Tips for Safely Cooking a Turkey for Thanksgiving

This article considers how your equipment and oven might affect the cooking times of a turkey and increase the danger of food poisoning. In general, you can assume that an unstuffed turkey at 12lb will take around three to three and a half hours to cook. However, how (and with what) you cook the turkey will also have an impact on cooking times and this needs to be taken into account when working out how long a given turkey will take.

One obvious issue is that if cooking is started before the turkey has fully defrosted (though this should be avoided if at all possible) then it will take longer. Equally cooking times will vary substantially if the turkey is stuffed. Some writers advise cooking the stuffing separately due to the increased risk of under-cooking and thus of food poisoning.

Other factors that could affect cooking times include:

• The colour of the roasting pan - oddly a dark one cooks faster than a shiny one (it retains heat and thus cooks the underside quicker);

• If you cover the turkey with foil this will slow the cooking down but placing on a lid (if you are using a roasting pan) will speed up the process;

• Your oven may not heat evenly, so parts of the bird may take longer than other areas (hence it is important to rotate the bird during cooking). Also the thermostat may be inaccurate or different modes of circulating heat may work quicker or slower;

• If the turkey only just fits into the oven, this will slow down the cooking as it will inhibit circulation of air.

Over time, you will know how your own oven works and how these factors influence cooking times. In the main these are unlikely to radically alter the time needed but do need to be taken into account. The best security is to monitor the cooking process carefully and ensure that any juices run clear when the turkey is pricked with a knife.

In summary, although there are a number of factors that can affect the time needed to safely cook a turkey. As noted above, some of these may be unexpected, but do need to be taken into account. Equally it is not as simple as assuming that covering the turkey will slow down/speed up the cooking process. How you do this is important