The only two tips you’ll ever need for not drying out the turkey
Chefs break down how to keep the centrepiece of your Christmas table moist – and what to do if it all goes wrong
There’s a lot of pressure to pull off the perfect Christmas dinner, and for many of us, it all hinges on one thing: the turkey.
An entire roast turkey isn’t exactly something we eat every day, so if you aren’t confident cooking it, you aren’t the only one. And it can feel a bit ‘make or break’ – because a moist turkey is a thing of wonder, while a dry one has the potential to ruin Christmas dinner.
Luckily, the experts have been roasting turkeys for years – and there are two tried-and-tested ways for keeping your bird moist and delicious…
1. The old-school method
🦃 A genius turkey tip from our Borough Market store manager Anne 🦃 : Soak a sheet of muslin in melted butter and drape it over the turkey as it chills overnight (if applicable) and defrosts. This will avoid a much-dreaded dry bird. pic.twitter.com/9c4IbFzquR
— Borough Kitchen (@BoroughKitchen) December 20, 2018
Who better to take advice from than national treasure Prue Leith? The judge on The Great British Bake Off and author of Bliss On Toast, admits she has “quite an old-fashioned tip” for getting turkey just right.
“[Get] a J cloth or a piece of muslin, dip it in boiling water – don’t use a red J cloth because then the dye comes out of them, but the blue ones don’t”, she explains.
“I usually dip them in boiling water first, wring them out, dip them into melted butter and drape it over the turkey.
“You’re actually cooking the turkey under a melting butter muslin thing, and the cloth prevents the turkey from browning too quickly.”
Leith advises taking the cloth off at the last 20 minutes, and it will keep the turkey “really nice and moist”.
2. The new-school method
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If you don’t have a muslin cloth to hand, you could use an alternative: bacon. But before you drape anything over your bird, first Suzanne Mulholland, author of The Batch Lady: Cooking on a Budget, says: “Butter under your skin. Put your fingers under the skin of the turkey, and put some butter on them.”
Then, she says: “Cover your whole turkey in streaky bacon. That bacon – you can eat it, it’s like the bacon around your chipolata – what it does is it acts like a second skin, and the fat from the bacon helps keep the top of your turkey beautifully moist with the butter.”
It essentially works the same way as Leith’s muslin tip – but this one is edible.
And if it all goes wrong?
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Sometimes even the best-laid plans can fall through – but not to worry, even an overcooked turkey can be salvaged.
“If it does dry out, turn it into a fantastic tikka masala – it’s the best thing,” says Nisha Katona, author of Meat Free Mowgli.
The Press Association
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