Disappointed With Turkey

Our turkey this year (6.5kg) cost… wait for it …£153! However, it has made several meals and the carcass is about to be turned into soup so a bargain really!!😂

Gin

None of us like turkey much and I do not like the smell of it cooking. We have anything that is a special treat. This year it was Somerset Old Spot pork. Lovely crackling and so tasty with home made herb stuffing and apple sauce.

Last year it was Scottish venison. My mother always cooked a capon but I have not seen one to buy for decades.

They call capon "cockerel" now and they are available at Christmas from Ocado and other sources.

We've had a cockerel for some years, the meat is tasty as it is slow grown and free range. The ones we buy are from Ocado though I know that others sell them. This year's bird weighed about 5.5kg, and I cooked it at a lower temperature than suggested, upside down for the last half of the time to keep the breast as moist as possible.
My husband likes dry breast meat so I often cook a small turkey crown which can be sliced up for him, but the rest of the family prefer the cockerel.
We did have goose in the past but there is relatively little meat on a huge carcase, it works out very expensive for what is basically just one meal for our family.

There was outrage when I suggested possibly going non traditional this year so turkey and ham it was, both from a fairly local butcher. We spend a fortune on it but it’s so good and all 12 of us really love Christmas dinner. Other times of the year when we have the family round for Sunday lunch it might be shoulder of lamb, roast pork or a couple of chickens - and always use the carcass for soup.

We normally have turkey but when DH and I have been on our own we have duck. This means very little leftovers!

I've just remembered I cooked it above a stock and white wine to try and keep it moist. Not sure if it helped

DanniRae

We had a turkey crown from Sainsburys and it was moist and delicious
It's the luck of the draw I guess

We got a large turkey crown from Sainsburys too DannieRae. Everyone commented on how delicious it was.

We don't normally have turkey but this year I bought a boneless rolled joint from the butcher and wrapped it in smoked streaky bacon for 2 hours of cooking and then removed it for the last hour to crisp up the skin. It was actually lovely

None of us like turkey much and I do not like the smell of it cooking. We have anything that is a special treat. This year it was Somerset Old Spot pork. Lovely crackling and so tasty with home made herb stuffing and apple sauce.

Last year it was Scottish venison. My mother always cooked a capon but I have not seen one to buy for decades.

We had duck and gammon this year I made stock from both meats. There in freezer bags now very handy for soups etc.

We had a turkey crown from a supermarket beginning with M and it was the most tasteless, tough bird I have ever had. We also had a cornfed chicken which my son brined and it was amazing. I had only bought the turkey because I thought we might miss it if we didn't have it. I won't be buying it in future.

We often had a capon, neutered chicken, for Christmas lunch as a child, more difficult, but not impossible, to find nowadays…

We had a leg of lamb this year. Lovely!

My mum wouldn’t have poultry in the house (something to do with growing up on a farm?). We always had a massive piece of pork at Christmas and I’ve carried this on. I’ve done turkey some years but everyone prefers the pork

We had a turkey crown from Sainsburys and it was moist and delicious
It's the luck of the draw I guess

Last year we had a chicken which was fine. This year, a small turkey crown type joint from M&S serves 2-3 which was perfect for us. A few slices next day with jacket potatoe, salad etc. no lingering leftovers thankfully.

If you want flavour then it has to be free range and slow growing.

This year I had turkey crown from a well-known supermarket beginning with T, it wasn't half as good as a less costly version bought at Farmfoods last year! The meat was chewy and very dry, not much of it either.

In the ‘70’s my DH worked in the offices of a local factory.
At Christmas, only the chosen few were given a free turkey. One of the company chauffeurs would be sent out with a car, the boot stuffed with the birds and it was like something from an 007 film, as he would arrive at a chosen address, check out the venue, inform the resident of the gift, grab the bird from the boot and dash into the house with it!

We had three Guinea fowl for our Christmas dinner this year. Our seven year old granddaughter calls it special chicken.

Grannynannywanny I love your turkey story. That must've been hilarious to see it's legs poking out of the parcel.
Thankyou for all your comments. I'm now definitely looking at salmon for next year. We have a fishing port up the road where you can get plenty of lovely fresh fish.

I prefer turkey to anything else but no-one else does so I ordered it twice when I was out for a meal and we had beef and local lamb on Christmas Day.

Eastern Europeans I know always brine the turkey, Tenko and it is always moist.

We have a side of salmon in the freezer, I'll look up that recipe, Norah.

We often have Beef Wellington. A bit fancier than plain roast beef so good for a special occasion like Christmas.

Leg of lamb- never disappoints.

I don't like breast meat it's a bit bland for me. We had turkey leg which my husband boned, rolled and stuffed. So tasty and lovely gravy.