Friday night roast turkey

Today I am trying to roast a turkey. The bird is in the oven right now.

An Algerian couple bought a frozen one for us a few months ago and I still hadn’t cooked it. When I took it out of the freezer this morning, I noticed: ‘Expiry date 24 Aug 08’.

Where has this turkey been for the last two years of its shelf life???

But, after ignoring the bird for months and getting the recipe several times from my Algerian friend and hints from hubby that he “feels like having turkey,” I thought I should cook it.

So last night, I went online to look up some roast turkey recipes. Pretty daunting. Three days to defrost??? 24 hours to season? Where the heck am I going to get sage in Luanda??? What, I need an oven thermometer? Trusses? Cooking string? You gotta be kidding.

But later when I looked closely at the frozen turkey, I was pleasantly surprised. Why?

1. The bird has been pre-seasoned
2. Comes with a non-toxic, oven-safe truss
3. A plastic thermometer pops up when the meat is cooked
4. Good instructions

Bless you, Perdix! All I had to do was defrost, wash and stuff the bird (found some old carrots in the fridge), and then bung it in a pre-heated oven at 200C. Covered in aluminium foil for first hour, then foil comes off and cook for 1 to 3 more hours until thermometer pops up.

Sounds easy, right? With a bit of instant mash potato on the side?

Err…sure...I'll let you know tomorrow.

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