Turkey: Fresh or frozen?

Do you buy fresh or frozen? To me, the frozen seems like it would be fresher, because it stopped deteriorating right after it was slaughtered. Fresh turkeys are available now, a week before T-day...how is that considered fresh?

Just wondering....

Interestingly, the one vote so far was for "other?" What is "other?" Dried? Even live would be considered "fresh," I would think.

aschie30 wrote:Interestingly, the one vote so far was for "other?" What is "other?" Dried? Even live would be considered "fresh," I would think.

There is always CANNED turkey as quite a lot of it is packaged in central Illinois.

Maybe "other" means tofurkey?

Usually a frozen turkey is adulterated to make it palatable on thawing with additives and preservatives, read the label. A fresh turkey in your grocery store may or may not be adulterated, again read the label. Fresh turkeys are actually held below 32F as they freeze below 32F and can be a couple of weeks from the time of slaughter to the time of selling. The fresh with no additives are usually a very good bird but be careful in that 'All Natural' is used to mean that the additives are
'natural' whatever that means. It is possible to get a fresh unadulterated turkey.
I get my Turkeys from John's Live Poultry, processed while you wait the week of Thanksgiving. They certainly are fresh and they certainly are better than either a frozen or grocery store fresh turkey.-Dick

Did you mean to say they are held below 32? or above? If below, then are frozen, actually?

I had forgotten about John's...I used to live in the area way back when...didn't realize they were still around. Can you get fresh eggs there?

yeah...I was little miffed getting home with a fresh "test turkey" yesterday and finding the giblets, etc frozen inside the cavity; it suddenly made sense why our butcher spieled off this non sequitur about FDA regulations on holding fresh turkeys...

brined bird's in the smoker right now along with a marinaded/rubbed brisket

and running our test is already yielding info such as: a 14lb bird is way too unwieldy for our rotisserie trays; we had to dismember her twice to get her balanced...

I bet it smells realllly good in your neighborhood

Liz in Norwood Park wrote:I bet it smells realllly good in your neighborhood

thank god I don't presently live in Chicago where my "emissions" might incur a visit by the nanny state

you can even burn trash in your backyard in the city in Indianapolis...crazy!




I'm thinking about raising some chickens

Fresh Turkey this year.

Ordered my fresh turkey this year from Polancics Meat Market in Ottawa, Illinois(my neighbor to the west). They get their fresh turkeys from a local Illinois farm. Polancic's will pick-up the turkeys the Sunday before Thanksgiving, and have them available for pick-up Mon-Weds before Thanksgiving.

I believe the turkeys are $2.19/lb. with the smallest bird being in the 10-11 lb. range.

I am looking forward to this bird.

Christopher Gordon wrote:
thank god I don't presently live in Chicago where my "emissions" might incur a visit by the nanny state

I suppose it may depend on the neighborhood, but I've never had problems smoking here within the city limits, nor do I know anybody who has had problems using their smoker in the city. I suppose living in a predominantly Mexican and Eastern European neighborhood helps.

A fresh turkey must be held above 26 degrees (not 32 degree). Perhaps the giblets freeze, but the turkey will not.

See, for example, http://www.fsis.usda.gov/Fact_Sheets/Tu ... /index.asp.

Corollary to this query: if you're buying frozen turkey, what brand do you buy? (I've found that the cost drives my choice towards frozen, sometimes quality suffers for budgetary reasons at my house - though nobody's ever complained)

Also, do you have an opionion about how size/gender affects flavor? I've found that 18lb + sizes (usually Toms) taste better than the small ones, but it's insane to get a Tom turkey for a family of 3, much as we love leftovers...

I've read (perhaps on the website I linked above?) that gender really doesn't affect flavor. Instead, what a lot of people perceive as a gender difference is really an age difference. I can't say that I've ever paid enough attention to make a judgment on my own.

Cook's Illustrated just had a Turkey test in which Butterball and Jenni-O fell under the "recommended " category. I generally go with a Butterball as it is cheap ($.88/lb at Dominick's right now) and comes out great on the smoker. Seeing as we are hosting Thanksgiving dinner for 26 this year, I plan to go with 2 of the biggest Butterballs I can find (22-26 lb).

Full article gives more of the story.

Jamie

One of the local up-market groceries is advertising fresh heritage turkeys, raised here in Kansas, for a decent price. Dang. If I were going to be here instead of Montreal, I'd spring for it. I had heritage 3 yrs ago in WI, and it was unquestionably the best turkey I'd ever had in my life.

Geo

Butterball is often what we go with; Jewel used to carry a PC brand that was butter-basted and seemed less salty/watery, but I haven't seen it for a while. I'm curious about the heritage turkeys and may check out Whole Paycheck...

PS. IIRC The Aldi has a variety Butterballs for .89/lb regular price. I imagine they might go down for the holiday. They also had some massive frozen ducks, and fully-cooked smoked Butterballs if you need an emergency backup bird; they aren't bad (sometimes I keep one of these in the freezer for company)

I'm going with a Ho-Ka turkey this year. The last time we hosted Thanksgiving, and it was several years ago, I purchased one at Walt's and was very pleased with it.

Suzy

Cook's Illustrated just had a Turkey test in which Butterball and Jenni-O fell under the "recommended " category.

In that same article in Cook's Illustrated they found that frozen turkeys tasted better overall and juicier than the fresh. They surmised that the fresh turkey may get "slightly chilled" during delivery, causing the cells to then break when thawed and thus dry out the turkey more than a frozen turkey would. But that was only a theory.

borborigmy wrote:

Cook's Illustrated just had a Turkey test in which Butterball and Jenni-O fell under the "recommended " category.

In that same article in Cook's Illustrated they found that frozen turkeys tasted better overall and juicier than the fresh. They surmised that the fresh turkey may get "slightly chilled" during delivery, causing the cells to then break when thawed and thus dry out the turkey more than a frozen turkey would. But that was only a theory.

More validation for me using a frozen turkey . . . hee hee . . .I've toyed with the idea of spending more $$$$ and getting a heritage turkey, a fresh turkey or a local turkey slaughtered and processed right before pickup, etc. only to settle on a frozen turkey every year because it's cheap and convenient. I've tried the heritages, I've tried the fresh and, for the life of me, I can't really tell the difference.

I think cooking a tasty turkey is 90% about the preparation and the skills of the person roasting it, not whether it's fresh or frozen, heritage or mass-produced, or local or brand-name/supermarket. Just go with the cheapest -- that's my mantra. (So far, anyway!)

Christopher Gordon wrote:yeah...I was little miffed getting home with a fresh "test turkey" yesterday and finding the giblets, etc frozen inside the cavity; it suddenly made sense why our butcher spieled off this non sequitur about FDA regulations on holding fresh turkeys...

brined bird's in the smoker right now along with a marinaded/rubbed brisket

and running our test is already yielding info such as: a 14lb bird is way too unwieldy for our rotisserie trays; we had to dismember her twice to get her balanced...

apologize for quotin' myself

the brined fresh-ish turkey (Charcuterie's recipe w/ reversed salt/sugar ratios ...cuz the butcher recommended it and no pink salt...cuz he opined, "why you want your turkey to taste cured?" *and* using a whole bird instead of a breast...which basically makes the cookbook recipe more of a jumping off point, I suppose...)

...the brined and smoked turkey turned out poifect...a li'l jooshz here n there around Thanksgiving(longer brine/rest time/maybe gilding the lily with some unsalted herb butter up under the skin and we should turn out a bird dripping with moist-osity

unfortunately, the same cannot be said for my brisket, which tho' tender and juicy as all hell, I still managed to turn into a protein-based saltlick...

it smelled so good wafting over from the neighbor's smoker, darn it...

next time I'll just marinade it and screw the rub...or do an unsalted rub...

everyone's giving me compliments on it, but...

I dunno

"you always burn the first pancake"

I'm still deciding.

I've been brining for the past several years, the first year I did it I brined a frozen and just roasted a fresh and the brined was so much better, even from frozen.

The butcher at the grocery store (can't recall if jewel or dominick's) was telling me he's tried all the brands and the cheaper frozen taste as good as the butterball.

Yeah, I'll probably go with a frozen bird and maybe a fresh breast...even though it's cheaper to buy a second whole turkey than just a breast.

CG--

Just as an aside, Cook's has a brisket rub that I've used several times that is really really satisfying. And as I recall, it has no salt.

Geo

Mock me if you will (and you probably will), but I'm going with the freezer-to-oven Jennie-O turkey. We've tried it a couple of times before and been satisfied with it (can't remember about the browning, but it went over well in terms of juiciness and flavor). I'll also be cooking a freezer-to-oven Jennie-O turkey breast a day or two before to get turkey for tetrazini and drippings for gravy. I realize the freezer-to-oven turkey option might seem very beginner to some of you, but I don't know if I've ever had to pull Thanksgiving dinner together for 10 people before, and I need to be as efficient as possible with prep time.

Actually, Katie - our kindergarten and first grade have a "Thanksgiving Feast" an inconvenient two days before the real thing, so I used the freezer-to-oven breast for that last year. My only real objection was that the included gravy was not dissimilar to canned gravy, and made the whole thing much saltier than I prefer. However, considering time constraints and depending on who you're feeding, I thought it was both efficient and sufficient, and the meat itself wasn't bad at all.

FYI: though too gristly for tetrazzini, turkey legs and wings are dirt cheap, and an excellent source of drippings for make-ahead turkey gravy.

I agree; I tried the gravy packet once and didn't like the result. After that I just tossed it out and made my own. That's why I want the drippings. Thanks for the tip on legs and wings.

sujormik wrote:The butcher at the grocery store (can't recall if jewel or dominick's) was telling me he's tried all the brands and the cheaper frozen taste as good as the butterball.

A good benchmark is the ingredients list (isn't that Bruce's sig?) The PC frozen turkey I used to get had only butter and saline; I belive Butterball is similar. When you start seeing hinky things like "flavor enhancers," or "coloring" use that turkey for bowling

The last so-called "fresh" turkey I bought turned out to be freezer-burned.

I'm completely happy with frozen birds, and I don't think the premium on fresh can be worth it, unless it comes straight from a farm or is a heritage breed.

I did sample the Jennie-O oven-to-table and found it decent (and indecently easy), but I prefer the flavor of my own.

I had an opportunity to taste a Butterball up against another brand (Rosebud), and the Butterball was a clear winner. (BTW, they only have a brine solution injected, no fats.) But I've had good results with cheaper turkey brands, too; it depends on what's in it and what you do with it.

aschie30 wrote:Interestingly, the one vote so far was for "other?" What is "other?" Dried? Even live would be considered "fresh," I would think.

IMO, "Other" could include ham, leg-o-lamb, goose, duck, standing rib roast, crab legs, chicken fingers, McRibs, or any other feast not designed around turkey.

ahh.....good point!