How to select a turkey

November 20, 12:32 AMFood ExaminerEric Burkett

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This turkey will be naturally flavorful after an active, healthy life
spent outside eating bugs and grass. The frozen chunks you'll
find wrapped in airtight plastic will not.

There’s a lot to decide when it comes time to pick out the turkey. As this is the last weekend before Thanksgiving, a lot of you are going to be doing your shopping in the next couple of days. One of the bigger questions you’ll face is whether to buy a frozen or fresh turkey.

The biggest advantage to a frozen turkey is that you don’t have to cook it right away. That, as far as I can tell, is the only advantage. Fresh turkeys taste better but they’re not always easy to identify. The USDA allows poultry to be labeled as fresh even if it’s been frozen once already (and, no, you can’t refreeze a thawed turkey). Ask. Even better, buy your turkey through a butcher if that’s a realistic option. A frozen 18-pound turkey – that’s about the average size turkey most of us will buy – can take up to three days to thaw out, and thawing them isn’t as easy as leaving the frozen hulk on the counter until it’s ready to cook.

How much turkey do you need? The rule of thumb is that if you want left-overs, or second helpings, you'll need 1 pound per person. If you're hoping to avoid left overs, figure about half-a-pound per diner.

In order to thaw a turkey safely, you’ll need to leave it in a cool place where the temperature doesn’t rise above 40 degrees. If, like most people, that happens to be your refrigerator, you’ll need to clear the bottom shelf because as the turkey thaws, it’ll drip, and few things are as memorable as left overs and fresh greens that have been contaminated with raw turkey juice gone bad. Storing raw meats, especially poultry, above cooked foods or other raw edibles is a really bad idea.

The other problem with a lot of frozen turkeys – specifically the big name brands like Butterball – is that they’re loaded down not only with hormones fed to them while they were still alive, but their carcasses are injected with fats, salt, water, or seasonings to keep them moist while cooking and to add flavor. The behemoths you’ll find in the freezer at SuperMegaGrocery® are usually only about 3-months old when they’re slaughtered, which isn’t a lot of time to develop much in the way of flavor. That, of course, is why the processors start injecting them. Your best bet is to choose organic but if that’s not possible, or simply cost prohibitive and they are expensive, you might look for free-range turkeys, instead.

Tomorrow, we’ll look at different ways to cook guest of honor.