This is our first time cooking a turkey together for the parents and kids! I wanted to purchase one but I was told that turkeys were all sold out. Thus, I bought the sides so we can concentrate on roasting the turkey! I got Brussels Sprouts and Chestnuts (RM 50) and a Strawberry & Peach Trifle (RM 100).
It came in two huge boxes (think that the bigger box originally was supposed to have a turkey inside but they ran out) that delighted the kids – especially the trifle.
I had slated it for pickup at 6 pm so we can have it just as our turkey has finished cooking, but it turned out that the process took longer than that. Haha!
The story of how we got the turkey:
It’s a rather funny anecdote that we’ll look back and laugh at. My dear bought me a MasterChef dinner as a Christmas present and I thought I’ll call ahead and book a turkey. I know it’s sold out, I had already gotten the sides, but I had a sneaky feeling that frozen turkeys are in short supply too.
I was right.
I called BIG and asked if they had frozen turkeys and the guy said he’ll go and check. He said there’s one left and it’s about 3 kg. I told him I’ll take it and I’ll pick it up in about 2 hours time. He got my name and number and we went to Publika after dinner to get the elusive turkey.
However, when I got there, I was told that the frozen turkeys were all sold out!
I think the dude was kinda sick of answering questions like these, there are signs saying so all over the place. Haha! I told him that I had called ahead just now and there was a definite thawing as he asked for my name…
…and sure enough, there’s a turkey booked under my name!
I was quite pleased that they really did hold the turkey for me instead of putting it outside where anyone who’s faster can grab it. We’re both happy with the service (but not with the guy – you should always be jovial when asked a question, regardless of whether it’s the 1,000th time someone asked the very same question 
).
I also bought the stuffing for the turkey and some other miscellaneous stuff. The turkey was RM 88.72 for a 3.18 kg bird and the total grocery bill came close to RM 300!
It was just one day till dinner with the in-laws and the kids and the turkey was *still* frozen so we couldn’t brine the turkey. This is the most basic recipe but it turned out delicious! I just thawed the frozen turkey overnight and then put it in the fridge when it was fully thawed.
I chucked it into the oven at 220 degrees Celsius for 40 minutes before turning it around. It’s supposed to be a self-basting turkey but you do need to baste it every now and then. I used the simplest recipe to cook the turkey (from theKitchn.com).
I rubbed butter all over the turkey and stuffed two halved lemons into the cavity.
I didn’t truss or stuff the turkey, just wrapped some bacon around the breast and put it in 2 cups of water and left it in the oven for as hot as it would go. It took us 3 ½ hours to cook the turkey!
Before the last 40 minutes, I prepared the stuffing using a gourmet stuffing blend hand packed from the Shropshire Spice Co in the UK. It’s an apple with cranberry and roast chestnut stuffing and I just needed to add 700 ml of water (for the 2 packs) and a huge pat of butter before, well, stuffing this Pink Lady apple based mix into the cavity.
It was a bit too much stuffing so I left some out so it looks like the turkey has laid some stuffing. Haha!
The turkey was rested for 20 minutes before serving.
We had spaghetti with bacon (cooked by my dear) with the turkey and it tasted quite good! I still have leftover turkey, the kids loved it and the in-laws ate quite a fair bit too, so I reckon we did well with our turkey!
The Brussels Sprouts with Chestnuts wasn’t that big of a hit but I thought it improved my view of Brussels sprouts. I didn’t really like it when I was in NZ and Australia due to the bitterness but it seems like the new genetically modified ones in the last decade are less bitter. It tastes quite good in fact!
The Strawberry & Peach Trifle was the true hero though – it tasted wonderful! I like the jelly-like cake bottom, and the peaches and cream in the middle and the strawberry topping cuts down on the sheer sweetness with some acidity. We finished that 1 kg trifle on the night itself!
It was a good Christmas / New Year turkey dinner though – we had it on the weekend, which is neither Christmas or New Year but our own family get-together. We all had fun, the only thing that was missing was some Christmas crackers! 😀
(and we couldn’t even start eating the panettone or mince pies that we had so we saved it for this weekend)
A homecooked Christmas dinner? That’s so sweet. Definitely nicer and makes a lot more sense than going out to eat and getting fleeced.
We cooked the turkey and pasta! 🙂
The Brussels sprouts and trifle was store bought – RM 150 for those two. I reckon it’s about the same price, all concluded – turkeys can be got for RM 250 or so, the price we paid for our (frozen) turkey and all the trimmings exceeded that, but it was fun and we got to do what we wanted.
wow you guys are really great cook! i didn’t enjoy Brussels sprouts too, struggled to finish them last time >_<
We finished the Brussels sprouts already! 🙂
Not all of those are ours – we bought the trifle and Brussels sprouts but cooked the turkey, pasta and others. I’m going to make panettone “tiramisu” later this week too.
Wow…the turkey looks good. I wanted to get one for myself and my family, but ended up not buying or cooking anything as we were traveling on Xmas day itself. Hmmm…this post makes me feel like re-living the Xmassy moment. Perhaps I should do it this weekend. 🙂
Yeah, you can do it anytime! 🙂
That’s the beauty of turkey, as long as it’s still the festive season.
Hey, I think it’s still Christmas! There are 12 days to Christmas after all, so you’re still in time Eli!
yay, you got the last turkey! fate meant for you to have it 😀 the meat looks really nicely done and the stuffing sounds tantalizing … now you’re making me yearn for a turkey dinner, even though the season has passed (due to various circumstances, i ended up not having any turkey at all these past weeks, heh) 😀
btw, i’ve always liked brussel sprouts. texturally, they’re very satisfying to munch on! 😀
Haha! Yeah, we got the last turkey! 😀
Thanks buddy, we had two turkey dinners, not including all the leftover turkey that we ate cold or made into other dishes.
I have to agree with you now on the Brussels sprouts but 10 years ago, I wouldn’t have – never liked the stuff when I lived in NZ and Australia – it was just too bitter. I read in Wiki that the ones we have now are GE stock to reduce bitterness.
You are so traditional and must have a Turkey for Christmas!! You really got it as fated and roasted it to perfection with the bacon wraps!!! My saliva dripped to my office carpets now – all your fault!!!!
I heard Trifle and my eyes lighted up too. I have not eaten it for some 10 years!!! Slurpssss!
It’s always good to have turkey for Christmas! 🙂
I actually wanted to have a turducken – a chicken stuffed into a duck into a turkey but then the ducks we saw were quite big and I was doubtful I could stuff it into a 3 kg turkey – would need a bigger turkey to make turducken.
Next year then!
HB, I so interesting in Malaysia like turkeys so much during the holidays. Sold out is something you won’t find in states for sure. I had 3 turkeys during the holidays with ham and crabs. Turkey brine a day or two will roast tender not dry out.
Yeah, most people here celebrate Christmas! 🙂
However, we don’t eat turkey during Thanksgiving like in the US, we don’t celebrate that, it’s solely a US occasion and holiday. We have it around Christmas. There is a large Christian population in Malaysia, where I come from, most of the population is Chinese in urban areas and most Chinese are Christians!
Sibu is probably the largest Chinese-Christian community in Malaysia due to the original Chinese guy who came here and brought our forefathers – he was a Christian missionary.
Happy new year! Time to ring the wedding bells and don’t forget to invite me, hehe
Thanks Mel! 🙂
Likewise, don’t forget to invite us for your wedding. Haha!
Wonderful ! I also had an home cooked turkey few days ago. It’s heavily stuff and was marinated for 3 days. Outcome was damn good. Kudos to my 18 year old nephew who cooked it.
Nice! We didn’t have time to brine it ourselves. 🙂
It must be good to do it for 3 days! Nevertheless, our turkey was really good too – we followed the recipe from the website that does a really bare-bones and fast turkey and it works!
Everything looks good!! A real christmas meal…
Thanks Reana! 🙂
It was good to have turkey with all the trimmings, including a trifle dessert!
We actually had mince pies, trifle and pannetone to choose from. Haha!
Looks like a scrumptious Christmas dinner HB. Good job with the cooking! 🙂
Thanks Vincent! 🙂
It wasn’t all our cooking though – some of the stuff we had was store bought – like the trifle and Brussels sprouts! It was a great dinner though.
wow what a feast! the starwbbie and peach trifle was huge in portion! there’s always room for dessert eh? 😉
Yeah, that’s an absolutely gigantic 1 kg trifle! 🙂
…and we finished it on the night itself. The kids loved it so much coz it’s such a great dessert and so did the big kids (us). Haha!
Hey HB, Happy 2014! Catching up on all your posts as I’ve been travelling with my partner throughout SEA for the last three weeks…coincidentally I think I was in Penang (home for me) the same time you and Ling were! We missed each other again 🙁
The turkey looks excellent and every bit as good as a store-bought one, I reckon. I have to admit I’m surprised the bird cost quite a bit, although you guys prepared it yourself! My dad gets the Christmas turkey from Shangri-La (now Traders Hotel in Penang) every year and I believe it cost around RM350 with all the sides of buttered/roasted veggies. He didn’t get a turkey last year though, so not sure how much the price has gone up if at all!
But I guess it’s priceless having yummy turkey and dessert with love ones!
Happy 2014 to you and I hope it will be a glorious one for you and your family and your loved ones!
Hey, that’s awesome! Welcome back to Malaysia! 🙂
Too bad we didn’t have a chance to catch up – next time then! The turkey costs the same around here, no big changes in price – it’s still around RM 220 – RM 400, usually RM 280, like the one we were planning to get.
No sides included though – the Brussels sprouts was RM 50 for 500 grams and the trifle was RM 100 for the 1kg dish.
Have a good time traveling and spending time in your hometown with your loved one! All the best to you and yours in 2014! 😀
Dude….aiyah. thats one sorry ass looking turkey….come visit us during Thanksgiving, I”ll show you how it’s done. btw email me, got some news for ya.
I’m still not sure I can get a 30-day US visa mate! 🙂
I might have to practice Starcraft 2 and get a 5 year pro-athlete visa. Haha! Anyway, I just sent you an email, hope all is well for you and FF!
Dude, don’t clink on the email link, It’s hotmal.com instead of hotmail.com…..
Okay, I’ll forward it to the hotmail.com one.
Very good wor. That is cheap RM80+ for 3kg of turkey. Saw outside sell very expensive. The one you made look so yummy leh…..
Yeah, I thought it was cheap for a turkey too! 🙂
Maybe that’s why they all sold out so quickly! It’s just slightly more expensive than duck per kg (think it’s about 1.5x). We wanted to get a cooked turkey for RM 280 but it was all sold out days before Christmas itself!
We were lucky to get the frozen one as it is. Thanks Kathy!
i can’t decide where i stand on sprouts. the first time i had it, i thought hmm, not bad. but then i had it again and didn’t like it very much. lol. guess it all boils down to how they’re cooked.
didn’t really understand this part: “My dear bought me a MasterChef dinner as a Christmas present and I thought I’ll call ahead and book a turkey.” how/where’d she buy you a MasterChef dinner?? O:
and i didn’t know you have kids! that’s awesome 😀 😀 did you guys do a gift exchange? i know it’s a little materialistic but that’s always my favourite part because i love seeing the looks on people’s faces when they unwrap their gifts!!
also, i legitimately think that you’re one of the very rare bloggers with a status/name who bothers replying comments or paying visits to other blogs (you’re not already following). i really find that quite admirable so good on you, man (:
more power to you in 2014.
I think the Brussels sprouts we’re eating now is genetically engineered! 🙂
That’s what I read in Wiki anyway, they’re GE modified to be less bitter. I used to hate them 10-20 years ago when I was in NZ/Australia but now they taste just fine, not as bitter as they used to be. I guess the early 2000’s GE stock is really the ones we’re eating now.
Oh, it was at The Apartment! I didn’t know about it too – they got a license to do a limited time MasterChef promotion where they used the recipes from MasterChef Australia Season 5 (contestants and judges) to make a degustation menu with 3 mains that changes accordingly. It was a partnership with the station and MasterChef itself, I think.
I’m actually writing about it now and resizing the photos – will schedule it for tomorrow before noon.
I wanted to buy the bigger one a gun but the mom opposes the idea of having a Nerf gun for a girl. Haha! Oh well. Yeah, it’s a fun thing to do!
I always reply my comments, which can take up to half a day back in the days before I went to rehab and the blog shut down for 1+ year! I used to get in excess of 200+ comments per post and I posted every day and I replied every single comment!
I think I was the only one doing that. Heh! Then I went to rehab and lost all my archives coz I couldn’t renew my domain or hosting (no Internet, it was like prison). That’s why all the older posts don’t have comments – sixthseal.com is only up with its (almost) entire content from 2002 thanks to a reader called David from Australia who backed up every single page in HTML and sent it to me via a DVD when I got out of rehab!
I didn’t even have backups coz I didn’t get notice to go to rehab! Unfortunately, the HTML backups only had the text and images, not the comments but it’s better than nothing, or else I’ll just have content from 2008 instead of the original 2002! All this thanks to one reader in Aussie, and also shout out to Sue from Canada for downloading all my videos and keeping it for me (coz I really didn’t backup and my HDD crashed) until I got out of rehab.
It’s all thanks to my readers and that’s why I bother replying although I suspect most people don’t come back to read the replies. 😉
I like how you actually bother to come back and read the replies! That makes it all worth it!
Cheers and all the best to you and yours in 2014 too!
I can vouch for HB that he always replies every one of his comments. And it’s a proper well thought out reply, not a half assed “Yeah man” kinda reply. I’ve been reading Sixthseal since my school days (man, I feel old) and he’s always been this dedicated.
Thanks for reading all the while buddy! 🙂
It’s sure been a long journey, and I feel old too. Haha! A lot of fun though, and look where we all are now!
You’re all the way in Japan, that’s awesome! We’ll be visiting this year, will catch up then!
i’ve realised that a lot of bloggers do that – just reply to the comments on their page (and you’re right, people hardly ever come back unless they’re actual fans of the blog or trolls looking to continue flaming / fuelling fire) but i picked up a practise from being quite a long-timer in the Xanga community and that has kinda stuck.
in any case, YOU ARE AWESOME! and evidently, your fans and readers are, too!!! to back up your whole blog for you.. oh my. that is just, amazing. i know your australian following was quite large though. don’t think i’d know anyone who would actually do that for me if the same were to happen. lol.
curious; how’d your blog get shut down? was it reported & then scrubbed?
PS : HI VINCENT!
Yeah, I realized that too! 🙂
Ah, you hail from Xanga, that explains a lot! I didn’t go the way of Xanga back in 2001 when I was starting up but got my own domain and servers instead and used Movable Type (WordPress didn’t exist back then).
Thanks for the kind words! I guess it’s coz of the relationship I have with a lot of my readers, I do reply their emails especially about harm reduction, there’s a lot of people out there with addiction problems and that comes with a host of other things which only another addict will understand and even though I’ve quit, I can relate the best and thus can offer support in whatever way I can.
That’s how most of my relationships are forged, although I have to admit the beginning was all fun and games and it was more of a recreational drug use relationship e.g. sharing tips etc – even had a forum at one point. It seems like most of us has given it up (or are trying) right now, I like to think that a lot of my readers have grown up with me.
It got shut down coz I couldn’t pay the bills from rehab. 🙂
It’s the simplest thing ever – finance! I did tell the powers that be that I won’t write about such things nowadays, except in harm reduction and I’ve kept my promise.
I just couldn’t renew my hosting from rehab (domain was on a 10-year renewal, just renewed it for another 10 last year or the year before) and the host shut me down. It was close to RM 200+ per month in USD and they didn’t even bother to backup my archives (as they advertised) and I promptly switched hosts when I got out.
I’m very happy with my current host, who’s very quick in responding to all things – including free tech support. I’m glad I switched coz the previous one told me they don’t have the backups since I was gone for over a year!
I can see their POV, but then I’ve been with them for more than 5 years and I would expect more from my package and the backups they promised (didn’t say anything about limitations of a year to claim it back).
I couldn’t even have visits for the first few months (was locked up for the first 3 months) and there’s no such thing as phone calls, or any outside contact until at least 1 year, much less the Internet.
Keep the carcass and make minestrone soup the next day!
(At least that’s why we do in our family!)
It all looks yummy!
Our turkey didn’t come with the giblets! 🙂
I was looking for the bag of giblets inside the cavity of the bird and I couldn’t find it! I don’t know if Goldfields Turkeys don’t provide giblets or they just forgot about it in our bag. We did have the long neck of the bird that we kept for stock though.
Thanks Mela!
Good try one your first turkey!!!
Thanks Eve! 🙂
It was a lot of fun doing it the fast and easy way and still have it come out good.
Happy new year to you Huai Bin! Brussels sprouts are an acquired taste for many and there’s lots here in belgium! heheh
Hahaha!
Yeah, I ate a lot when I was there too! Also in Germany! They really love their Brussels sprouts there during the season.
Happy New Year to you and yours Eiling! Hope you’ve having the time of your life there! 🙂
Wow! U cooked all those! Im impressed! Turkey has always been a challenge for me. But i believe homecook dinner is always special. Good job with the turkey!
Thanks! You cook awesome Dayak food from what I see too! 🙂
We followed the recipe from theKitchn.com – how to cook a fast turkey and it worked! The bird came out juicy and succulent, and it was super fast. The tips are solid too – no trussing the bird, no stuffing it until the end etc etc.
Yup, a homecooked dinner is always best! We bought some of the sides though – the Brussels sprouts and peach trifle were from a restaurant.
Here’s hoping you get the turkey done to your satisfaction next year! The recipe from the link really works!
It was quite funny to think back when you have to make a few calls in search for a turkey, dear. Nevertheless, your effort was paid off except you have to cook it yourself. The turkey was beautifully roasted by retaining the moisture in the meat . Great job there, dear. Glad everyone loves it. <3 *hugs*
Now I feel like having a trifle again…Yummm!
I’m glad you liked it dear! 🙂
Haha! Yeah, I had to make a lot of phone calls to get that turkey!
…but at least we finally managed to get it! I’m glad we had a nice Christmas dinner with your parents and the kids dear! The trifle was good, and now we have our own trifle bowl, we can make one ourselves!
Love you always dear!