Question for you fellow turkey chefs.
(This part isn't relevant) We had some friends over at the weekend, so decided to do a bit of a Christmas dinner. Had a small turkey about 2ish KGs from what i remember, but cooking time on the pack was 2 hours and 4 minutes. I prepped the turkey in the morning - usual stuff, thyme and butter under the skin, couple of slices of orange under the skin, and two halves in the cavity (was only a crown). I then rubbed olive oil over the outside of the skin and added a sprinkle of salt and pepper. It was laid on a bed of raw carrots chopped in half, with a whole white onion very loosely chopped in the base.
I pre-heated the oven, and wrapped some foil loosely over the turkey and covered around the tray. Once oven got to temperature i stuck it in. After about an hour, i took it out and basted it with the small amount of juices that were now in the bottom. Recovered with foil and stuck it back in the oven.
Took it out about another half hour later, so we're approximately 90 minutes in out of 124 minutes. Probed it with a thermometer and most areas were reporting 80C+, and googling found a load of sites saying it's cooked when it hits 70C. I could see the juices run clear when i pulled the thermometer out.
I think our oven actually does run hotter than the temperature it sets to, but my question is, knowing that the turkey was giving an 80C temperature and juices ran clear, would you have continued cooking it for the remainder of the half an hour potentially drying it out, or would you have been satisfied that it has cooked early.
