. That always seems to cook through properly.

I agree that stuffing the body cavity with a bread mixture could mean that the heat may not get through to cook the turkey properly.

Like annsixty I was told never to stuff the body cavity because it would stop the turkey cooking through thoroughly (unless you cooked it for a very long time.

Sage and onion sausage meat stuffing in the neck and a bread based stuffing cooked separately

Loosen the skin at the neck end and towards the breast, shove what you can in there and secure the skin underneath with skewers or cocktail sticks, bung the rest in the body.

(According to Delia, but her home made stuffing does make a hell of a lot!)

This year's turkey was a bugger to stuff, not enough loose skin to bring down and tuck under, plus it seemed to be rather flat chested, and lacking in the bosom department. Fortunately Mr P had picked up a small crown to supplement it.

Sage, onion and smoked bacon stuffing (my mother’s recipe) under the skin.
It bastes the breast meat and we never find our turkeys dry.

It does take longer to cook when you stuff the cavity.
One of my aunts had a large Aga - she used to put the stuffed turkey in the slow oven when she went to bed on Xmas eve and it would be just about cooked through the next morning.
Lovely smell! We sometimes spent Xmas with them, on the farm.

A 4 oven Aga is the perfect oven for Christmas lunch/dinner, once you get the hang of it!

Haven’t cooked on for years but we always put it in the body and seemed to have lived to tell the tale