Tips I Learned About Baking Our Thanksgiving Turkey

We made 2 platters of turkey:  one for white meat, the other for the dark meat.  Chris
(Photo courtesy of Will Evans)

     My turkey's have always been, at best, tasty but dry.  I tried something different this year and it turned out to be great -- in fact, my husband said repeatedly that it was the best I've ever fixed!  So, to share (and to put this somewhere that I can refer back to it myself!), I'm posting here what I did to this turkey. 

     Hope your's turns out as good as ours did this year!  

                                               Chris

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18 - 20 pound turkey (mine was still frozen solid)

Spices:  
     Course ground black pepper
     Salt
     Sweet Basil, about 1 teaspoon
     Garlic, about 1 teaspoon
     Rosemary, about 1/2 teaspoon
     Marjoram, about 1/4 teaspoon
     Sage, about 1 teaspoon


Line a large roasting pan with heavy duty aluminum foil, leaving enough on all 4 sides to secure the top piece of foil to it. 

Place the turkey in the foil-lined pan BREAST DOWN.  

Mix together all the spices EXCEPT the salt and pepper. Sprinkle about 1/4 of the mix over the turkey and put the rest in the pan around the turkey.

Generously salt (about 1 tablespoon) the turkey.

And more generously coat the back of the turkey with the black pepper, also sprinkling some into the pan around the turkey.

Put 1 cup of water in the pan around the turkey.

Now you need to make a foil enclosure for the turkey, a LOOSE foil enclosure; don't press the foil down onto the turkey.  Using a large enough piece of foil to cover the turkey, folding the edges of the top piece onto the side pieces all the way around.  Again, do not press the foil down onto the turkey - make it more of a tent around the turkey so that as it cooks, the moisture is maintained within the enclosure.  

NOTE:  cooking the turkey this way will NOT make the skin crispy.  It does cook the meat thoroughly with moist heat and all of the flavor and moisture is maintained within the enclosure.

Cook the turkey at 250 degrees for about 6 hours (if your turkey is smaller, reduce the cooking time, not the heat).  

Remove from the oven and sit the pan aside.  Allow it to cool slowly, about 1/2 hour, and DO NOT OPEN the foil. 

There will be a good quantity of broth in the pan.  Before you start cutting the meat, spoon some of the broth over the turkey.  You can also spoon some of the broth over the meat in the platters, cover the platters with foil, and put in a warm oven to hold until ready to serve.

We strained our broth and used it for the liquid in our dressing.   

Our turkey was so moist and tender, that it literally pulled apart.  You won't get firm, clean slicing, but the meat is flavorful and fork tender.