Frozen turkey crown

Largs

Hello.

I normally get the small turkey crown.  Had a quick check at the supermarkets to decide where to shop this year with cost of living etc and was surprised at the difference in prices.  In particular at ASDA and Sainsburys.  These are all grade A British turkey.

Morrison £17.00
ASDA £16.01
Tesco £13.20 - with Clubcard
ALDI £12.99
Sainsbury £20.00
Lidl £12.99
Iceland £18.00 (Bernard Matthews)

MyRealNameToo

Largs said:

These are all grade A British turkey.

Have you ever seen a bird for sale thats below Grade A?

The standard isnt exactly very high:

• No broken bones in bone-in products.
• No severe bruising or discoloration.
• Clean with no visible foreign matter.

There is no comment on the actual quality of the meat/taste, nor of how much waters been injected to bulk it up/add weight

Looking at the Tesco option they state the ingredients are on 88% turkey with the next highest ingredient being water. Most the rest dont arent listing their ingredients. 

Grade A will often also mean it's not a bronzed turkey, their skin is naturally "discoloured" so won't make the Grade A cut. Personally will buy from my local butcher, know exactly where the bird has come from, it comes out the oven the same size as it goes in not all shrunken and normally tastes great. 

born_again

Always go to local butcher for these. Get them in just the right size.
OK cost a bit more but well worth it.

Also requires less energy, !!!!!! they are never frozen 🤣

QrizB

If you have a timer on your oven, you could save money by cooking it overnight on a time-of-use tariff.

Also, Agile is often cheaper during the Christmas break and some suppliers give free energy on Christmas Day.

Eldi_Dos

@Largs
           Be wary it is easy to get Frozen out on this board.

Qyburn

Stick it in the fridge to thaw out, reduce the fridge's energy consumption.

EssexHebridean

Those saying "go to your local butcher" - please bear in mind that not only does not everyone have such a thing, but that is also likely to be far more expensive - your financial privilege to do such a thing doesn't reflect the financial privilege of a lot of people on the boards. Personally I buy direct from the farm where they're bred and raised - get a whole bird where I know the welfare standards are high, and make use of every scrap - but I'm not for a moment suggesting that spending that amount on a turkey is within the reach of the majority! 

Emmia

MyRealNameToo said:

Largs said:

These are all grade A British turkey.

Have you ever seen a bird for sale thats below Grade A?

The standard isnt exactly very high:

• No broken bones in bone-in products.
• No severe bruising or discoloration.
• Clean with no visible foreign matter.

There is no comment on the actual quality of the meat/taste, nor of how much waters been injected to bulk it up/add weight

Looking at the Tesco option they state the ingredients are on 88% turkey with the next highest ingredient being water. Most the rest dont arent listing their ingredients. 

Grade A will often also mean it's not a bronzed turkey, their skin is naturall "discoloured" so won't make the Grade A cut. Personally will buy from my local butcher, know exactly where the bird has come from, it comes out the oven the same size as it goes in not all shrunken and normally tastes great. 

The M&S Oakham turkey breast crown (frozen) (1.65kg) is £32 and listed as 92% turkey breast and 6% water. The rest seems to be a turkey stock.

But it is getting on for twice the price of the ones listed.

Grumpy_chap

A fresh turkey is generally nicer than frozen but much much more expensive.
Our last fresh turkey was a good few years back, then we went for fresh turkey crowns for a couple of years but we found the absence of leg meat and no leftovers made a difference - in fact, the last turkey crown we had was so small there was barely enough to go around the table.
Last year, we opted for the frozen whole turkey from Tesco and it was perfectly fine but a bit drier than fresh (which might be down to the cooking).
We looked at the fresh options this year and the prices have really shot up so yesterday purchased another Tesco frozen turkey £16 with clubcard prices.  We can't really go wrong.

born_again

EssexHebridean said:

Those saying "go to your local butcher" - please bear in mind that not only does not everyone have such a thing, but that is also likely to be far more expensive - your financial privilege to do such a thing doesn't reflect the financial privilege of a lot of people on the boards. Personally I buy direct from the farm where they're bred and raised - get a whole bird where I know the welfare standards are high, and make use of every scrap - but I'm not for a moment suggesting that spending that amount on a turkey is within the reach of the majority! 

Paid £20 for our turkey crown fed us for several days @ local butcher last year. Also came from a named local farm. Which is the same price as Sainsbury frozen one.
So no financial privilege.

Sadly reason many do not have them, is people stopped using them. I found in covid they were the best source in the area. Stuck with them ever since as have many other that use them.

Brie

Maybe price up what is selling fresh for a whole turkey now and prep ready to freeze? 

It's not too difficult to debone.  Take the skin off in one piece if possible, take off the wings (for soup), the legs (to roast separately).  Take off the breast meat and the meat off the thighs.  Lay out the skin on a tea towel or plastic wrap, skin side down.  Lay the breast meat on top, side by side.  Lay out the thigh meat with some sausage meat (with cranberries mixed in?) in between.  Then roll it together and either stitch up the skin or tie it into a big "turkey sausage" with some butchers twine.  Put a lattice of streaky bacon on top.  Then you can freeze it until it's needed or stick it in the oven.

Obviously you could buy a frozen whole turkey, thaw it and do all the above but not freeze it again.  So would need to be done the day or or 1 - 2 before cooking.  

If you want to get extra fancy with it you could do the full "Turducken" with the turkey on the outside of the roll, then duck, then chicken and sausage in the middle.  I did a 5 bird a few years back which was grand (included partridge and pigeon) which was lovely but took a full day to prepare as all the birds needed deboning so I won't be doing that again!!