Method
1 To start, if
the turkey has been refrigerated, bring it to room temperature
before cooking. Keep it in its plastic wrapping until you are ready
to cook it. While in the refrigerator, and or while you are
bringing it to room temp, have the bird resting in a pan, so that
if the plastic covering leaks for any reason, you are confining the
juices to the pan. If you get a frozen turkey, you will need to
defrost it in the refrigerator for several days first. Allow
approximately 5 hours of defrosting for every pound. So, if you
have a 15 pound turkey, it will take about 75 hours to defrost it
in the refrigerator, or around 3 days.
Handle a raw turkey
with the same amount of caution as when you handle raw chicken -
use a separate cutting board and utensils to avoid contaminating
other foods. Wash you hands with soap before touching anything else
in the kitchen. Use paper towels to clean up.
Remove the neck and giblets (heart, gizzard,
liver). Use the heart and gizzard for making stock for the
stuffing. The neck can be cooked along side the turkey or saved
for turkey soup.
Note that if your turkey comes with a plastic piece holding the
legs together, check the instructions on the turkey's package. Most
likely you do not need to remove those plastic ties for cooking
(unless you plan to cook your turkey at a very high temperature).
If you remove the plastic ties, you will need to use kitchen string
to tie the legs together.
2 Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
3 Wash out the turkey with water. Pull out any remaining
feather stubs in the turkey skin. Pat the turkey dry with paper
towels. Lather the inside of the cavity with the juice of half a
lemon. Take a small handful of salt and rub all over the inside of
the turkey.
4 In this method of cooking a turkey, we don't make the
stuffing in the turkey because doing so adds too much to the
cooking time. For flavor, put in inside the turkey a half a yellow
onion, peeled and quartered, a bunch of parsley, a couple of
carrots, and some tops and bottoms of celery. You may need to cap
the body cavity with some aluminum foil so that the stuffing
doesn't easily fall out. Close up the turkey cavity with either
string (not nylon string!) or metal skewers. Make sure that the
turkey's legs are tied together, held close to the body, and tie a
string around the turkey body to hold the wings in close.
The neck cavity can be stuffed with parsley and tied closed with
thin skewers and string.
5 Rub either melted butter or olive oil all over the
outside of the turkey. Sprinkle salt generously all over the
outside of the turkey (or have had it soaking in salt-water brine
before starting this process). Sprinkle pepper over the turkey.
6 Place turkey BREAST DOWN on the bottom of a rack over a
sturdy roasting pan big enough to catch all the drippings. This is
the main difference between the way mom makes turkey and everyone
else. Cooking the turkey breast down means the skin over the breast
will not get so brown. However, all of the juices from the cooking
turkey will fall down into the breast while cooking. And the
resulting bird will have the most succulent turkey breast
imaginable.
Add several sprigs of fresh (if possible) thyme and rosemary to
the outside of the turkey.
7 Chop up the turkey giblets (gizzard, heart). Put into a
small saucepan, cover with water, add salt. Bring to simmer for an
hour or so to help make stock for the stuffing
(see stuffing recipe).
8 Put the turkey in the oven. Check the cooking
directions on the turkey packaging. Gourmet turkeys often don't
take as long to cook. With the turkeys mom gets, she recommends
cooking time of about 15 minutes for every pound. For the 15 lb
turkey, start the cooking at 400 F for the first 1/2 hour. Then
reduce the heat to 350 F for the next 2 hours. Then reduce the heat
further to 225 F for the next hour to hour and a half.
If you want the breast to be browned as well, you can turn over
the bird for the last 15-20 minutes of cooking, at an oven temp of
300°F. (Oven must be at least 250°F for browning to occur.) Note
that if you do this, you will have a higher risk of overcooking the
turkey breast. We never worry about browning the breast.
Start taking temperature readings with a meat thermometer,
inserted deep into the thickest part of the turkey breast and
thigh, a half hour before the turkey should be done. The dark meat
in the thigh should be about 175 F. The white meat in the breast
should be 160 F to 165 F. If you don't have a meat thermometer,
spear the breast with a knife. The turkey juices should be clear,
not pink.
9 Once you remove the turkey from the oven, let it rest
for 15-20 minutes. Turn the turkey breast side up to carve it. (See
Epicurious video on carving a turkey.)
Making Turkey Gravy
Scrape all the drippings off of the bottom of the roasting pan.
Pour drippings into a smaller skillet. Ladle off excess fat with a
gravy spoon and save for possible use later. In a separate small
bowl take a quarter cup of corn starch and add just enough water to
dissolve the corn starch. Beat cornstarch with a spoon to remove
lumps. Slowly add the cornstarch mixture to the drippings, stirring
constantly. You may not end up using all of the cornstarch mixture.
Only add as much as you need to get the desired thickness. Allow
time for the cornstarch to thicken the gravy. Add salt, pepper,
sage, thyme, or other seasonings to taste.
Save Bones for Stock
When you are finished with your turkey, save the bones from the
carcass to make a delicious turkey
soup.