A roast turkey is the traditional meat of the festive season.
With that being said, it can be pretty dry if not cooked incorrectly - or worse, dangerous if undercooked.
But fear not, there’s a simple bit of mathematics that can ensure your Christmas turkey will impress.
Since the meat itself is made up of several different components, it can be difficult to perfect the turkey, with some parts tasting much better than others.
The darker leg meat will need to be cooked at a higher temperature for extra crispness but the breast meat shouldn’t be overcooked as it will become dry.
As reported by Science Focus, Professor Peter Barham, a gastronomically inclined physicist at the University of Bristol, has the answer we've all been waiting for.
Apparently, the most ‘ideal’ strategy is to chop up your turkey and cook each part separately to its optimum temperature.
This strategy could have its cons though, as the impressive centrepiece of a golden Christmas turkey will essentially be in bits, which is no fun.
So, what exactly are the ideal temperatures for each component? Well, according to Barham, the breast meat shouldn’t be heated above 55°C, and the darker leg meat needs to reach at least 80°C.
For those who love the crispy skin, you’re going to need to have your oven heated to at least 200°C for the result you want.
In terms of timings, this is where things get a little complicated, and involves a mathematical formula.
Stanford University physicist, Wolfgang Panofsky, came up with a nifty formula for turkey baking time.
It was all based on the weight and time in hours, based on the ratio between the surface area and mass of a turkey.
The formula is: t = W(2/3)/1.5
Confused? To slightly simplify things, the T stands for the cooking time in hours and the W is the weight of the turkey in kilograms.
He assumed an oven temperature of 165°C with a classic spherical turkey.
In a nutshell, Panofsky determined that the cooking time could be calculated by raising the weight of the bird to the power of two-thirds, and then multiplying by 1.13.
Of course, you should also use your trusted meat thermometer to ensure the bird is cooked to at least 75°C.
Or you could just have a few glasses of Bailey’s and hope that the cooking time is on the label.
