Cooking the Bird

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees and throw the turkey inside. Do not try to cook the bird at a lower temperature. This will promote bacterial growth in the stuffing and may also dry out the meat. A dry turkey can also result from cooking at a temperature higher than 325 degrees.

Now comes the hardest part: do nothing. Just let the turkey cook. You don’t have to tend to it at all. You don’t have to flip the bird, you should pardon the expression, halfway through the cooking and you don’t have to baste it, either.

“Most people believe basting is necessary,” says Schnelle. “There is no need to open the oven at all, and we don’t recommend pouring liquid over the bird.” She says that one year the talk line got a call from a flustered cook who couldn’t understand why her turkey wasn’t done yet. She told the operator that it had been in the oven for nearly 10 hours and showed no sign of being done anytime soon. The operator asked if she had been basting the turkey and, if so, how often. The woman told her she was careful to baste it every 10 minutes.

“Opening the oven door just cools the oven and heats the kitchen,” says Schnelle. She adds that any liquid poured over the turkey does not penetrate the skin and will not result in moist meat.