Bronze Turkey – Cooking The Perfect Bird

The Friendly Farmer Bronze Turkeys do not need long cooking times.

1. Remove the bird from the fridge, leave it to stand at room temperature for 2 hours before cooking.

2. Place the turkey, breast down, in a roasting tin and season the back of the bird with salt and pepper. Most of the fat deposits are on the back of the bird, which will percolate through the breast allowing the turkey to cook in its own juices.

3. Place a large peeled onion in the cavity for extra flavour. We do not recommend stuffing the bird but to cook it separately.

4. We do not recommend using tin foil as this will result in a steamed skin rather than a crispy one.

5. Pre-heat the oven to 180ºC (gas mark 4) before putting the turkey in the oven. If you have a fan-assisted oven and cannot turn the fan off, reduce the temperature to 160ºC.

6. Turn the turkey over (to brown the breast) 30 minutes before then end of cooking time. This is easily done by holding the end of the drumsticks with oven gloves (be careful of hot fat). Season the breast of the bird with salt and pepper and then insert your meat thermometer halfway through the thickest part of the breast and place back in the oven.

7. To manually check, insert a skewer into the thigh and when the juices run clear remove from the oven. If the juices are pink, place back in the oven and keep checking at 10 minute intervals.

8. Allow to stand for 30 to 60 minutes before carving.

9. The stock that is produced from a Bronze turkey is truly the best. Please do not ruin it with gravy granules etc. Simply skim the excess fat from the top of the stock and then scrape all the delicious crispy bits off the bottom of the roasting tin. Re-heat the stock and then carve the meat into the stock before serving.
10. See Cooking Times below.