Christmas is nothing without the turkey. But cooking a bird can be tough to get right. This is not the time to experiment: This is the time to straight up rip off the chefs whose recipes you also copy the other 364 days of the year.

Lidia Bastianich

The Italian chef swears by this trick to make your turkey look like it belongs on the cover of a magazine: Fifteen minutes before it's done cooking, brush balsamic vinegar glaze over the entire bird, and stick it back in the oven. When you pull it out, the turkey will have a shiny, deep golden hue, and the skin will taste insanely crispy.

Bobby Flay

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Chicken stock is the unsung hero of Turkey Day, Flay insists. If your carved turkey is going to be sitting on a platter for a while before anyone eats it, have a pot of hot chicken stock at the ready. Flay likes to ladle it over slices of meat to make them juicy and warm again.

Wolfgang Puck

Puck's strategy may seem sacrilegious for traditionalists, but it makes a lot of sense. He recommends roasting each part of the turkey separately, with the idea that each piece needs different cooking times. People won't need to eat overcooked breast meat if you make them in a different pan than the legs.

Alex Guarnaschelli

To infuse smoky flavour into her bird, Guarnaschelli adds wood chips to the turkey pan. She soaks and drains them first (apple wood or cherry wood is her favourite), and places them in a highly oiled sauté pan that's large enough to hold a bird. Then, the chef places the pan on the stovetop until the chips start to smoke, at which point she transfers it to the oven for 10 to 15 minutes.

Gordon Ramsay

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The key to the juiciest turkey, says Ramsay, is a rubbing butter underneath the bird's skin. He mixes soft butter with salt and pepper, olive oil (which stops the butter from burning), lemon zest and juice, garlic, and parsley. After loosening the skin, Ramsay lines the top of the breast with his butter mixture.

Anne Burrell

The New York-based chef likes to brine her turkey for three days before cooking — but the Big Apple is notorious for small kitchens and fridges. Her solution: Keep your turkey in a ice-filled cooler so it doesn't hog refrigerator space. Change the cubes daily, so the cooler's temperature never rises.

Alton Brown

To anyone who stuffs their turkey before cooking it, Brown says to knock it off. Many people end up overcooking the bird to ensure their stuffing reaches the proper temperature. Brown's method is to cook the stuffing on its own and stuff it inside the bird right after you pull it out of the oven. The chef says the juices from the bird will still drip into the stuffing — but you won't fear salmonella.

From: Delish US