Not impressed with lacking in flavour free-range turkey crown from M&S, definitely not worth the money.

Only need a crown, specialist independent suppliers appear to sell whole birds.

What’s a fussy and awkward girl to do?

Goose or duck. Local butcher!

Get a fresh Gammon and par boil it, then roast it off with english mustard, dark brown sugar, honey, sea salt and some liquid smoke.
Keep the burnt ends for yourself ;-0

Local farm.
Watch it strut, look into its eye just to let it know it’s the one.
Bosh! Job done.
Or the local butcher.

Find a good butcher – ours does pretty much anything you reqeust.

Grundys.

We swapped some Organic Beef from the Farm for a Turkey 1/2 mile away on another Farm.

Goose from here. Five minutes drive away. Lovely.

Wife’s godparents, have chickens, geese & turkeys in their garden and always pick the best for them & us (we do Christmas with them and the in laws every year).
Not always large so sometimes have two but the meat is so much nicer!

Very pleased with ours this year, so will give a shout out to WaltersTurkey

Vinney, the local meat wholesalers in Bolton, Meat Direct.
Weirdly enough when he heard my voice & came downstairs and had a fiddle with the scales to check accuracy or whatever, I strangely got charged less than actual cost for a 5lbs turkey crown, 5lbs trimmed silverside joint, 4lbs sirloin steaks cut in 6 good portions, a leg of lamb as long as me arm and a monster helping of black pudding.
£50.
It’s not what you know it’s who you know, the local mechanic who I’ve known since year dot was a pro butcher before his change in career, and half his relatives know the directors!

Oh and bear in mind – a local butcher is not just for Christmas.

Capon from local butchers.

Free-range chicken is far better.

If you want flavour and quality get a whole free range turkey from the butcher not a crown. If you really don’t need that much meat then get a chicken, goose or duck which will have even more flavour and moisture.

Not that much for meat? We fed 6 people twice with our free-range chicken. Still some left for curry.

Barlows up next to Peter Hansfords have always done crowns if you ask and never had a bad bird from them.
Olivers Battery, Winchester.

Tea at Dracs house tomorrow, for chicken ding curry?

Too late it went today.

get meat from your butcher. Best food thing I ever did.

Nearest butcher to me is the slowest place on earth to get served so I refuse to go there. They pander to the grannies who painstakingly only ever ask for one item at a time and staff will still try to promote their loyalty card scheme despite big queues.

Award winning place, yet very few organic offerings and the serving staff often don’t seem to know much about the produce!

So decent supermarket stuff for me.

Nowt wrong with Morrisons butchers, fella…

Another vote for a Capon here, Turkey is yuk.

Local farm shop butchers. Since halving my shopping bill by switching to Aldi from Sainsbury’s & Tesco’s I spend some of the savings in buying meat from proper butchers. A bit more expensive, though not as much as you might think, but a different league from the anaemic matter you get from the main Supermarkets. Costco does good meat too.

Free range Chicken, you’ll feed six from a 2.5kg one with leftovers for a curry. If you dont think thats enough get two.

Turkey isnt very nice imo.

Christmas dinner was at the in-laws as usual. They go to the local auction for turkeys, i think this year’s was the best turkey I’ve tasted.