Calling all cooks: Share your tips for the perfect roast turkey

CBC Edmonton officially launched the 20th annual Turkey Drive for the Food Bank on Friday, and to mark the occasion, Radio Active wants to know your best turkey-roasting tips.

Today, share your recipes, tips and pictures with Radio Active through Twitter or email or, text us this afternoon at (587) 336 2929.

To get you started, we asked some of the resident chefs in our newsroom for their top tips:

From reporter Gareth Hampshire:

"I loveto brine the bird first. This not only gives amazing flavour but also makes the meat beautifully juicy. Normally you're looking at dissolving sugar and salt in water and plunging the turkey in it for 24 hours. But what's nice at Christmas is to add Christmas flavours like orange. You can cut up a couple and toss them in. And also the Christmas spices give a wonderful subtle flavour to the bird things like a handful of allspice berries, cinnamon sticks, star anise those are all fabulous.

And a key I like to do to make sure it cooks nicely and evenly is never to put it in the oven straight from the fridge. You stuff a huge cold bird into the oven, the temperature is going to drop like crazy and you'll be looking at about an hour before it really gets going. Let it come up to room temperature for about an hour to make sure its ready to start cooking quickly when you put it in the oven.

Also Inever stuff the bird with stuffing. That increases the cooking time because now you have blocked any hot air circulating through the bird. If you want stuffing do it on the side of the roasting pan.

Another big tip is to use a meat thermometer. This way there is no guesswork in knowing whether your bird is cooked or not and they're very cheap to buy.

From reporter Lydia Neufeld:

I make a "Jamie Oliver" turkey.

It involves cutting off the legs and roasting them for half an hour first,then adding sliced leeks, whole cloves of garlic (for the gravy), and a bottle of red wineand then putting the turkey on top.

Then, cover thebreast with pancetteand roast!

NO BASTING.

Sounds like a lot of work,but it isn't. And that roasted garlic thickens AND flavours the gravy. YUMMMM!!

From newsreader Don Bell:

Our big thing is beer. After browning the bird at a higher heat (I think 400 degrees) for 20 minutes,we then douse it with a can (or bottle) of beer and cover with tin foil before reducing it to 325 degrees for the balance of its cooking time.