Turkey Time!

What an AMAZING turkey turn out! This was mine and Jason's very first turkey we both cooked and it was a huge success. It had a really great golden brown crispy skin with the juiciest meat! The flavors from the seasoning went throughout the entire turkey. I HIGHLY recommend slow roasting. Here's what you need below to get started and I'll walk you through the whole process! We used an 11 lb turkey for our group of 7 yesterday.

*First, the night before Thanksgiving, we brinned our turkey. We used a HUGE pot. Place 3 gallons of cold water, 2 cups Kosher salt, 1 cup sugar, 4-5 Thyme sprigs (whole), handful whole peppercorns, several garlic cloves (halved with skin); stir to make sure salt and sugar dissolve. Place turkey in water, cover, and let sit overnight. Do not exceed 12 hours. (We did ours for roughly 9 hours). Doing this will help keep meat moist during cooking, along with another step you will see below. (Don't forget to take the neck and giblets out of the carcass.


Start by preheating your oven to 475 degrees and get the following together:


Roasting Rack













Washed and dice celery and carrots;
Quarter chopped sweet onions;
Placed under turkey rack to mix with drippings!










Room temp. stick of salted butter;
Fresh Thyme & Sage;
Garlic Powder;
Oregano;
Mash together in butter









Separate skin from meat without tearing;
Gently go as far as your hand will fit;
May need to gently slice cartilage with knife to get it started.










Take a big "gob" of butter mixture onto fork and place between the skin and meat. Then take your finger and spread butter underneath by pressing top of skin and "smooshing" the butter towards the neck. Don't worry if you can't get the butter close to neck or all the way down the breast of the bird because during cooking it will melt down throughout the bird. Doing this will also help keep your meat extra moist and not to dry out!








Place your turkey on the roasting rack above the vegetables. Generously sprinkle bird with pepper. (Since we used salted butter instead of unsalted, we didn't put extra salt on the outside). Doing this will help "crisp" up the skin. Once done and your oven is preheated to 475 degrees, place turkey in oven an cook for 20 minutes only. Yep, 20 minutes. This will "seal" the turkey's moisture and you won't have to bast it for the remaining cooking process - no joke.


Take turkey out of oven after 1st 20 mins;
The string you see here is not "trussing" it;
This string came with the turkey and helped with lifting it off the rack onto a plate when it was finished.









See how the very tips of the wings got really brown?
I covered just the tips with a little foil for the remaining cooking time.

While bird is resting, lower oven to 250 degrees.
You want to slow cook your bird so it doesn't cook to fast because this will dry it out.

Your turkey should start looking golden brown like this after the first 20 minutes on high temperature.








When oven is at 250 degrees, put turkey back in and cook for about 3 hours, 40 mins. (for 11 lb) or until breast reads 170 degrees, thighs read 180 degrees and juices run clear. Here's times for other lbs. Regardless of pounds - make sure internal temperate is at these degrees.

10 lbs - 3 hours. 20 mins.
12 lbs - 4 hours
13 lbs - 4 hours 20 mins.
14 lbs - 4 hours 40 mins.
15 lbs - 5 hours
16 lbs - 5 hours 20 mins.
17 lbs - 5 hours 40 mins.
18 lbs - 6 hours
19 lbs - 6 hours 20 mins.
20 lbs - 6 hours 40 mins.

Once complete, lift turkey out of roasting pan and place on platter. (We forgot a big turkey platter at home, so we had to use the biggest plate we could find.) Start carving by taking the legs off first, then starting in the middle of the bird, at the top, slice the breast thin.

Hope you enjoy as much as we enjoyed making this turkey!

~Made by: Holly & Jason