Spatchcock it and cook it flat from semi-frozen. Use cold water to thaw it enough that you can manipulate it/crack it flat.

This will require a good pair of bone shears.

Yay!

This is OP. By some miracle, my turkey was thawed and ready to cook Thursday morning - and, while I generally hate turkey - was able to produce a genuinely great turkey. To be fair, I mostly supervised the actual cooking of it but it came out really well.

Anonymous wrote:There are still fresh, not frozen, turkeys for sale in grocery stores.

This

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:cold water bath to defrost faster - 30 minutes per lb. from frozen

Keep the water cold and change it out every 30 minutes

Once the outside is defrosted, put it back into the fridge.

You can defrost the inner core/neck tomorrow morning by running cold water into the cavity.

Much easier method: Turkey in a plastic garbage bag, put in a cooler. (I'm assuming a turkey wrapped in plastic inside the netting from the supermarket, I have no idea how heritage turkeys are handled by producers.)F ill with cold water. Keep in mind when you submerge the turkey water level will come up so leave space for that. The you must submerge the turkey. This year I had a 22 pound turkey, cooler was big enough to accommodate a 9 by 13 cake pan, I put a cast iron frying pan inside that--sometimes it's tricky to set up the weight because the turkey is both buoyant and rounded. Close the cooler. A guest was contributing the turkey and it hadn't come out of her freezer until Monday night and thawed barely a quarter inch in by Wednesday afternoon. Went in the cooler 6 pm Wednesday, by 10 am I just had to get the ice out of the cavity by running cold water into the cavity, then making sure the area around the cavity was not frozen.

I certainly have never had a sink big enough to dedicate to cold water turkey thawing, or emptying and refilling some big container. This way the water stays barely above freezing (colder than anything in my fridge) and I'm dealing with large amounts of water just twice.

Anonymous wrote:Call the Butterball hotline.

This.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Butterball has been my choice for decades. The above water thaw is the correct method. You will be surprised how quickly it will thaw. Keep it in the refrigerator with the wrapping on. Have a nice thanksgiving!

Thank you experts! We put the bird, wrapper on, in a bowl of cold water inside the refrigerator. By some thanksgiving miracle, the bird was thawed within a few hours. Now wish me luck cooking the thing ...

Im glad you thawed it!!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Butterball has been my choice for decades. The above water thaw is the correct method. You will be surprised how quickly it will thaw. Keep it in the refrigerator with the wrapping on. Have a nice thanksgiving!

Thank you experts! We put the bird, wrapper on, in a bowl of cold water inside the refrigerator. By some thanksgiving miracle, the bird was thawed within a few hours. Now wish me luck cooking the thing ...

Thanks for the update! It truly is a miracle. I was going to suggest par-cooking and then dismantling the thing. But I think turkey is stupid and needing the whole bird presentation is dumb! So good luck cooking the whole dumb bird and you can always disassemble it and air fry the pieces!

This is OP. I'm already wishing I had insisted on going skiing or anything else besides cooking a turkey. I'll let you know how it goes once I find the motivation to start!

Anonymous wrote:OP - Post update here in 24 hrs.

She already did, three posts above.