This turkey can be used for any occasion just add the garnishing of the season and enjoy!
Turkey Preparation
*Fresh Turkey or **Frozen Turkey
*1 cup Table Salt, dissolve in 8 cups warm water
*8 cups cold water
*16 cups cubed Ice
*Plastic Container with lid to hold Turkey and will fit in your fridge
**Frozen Turkey will need to be purchased early and allowed to thaw in its original packaging in the refrigerator in Stainless Steel Pan/Glass/Plastic to catch the juices from thawing. Our frozen turkey was almost 12 pounds we bought it about 4 days before we wanted to prepare the turkey in the brine.
After your turkey is thawed remove the neck and Giblets and refrigerate them until ready to make the gravy.
Prepare the Brine:
*In clean plastic container used only for handling food, place your turkey inside the plastic container adding the above ingredients in order they are listed. Put the lid on container and place in the refrigerator overnight.
Remove the turkey container from the fridge when you are ready to prepare your turkey for roasting. Pour off the brine into the sink and add fresh clean water to the container with turkey to rinse it off. Then pour off the fresh water and pat the turkey dry with Paper Towels.
Seasoning and Stuffing
Quarter cut the following for stuffing which adds moisture and flavor to your Turkey.
*Lemon
*Apple
*small orange, or you can just use the rind
*Onion
*2 sprigs Fresh Rosemary
Add more or less of these ingredients depending on the size of your Turkey. You can use baking twine to sew up the openings but we opted to skip this step. Remove and discard stuffing after roasting turkey.
Seasonings
*Fresh Rosemary Leaves or dried
*Grated Orange Peel
*1-2 Teaspoons Poultry Seasonings of your Choice
* Olive Oil for rubbing all over your turkey skin before rubbing on the above seasonings.
You can put seasonings under the skin careful not to rip the skin. If your turkey has the pop out timer in your turkey the skin would probably rip so we opted not to lift and season under the skin. We did not count on the pop up timer in the turkey to tell us when our turkey was done we used an oven safe thermometer. (Even if you don’t use the pop out timer to know when your turkeys done. Don’t remove it from the turkey because you could lose all your juices from the turkey through the hole making the turkey dry.)
If using oven safe thermometer insert into the thickest part of the breast.
Place your prepared turkey in a good Roasting Pan.
We placed to pieces of heavy duty aluminum foil over turkey while baking and then removed the last 30 minutes of roasting the turkey for browning.
Cooking time for your turkey will vary depending on the size of your turkey. Check your package for a good estimate for when your turkey will be done and it is a good idea to have some sort of meat thermometer. 165* F is the standard temperature for when your turkey will be done. We cooked ours to about 163*F and removed from the oven because your turkey will need to rest about 30 minutes. Covering the turkey again with the Foil allowing moisture to remain in the turkey keeping it moist, your turkey will continue to cook Few degrees after removing from the oven.
*See below to make the Gravy.
The above picture is of the turkey after being in the refrigerator all night.
The above picture is to show how to tuck under the wings of the turkey so they won’t get to brown
Turkey Gravy
Gravy
I place the Neck and the Giblets in a sauce pan/with lid, on low, covered them with water and simmer for about as long as my turkey cooked in the oven, making sure Neck and Giblets are always covered with water during simmering time.
Mix together
*Drippings from the Turkey, removing fat from the juices
*Juices from the Neck and Giblets
For thickening:
*Approximately 1/2 cup Drippings/juices using the from above, cooled
*Approximately 1/3 cup Flour
Whisk thickening together and slowly add to the drippings/Juices, simmering until desired thickness. We then used an emulsion blender to make it smooth. Salt and Pepper to taste. See below for fresh roasted Pepper.
Roasted Peppercorns
Happy Cooking!
Jessica and Lindy
