Oven Roasted Turkey
This was the first year I cooked a Thanksgiving turkey! My husband and I have always been guests for the holidays, and brought little side dishes. This year, enough family was working on Thanksgiving that we postponed it to the weekend. We decided to just make Thanksgiving for the two of us. I was completely fine with it until I realized with him working, I was making everything myself. Many people reading this are probably thinking, yeah lady we do this every year, twice. Well, kudos to you! It is like a delicate dance to get all the sides, desserts, vegetables, and turkey done at the same time.
I did about a week of research online, reading every article I could get my hands on. Half of them contracted themselves, but got the gist. They all suggesting baking it on 325 degrees, so I did. I decided to stuff my turkey with juicy fruits and veggies to try and keep the meat juicy and not dried out. It all worked out perfectly, which is a huge relief because I had the biggest fear of cutting into this turkey and replaying the scene of Christmas Vacation when they had to dunk their meat in water and it it like turkey brittle.
Ingredients
24 hours before cooking
3 tbsp kosher salt
6 bay leaves
2 tbsp pepper
2 tbsp ground garlic
2 tbsp ground onion
1 sprig rosemary, de-stemmed
1 sprig thyme, de-stemmed
1 hour before cooking
1 stick softened (not melted) butter
1 sprig rosemary, de-stemmed
1 sprig thyme, de-stemmed
1 orange, quartered
1 lemon, quartered
1 small yellow onion, quartered
1 small apple, quartered
Instructions
24 hours before cooking the turkey, combine rosemary, thyme, salt, pepper, bay leaves, onion and garlic into food processor, and blend until bay leaves are small and consistent size as the salt.
Take spices and gently separate skin from the breast meat. Massage breast meat. Shake spices into the turkey cavity. With the rest of spices, massage spices topically making sure to cover all of the skin.
Return turkey to fridge uncovered.
1 hour before cooking the turkey, remove turkey from the fridge. In a small bowl, combine softened butter, rosemary and thyme. Take herb butter and gently separate skin from the breast meat. Massage breast meat. With the rest of the herb butter, massage topically making sure to cover all of the skin.
Add lemon, orange, apple, and onion to the turkey cavity.
Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
Place turkey on roasting pan and place in oven.
For a 16-20 lb turkey, cook for 4 1/2 to 4 3/4 hours.
I tented the turkey with aluminum foil covering the top of the turkey to avoid the skin burning. I also basted the turkey about every hour and a half.
Remove the tenting for the last hour to roast the breast skin.
Remove from the oven when the internal temperature reaches 165 degrees.
Let sit for about 30 minutes, carve and enjoy!
