Cooking-Frozen-Turkey-Thanksgiving-Recipe

Forgot to thaw your turkey? No problem. Here's how to cook a frozen turkey, without thawing. Go to http://kidscooking.about.com/od/thanksgivingrecipes/ss/How-To-Cook-A-Frozen-T... for the step-by-step recipe. It's perfectly safe, provided you follow a few simple steps.

Of course you'll need a frozen turkey. It can be any type of turkey, as long as it weighs less than 18 lbs.

You'll also need a turkey rack and a shallow roasting pan.

Now you can flavor your frozen turkey in most of the same ways you'd cook a thawed turkey. Today, I"m using onions, celery, fresh herbs and sliced oranges.

You'll also need olive oil or melted butter and poultry seasoning.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.

Place the onions and celery in the bottom of the roasting pan.

Use kitchen shears to unwrap the turkey. Place the turkey no the rack and put it in the oven to bake for about an hour.

Take the turkey out, and add some water to the bottom of the roasting pan - this can later become the basis for your gravy.

Now brush the turkey with the olive oil - this will give it a nice brown color. And sprinkle on your poultry seasoning.

Return the turkey to the oven for another 2 hours. At this point, use tongs to try to remove the plastic bag of giblets. This turkey happens to have a plastic bag of gravy inside it too.

The plastic bag may still be frozen to the top of the turkey, in which case you'll have to return it to the oven for another half hour or so until you can safely remove the plastic bag.

This is probably the hardest part of cooking a frozen turkey. But it's important to remove the plastic bag of giblets, because if it melts, it can leach harmful chemicals into your turkey and you won't be able to eat it.

Now you can stuff the turkey cavity with the sliced oranges and herbs. Return to the oven to bake until the turkey reaches an internal temperature of 165 degrees F. Measure it with an instant thermometer, not the pop up timer.

The length of cooking time will depend on the size of your turkey. Expect the turkey to take about 50% longer to cook from a frozen state than from a thawed state. For a 12 lb. turkey, that would be 4-1/2 to 5 hours.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• cooking
• turkey
• thanksgiving
• recipe
• recipes
• food
• christmas

[JessicaPersonalChef]

I ALWAYS cook my turkeys this way. Comes out awesome every time!!

[AboutCookingMom]

@JessicaPersonalChef I know - people who knock it haven't tried it. The science bears it out. I'm waiting for Alton Brown to steal the idea!

[AboutCookingMom]

As a food writer, I've made lots of turkey, and I thought I'd hate this method. But it was very juicy. Some reasons to cook a frozen turkey:

1) You don't waste refrigerator space thawing the turkey.

2) You don't have turkey juices possibly leaking in the fridge, on countertops or utensils.

3) The food scientists I interviewed say this method cooks the breast slower than the legs and thighs, because the breast thaws slower. This prevents the breast from drying out.

[Laineshot]

I've cooked probably about 150 turkeys, by nearly every method known. I used this method a few years ago when my turkey was still frozen solid on Thanksgiving morning. I was very surprised at how juicy and flavorful it was. And yes--they DID rave about my turkey--that one, and every one since. I will never thaw another turkey.

[cyoohoos]

No one will rave about your turkey, but at least you had one that made it to the table. As a young bride, I once forgot that turkeys have their cavity stuffed with ... well stuff. thankfully it was in wax paper, not plastic.

[mya3772]

That turkey doesn't even look good.

[CreoleInDC]

No. Just...no.