How to Cook a Turkey – Without Poisoning Your Guests
Why temperature is so important
NB. F = Degrees Fahrenheit and C = Degrees Centigrade
Temperature is critical in determining how long to cook a turkey, for the simple fact that the bird must have reached a uniform temperature of at least 165 F throughout in order to destroy harmful bacteria. You do not want to give your guests food poisoning!
The turkey is a weird shaped food source! – Large body covered with thick flesh around the breast area, large legs made up of dense muscle and a large internal cavity. Because of this, it is not so easy as cooking a single joint of meet for example. The breast meat tends to cook much faster that the dense muscular leg meat, so there is a risk of over-cooking the breast meat whilst waiting for the leg meat to cook thoroughly.
Deciding how long to cook a turkey is not an easy question to answer as there are so many variable factors to consider.
The type of oven
With conventional gas or electric ovens (not Microwave, Convection, Rotisserie) the top of the oven is the hottest zone. The middle part of the oven is usually the
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