Best supermarket for turkey.

Last year we had a bernard methews golden norfolk turkey it was 6kg and cost about £16 i roasted it with an onion and an apple inside the cavity and rubbed the outside of the bird with olive oil and salt and pepper, did my stuffing seperatley as i usually cook the turkey on xmas eve so there's one less thing to stess about on xmas day i think the turkeys are more expensive this year but i would buy that one again as it was moist and delish and i thought it was good value,

I'm wondering when to get ours - my mum always bought a frozen one before Xmas and left it to defrost until the day itself - but I can't figure out when to buy it! (Can't leave it in the freezer as it's the world's smallest) First time we're ever trying cooking Xmas lunch ourselves - and I'm scared we won't have any turkeys left by the time we get to buy it if we leave it too late!

i haven't bought a turkey in some years so i cant' answer the op's question however being american let's just say i've cooked a fair few turkeys in my day!

best way to get good results even from a cheaper brand of turkey is to use a knife or pair of scissors to snip just the skin in two places along each breast and then one on the thigh each side and the legs each side. then carefully slip a finger in to loosen the skin from the meat. carefully put some butter in this newly formed pocket (you can also stuff in rosemary, garlic cloves etc)

now, that alone will help your turkey taste moist and lovely but the real tip is to cook your turkey breast side DOWN for all but the last hour or so of cooking (half hour if it's a small bird) obviously you'll want it breast side up when it comes to taking the foil off to brown the bird anyway but cooking it upside down allows the birds own juices to constanly trickle down into the breast meat which tends to be drier.

cooking it this way has always given me a gorgeous, juicy turkey breast and actually leaves the dark meat less greasy which is nice as it's 'juicy' enough to begin with!

the only real difficulty can be flipping the bird (sorry couldn't resist!) what i do is to take a long handle fork/prong (like for bbq) and usually a knife with the pronged end (though two big forks would probably be safer!), i stick one in either end and get someone else with a hot pad to help me turn it over and keep the pan from moving. don't do it too quickly or the hot juices will splash up on you when you put the bird back in the pan.

it's a bit of a palaver but you only have to do it once during cooking and it's soooo worth the results!

happy cooking!