Great Cooking Turkey Tips For Choosing Your Bird

Ive got a lot of cooking turkey tips for you this year

, but the very first must be choosing your bird. There are many different classifications and labels that are placed on Thanksgiving fowl, and it can be confusing knowing which type of poultry to purchase.

A Free Range bird may not have as much free range as you think. The USDA requires only that birds have some access to the outdoors. Its more important to know what your turkey was fed than the USDA label placed upon it by narrow definitions.

A Fresh Turkey must never have been frozen, you must think. Youd be wrong. A fresh turkey is held at 26 degrees Fahrenheit, 6 degrees lower than the freezing temperature of water. This is allowed because turkey skin and flesh dont freeze until 26 degrees. However, the water within the turkey does freeze and expand, causing potential damage.

The best of my cooking turkey tips is dont ever buy a turkey with ice crystals formed on it. These quick-frozen turkeys can defrost and then be re-frozen slowly, causing ice crystals to form.

The USDA will also attach Inspected for Wholesomeness and a Grade stamp on slaughtered poultry. The grading is a purely voluntary program that examines the quality of the carcass, not flavor or nutritional value.

Turkeys are graded by age. A Fryer/Roaster is under 16 weeks of age. Its a very young turkey with flexible cartilage and low body fat. A Young turkey is 5-7 months old and represents most of the turkeys sold. A Yearling is about a year old, and a Mature turkey is more than 13 months old.

Generally, the older the bird, the tougher but more flavorful the meat. Obviously, larger birds are more mature as it takes longer to back on the pounds.

If you dont have the ability to pre-order and visit your local turkey farm to get the most absolutely freshest turkey, my cooking turkey tip is to visit your local grocery store.

The commercially produced turkeys are flash-frozen at extremely low temperatures in a short amount of time. This keeps the ice crystals that form to a minimum. Ice crystals expand and tear the flesh of a slowly frozen bird.

How much turkey should you buy? I recommend 1 pound per person that youre feeding. After about 20% cooking loss and 40% trim loss, youll have 5 ounces per person. Thats enough for Thanksgiving dinner and some leftovers for the next day.

These cooking turkey tips are designed to give you the information necessary for making your own decisions about what to buy.

by: Chef Todd Mohr

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