rolled turkey has got me on the run

I'm pretty sure that the last thing the world needs in January, or really at any time, is some more tips on cooking Christmas dinner, but I had a go at messing a bit with the standard formula for Christmas 2025 and I was pretty pleased with the way it turned out, so I'm going to share it here. As always this is as much for my own amusement and future reference as anything else; the links I'm going to include will give a far more comprehensive description of the method than I'm going to bother with.

Anyway, the principle is this: a standard turkey of whatever size is an awkward and unwieldy thing to cook all in one piece in a standard oven and pretty much always ends up being overcooked, not least because different parts of the bird are different thicknesses and cook at different rates. So while tradition says you must have a giant single golden steaming monolith of meat to present to your jolly apple-cheeked multi-generational crowd at Christmas lunch, a more pragmatic alternative viewpoint says: fuck tradition, I would prefer to eat something that's actually pleasant to consume, quicker to cook, and leaves some oven space free for the host of other stuff that I need to put in it.

So the principle behind the deconstruction is: the legs are awkward because the drumsticks in particular are thin and tend to overcook, in addition they're very bony and sinewy and a lot of people can't be arsed with that. Also the giant cavity and the creature's back aren't really doing any good except taking up valuable oven space and slowing the cooking down. So what we do is: take the legs and wings off, debone them and roll them up into giant sausages (you'll need some string, ideally culinary/butcher's string (rather than, say, gardening twine or cable ties) - I kept it pretty simple but you can add some stuffing or other filling as you do this). The deboning is a fiddly job, particularly in the drumstick area as those partially ossified ankle tendons are a pain to detach, but it's worth the effort. Then detach the crown from all the unwanted remaining bones and skin and connective tissue and get rid of them, or make stock or something with them if you must. That leaves you with a crown roast and two chunky leg/wing sausages.

I also wet-brined the crown for about 24 hours before cooking it. This is another advantage of the deconstruction: a trimmed crown plus brining liquid will fit in a large-ish bowl which will go in the fridge; a whole turkey will require a large bucket or a bathtub and obviously won't go in the fridge, though the shed or somewhere similarly cool will probably do for 24 hours, unless you're living in Australia and it's the middle of summer.

The other thing you should invest in is a meat thermometer. I have a simple analogue one, nothing fancy, and it is invaluable for this sort of thing. What you will find is an hour and a half is ample to cook all the meat - mine was gratifyingly succulent and delicious but even then could probably have come out of the oven ten minutes or so earlier. Opinions and guidance vary wildly regarding what's the optimum temperature at which to hoick the turkey out of the oven and let it rest, but I reckon 65-70 Celsius is about right, probably the low end of that range, if you dare, for maximum juiciness. 

The other thing about turkey is that whatever you do on Christmas Day unless you've calculated the amounts absolutely perfectly you're going to have some leftovers, and those can be a dishearteningly dry and joyless experience, with the resulting sandwiches needing a surprisingly large amount of wine to wash them down. In this particular case, though, I'm happy to report that the leftovers were themselves delightful and a positively pleasant prospect for consumption on Boxing Day and afterwards. Eventually we got bored and just chopped the remainder up and put it in a pie; that was pretty good too.