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Thanksgiving Turkey


  • Author: dwardcooks

Ingredients

Scale

18-22 pound turkey

4 tbsp butter

fresh sage (about 15-20 leaves)

fresh thyme (a full bunch)

fresh rosemary (4 sprigs)

1 orange

turkey stock (4 cups + more if making gravy)

vegetable oil

kosher salt 

pepper


Instructions

  1. Remove neck and gizzards from turkey.  Dry cavity with paper towels.
  2. Loosen skin on turkey breast with hand.
  3. In a bowl, combine 4 tbsp salted butter, 5 sage leaves (finely chopped), 1 tbsp rosemary (finely chopped), 1 tbsp thyme, 1/4 tsp nutmeg, pinch of salt.
  4. Spread compound butter under skin and put turkey in the refrigerator overnight.  

Next Day

  1. Preheat oven to 500.
  2. Cut one apple, one onion, and one orange.  Add 2 cinnamon sticks to a microwave safe bowl with 2 cups of water, the fruit, and the onion.  Microwave for 5 minutes.
  3. Liberally salt turkey cavity and stuff with onion, apple, orange, 2 rosemary sprigs, about 10 sage leaves, and a handful of thyme (if you hold the bunch closely, roughly the width of a penny?).  
  4. Truss the turkey, sprinkle salt and pepper on the outside.  Spread 1 tbsp of vegetable oil on outside of the turkey.  Pour 4 cups of turkey stock into the bottom of the pan, throw in some herbs, and roast at 500 for 30 minutes.
  5. After the 30 minutes, remove turkey.  Place meat thermometer in thicket part of the turkey (youtube it if you're unfamiliar), cover the breast in aluminum foil, and roast until internal temp is 162.
  6. Remove turkey and loosely cover with aluminum foil.  Temperature will rise to 165 while resting.  Rest for 20 minutes, slice, and serve.

Notes

For a 20 pound turkey, the turkey cooked for about 3.5 hours at 350.