Testing the freezer-to-oven turkey

Catie Woods won’t be going home to her parents in Florida for Thanksgiving this year. Instead, the 31-year-old public relations specialist will cook the big meal for her friends in Atlanta. There’s just one catch: there’s no way she’s making a turkey.

“It kind of grosses me out,” says Woods. “I just think about those bags that come out of the turkey, and those giblets. I was actually considering a ham. We can give thanks over a ham as well as a turkey, right?”

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JOHN KESSLER/jkessler@ajc.com

John Kessler found the Jennie-O freezer-to-oven turkey as easy to prepare as advertised, but was disappointed in its texture and processed-food aftertaste.

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For many inexperienced cooks, the most difficult step in preparing the Thanksgiving turkey is the very first one — removing the drippy carcass from its wrapper and performing the cavity search.

Turkey processors have responded with a variety of products designed with squeamish cooks in mind. Jennie-O prepares a line of “Oven Ready” whole turkeys and turkey breasts that go right from the freezer to the oven. Butterball makes a freezer-to-oven stuffed turkey, and House of Raeford offers a line of boil-in-the-bag turkey products as well as a frozen cooked turkey.

So how do these plastic-wrapped birds stack up against the old-fashioned touch-me turkeys?

I prepared a Jennie-O “Oven Ready Home Style Whole Turkey” ($27.99, about double the going rate for grocery store birds) to find out. This 12-pounder was indeed the easiest turkey I’ve ever cooked. I took it out of its packaging and it was ready to go — wrapped in a plastic bag that left no trace or smell on my fingers. Per the instructions, I cut a few air vents in the bag, placed it in a roasting pan and cooked it in a preheated oven. The turkey’s timer popped up a full hour before the suggested cooking time, and a quick read on the thermometer revealed that it had reached the desired internal temperature.

It was a little hard getting the bag off, as it had stuck to and made a black patch on the skin. The leg bones had also popped free of their meat, and for a moment there I was reminded of the unwrapping of the bandaged baby in the David Lynch movie “Eraserhead.”

My food-snobby family and I found that the hot turkey was weirdly spongy, too salty and had a processed-food aftertaste we didn’t like. Cold, the next day, it was much better — a perfectly acceptable day-after turkey for sandwiches.

So my advice is this: If the idea of sticking your mitts into a bird totally wigs you out and if you actually like the flavor of the turkey feast they serve in your company cafeteria, then the Jennie-O won’t be a bad idea.

Otherwise I suggest you invest in a pair of new rubber gloves; a pair of kitchen shears and a roll of paper towels. Put on your gloves. Cut open the packaging in the sink. Throw out all the giblets. Spray water over and in the turkey until it runs clear. Pat the bird dry with wads of toweling. Don’t even attempt to stuff it. Get it into a roasting pan pronto, and then into the oven. You will surprise yourself at the no-big-whoopishness of this endeavor.

Still, some people know they will never, ever reach into a raw turkey. After a traumatic experience with a raw chicken once in college, academic counselor Shari Obrentz, 29, vowed she would never attempt a turkey.

That is, until she saw the commercials for Jennie-O. This year she may try it.

“I think that any thing that’s ready to go and you don’t have to touch is brilliant,” said Obrentz.

FRESH VS. FROZEN: Which is better?

Every year Lynne Sawicki orders a shipment of fresh, all-natural turkeys from Ashley Farms in Winston-Salem, N.C., to sell at her Decatur food shop, Sawicki’s Meat, Seafood & More.

Sawicki believes a fresh turkey will beat a frozen one any time.

“You should always get a fresh turkey,” she avers. “When you freeze something that has liquid in it, that kind of changes the meat. Plus, you don’t know how old a frozen turkey is. It could be a year old.”

Yet fresh turkeys aren’t necessarily juicier. Most frozen birds have been treated with a saline solution — in other words, brined — before packaging. This process renders the flesh a little more apt to retain its juices. It can also be a little firmer and springier in texture; think of a canned ham, which is heavily brined.

Of course, there are good and bad fresh turkeys, just as there are good and bad frozen ones. And what tasters look for in terms of texture, flavor and juiciness is subjective.

Last year, the Denver Post food department put six turkeys, both fresh and frozen, to the test. All were prepared at a local cooking school under exactly the same conditions and then assessed in a blind taste test.

A fresh turkey — deemed bland and chewy — ranked last. First place went to the ubiquitous frozen Butterball.

“We didn’t think the fruit was going to be hanging quite that low,” said Denver Post food editor Tucker Shaw. “But you react to turkey based on memories. You look for something that reminds you of turkeys past, and we all agreed — this one tasted like Thanksgiving.”