I need help cooking my first turkey !!!?!
Answers: this is my first christmas away from home and i need help cooking my first turkey...its about 5-7 kgs (around 10 pounds i guess) i dont want it to be dry lol...so any help is appreciated !!!
Turkey with Herbes de Provence and Citrus is a great recipe i've made it twice and it came out great! the lemons, oranges, and onions inside the turkey lock in the moisture. follow the recipe on the link...
Turkey ready to go in the oven
My mom's turkey is unlike others. The breast meat isn't dried out, requiring cupfuls of gravy to taste good, but moist and flavorful. I've been watching her make our family turkey for years. Finally a few years ago she let me make it, giving instructions the entire time. Here I am, ready to put it in the oven. Mom's method is to buy the best quality turkey available (organic, free-range, etc.) and cook it breast-side down. She also cooks the turkey stuffing separately, not in the cavity, which makes it easier to cook the turkey more evenly.
Preparation time: About 5 hours.
1 turkey, approx. 15 lbs.*
Juice of a lemon
Salt and pepper
Olive oil or melted butter
1/2 yellow onion, peeled and quartered
Tops and bottoms of a bunch of celery
2 carrots
Parsley
Sprigs of fresh rosemary, thyme
* Need help figuring out how big a turkey to get? Butterball has a turkey calculator that helps you figure out just how many pounds you need. In general, plan for:
12-15 lb turkey for 10-12 people
15-18 lb turkey for 14-16 people
18-22 lb turkey for 20-22 people
1 To start, if the turkey has been refrigerated, bring it to room temperature before cooking. Keep it in its plastic wrapping until you are ready to cook it. While in the refrigerator, and or while you are bringing it to room temp, have the bird resting in a pan, so that if the plastic covering leaks for any reason, you are confining the juices to the pan. If you get a frozen turkey, you will need to defrost it in the refrigerator for several days first. Allow approximately 5 hours of defrosting for every pound. So, if you have a 15 pound turkey, it will take about 75 hours to defrost it in the refrigerator, or around 3 days.
Handle a raw turkey with the same amount of caution as when you handle raw chicken - use a separate cutting board and utensils to avoid contaminating other foods. Wash you hands with soap before touching anything else in the kitchen. Use paper towels to clean up.
Remove the neck and giblets (heart, gizzard, liver). Use the heart and gizzard for making stock for the stuffing. The neck can be cooked along side the turkey or saved for turkey soup.
Note that if your turkey comes with a plastic piece holding the legs together, check the instructions on the turkey's package. Most likely you do not need to remove those plastic ties for cooking (unless you plan to cook your turkey at a very high temperature). If you remove the plastic ties, you will need to use kitchen string to tie the legs together.
2 Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
3 Wash out the turkey with water. Pull out any remaining feather stubs in the turkey skin. Pat the turkey dry with paper towels. Lather the inside of the cavity with the juice of half a lemon. Take a small handful of salt and rub all over the inside of the turkey.
4 In this method of cooking a turkey, we don't make the stuffing in the turkey because doing so adds too much to the cooking time. For flavor, put in inside the turkey a half a yellow onion, peeled and quartered, a bunch of parsley, a couple of carrots, and some tops and bottoms of celery. You may need to cap the body cavity with some aluminum foil so that the stuffing doesn't easily fall out. Close up the turkey cavity with either string (not nylon string!) or metal skewers. Make sure that the turkey's legs are tied together, held close to the body, and tie a string around the turkey body to hold the wings in close.
The neck cavity can be stuffed with parsley and tied closed with thin skewers and string.
5 Rub either melted butter or olive oil all over the outside of the turkey. Sprinkle salt generously all over the outside of the turkey (or have had it soaking in salt-water brine before starting this process). Sprinkle pepper over the turkey.
6 Place turkey BREAST DOWN on the bottom of a rack over a sturdy roasting pan big enough to catch all the drippings. This is the main difference between the way mom makes turkey and everyone else. Cooking the turkey breast down means the skin over the breast will not get so brown. However, all of the juices from the cooking turkey will fall down into the breast while cooking. And the resulting bird will have the most succulent turkey breast imaginable.
Add several sprigs of fresh (if possible) thyme and rosemary to the outside of the turkey.
7 Chop up the turkey giblets (gizzard, heart, liver). Put into a small saucepan, cover with water, add salt. Bring to simmer for an hour or so to help make stock for the stuffing (see stuffing recipe).
8 Put the turkey in the oven. Check the cooking directions on the turkey packaging. Gourmet turkeys often don't take as long to cook. With the turkeys mom gets, she recommends cooking time of about 15 minutes for every pound. For the 15 lb turkey, start the cooking at 400 F for the first 1/2 hour. Then reduce the heat to 350 F for the next 2 hours. Then reduce the heat further to 225 F for the next hour to hour and a half.
If you want the breast to be browned as well, you can turn over the bird for the last 15-20 minutes of cooking, at an oven temp of 300°F. (Oven must be at least 250°F for browning to occur.) Note that if you do this, you will have a higher risk of overcooking the turkey breast. We never worry about browning the breast.
Start taking temperature readings with a meat thermometer, inserted deep into the thickest part of the turkey breast and thigh, a half hour before the turkey should be done. The dark meat in the thigh should be about 175 F. The white meat in the breast should be 160 F to 165 F. If you don't have a meat thermometer, spear the breast with a knife. The turkey juices should be clear, not pink.
9 Once you remove the turkey from the oven, let it rest for 15-20 minutes. Turn the turkey breast side up to carve it. (See San Francisco Chronicle's Olivia Wu on carving a turkey and Bon Appetit's instructions on how to carve a turkey.)
Making Turkey Gravy
Scrape all the drippings off of the bottom of the roasting pan. Pour drippings into a smaller skillet. Ladle off excess fat with a gravy spoon and save for possible use later. In a separate small bowl take a quarter cup of corn starch and add just enough water to dissolve the corn starch. Beat cornstarch with a spoon to remove lumps. Slowly add the cornstarch mixture to the drippings, stirring constantly. You may not end up using all of the cornstarch mixture. Only add as much as you need to get the desired thickness. Allow time for the cornstarch to thicken the gravy. Add salt, pepper, sage, thyme, or other seasonings to taste.
Save Bones for Stock
When you are finished with your turkey, save the bones from the carcass to make a delicious turkey soup.
Turkey Hotlines
If you find yourself in a bind with how to cook your turkey, there are several companies that offer telephone hotlines during the holiday season:
Butterball Turkey Talk Line (800) 288-8372 See Butterball's top ten turkey questions
California Poultry Federation Hotline (888) 822-4004; 8 a.m. to noon and 1-5 pm, weedays.
Foster Farms Turkey Helpine (800) 255-7227
Reynolds Kitchens (800) 745-4000; 24hrs a day through Dec 31
Happy Holidays!
its gonna take forever to cook that
i am a single man and i put it in a reynolds oven bag according to the directions in the box of the bags.
always worked fine for me.
i always just throw it in the oven,put maximum heat reducing it time to time until its ready and it has always been fine!
t's very important to plan your cooking time in advance, to make sure you get the bird in the oven early enough to cook it thoroughly. A large turkey can take several hours to cook properly.
How to check your bird is cooked
These cooking guidelines are only estimates; always check that the bird is properly cooked before serving, because eating undercooked turkey (or other poultry) could cause food poisoning.
These are the three main ways to tell if poultry is cooked:
the meat should be piping hot all the way through
when you cut into the thickest part of the meat, none of the meat should be pink
if juices run out when you pierce the turkey, or when you press the thigh, they should be clear
How long to cook
These cooking times are based on an unstuffed bird. It's better to cook your stuffing in a separate roasting tin, rather than inside the bird, so it will cook more easily and cooking guidelines will be more accurate. (If you cook your bird with the stuffing inside, you will need to allow extra time for the amount of stuffing and allow for the fact that it cooks more slowly.)
Remember some ovens, such as fan-assisted ovens, might cook the bird more quickly – check the manufacturer's handbook for your oven if you can. Always check that the meat is cooked thorougly before serving.
As a general guide, in an oven preheated to 180oC (350oF, Gas Mark 4):
for a turkey under 4.5kg, allow 45 minutes per kg plus 20 minutes
for a turkey weighing between 4.5kg and 6.5kg, allow 40 minutes per kg
for a turkey over 6.5kg, allow 35 minutes per kg
Tip: Cover your turkey with foil during cooking and uncover for the last 30 minutes to brown the skin. To stop the meat drying out, baste it every hour during cooking.
one thing my mum dose is to put bacon over the top of the turkey, cook it very slowly over night. in the morning cook fresh bread put the bacon from the turkey in the bread and enjoy. breakfast cooked as well
ps remember that a turkey is for xmas not for life!!!!
mmmm you could melt some butter on the side with some brown sugar or whatever you want to put on top of your turkey and with a knife stab the trurkey all around and when its in the oven and you keep checking on your turkey with the turkey squeezer squeeze the melted butter and brown sugar and it will keep your turkey nice and juicy.....mmmmmm
You thaw it out real good
wash it real good, remove the packet containing the innards
tuck under the wingtips
put some seasoned salt all over it
put a can of chicken broth in the pan
cook the bird@325 for 3.5 hours covered.
That is it. People mess up when they fail to properly defrost a bird or stuff it with messy dressing.
While you are baking the bird you can boil a package of turkey necks with them innards and make some killer dirty rice. Or you can remove the bird after cooking and add some bread to the juices and sauted veggies along with the boiled necks and make some dressing. While that dressing is getting all jiggy you can be carving the turkey .add back the pieces and cover the whole shebang till eating time.
I've cooked more than a few turkeys over the years, and eaten even more. I'd say at least half to two-thirds of them were way to dry.
I've found only one method of cooking a turkey so that it is consistently moist, and that method is brining.
Here is a recipe from Alton Brown's Good Eats that produces a moist tasty turkey every time.
Doc
Good Eats Roast Turkey
Recipe courtesy Alton Brown
1 (14 to 16 pound) frozen young turkey
For the brine:
1 cup kosher salt
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 gallon vegetable stock
1 tablespoon black peppercorns
1/2 tablespoon allspice berries
1/2 tablespoon candied ginger
1 gallon iced water
For the aromatics:
1 red apple, sliced
1/2 onion, sliced
1 cinnamon stick
1 cup water
4 sprigs rosemary
6 leaves sage
Canola oil
Combine all brine ingredients, except ice water, in a stockpot, and bring to a boil. Stir to dissolve solids, then remove from heat, cool to room temperature, and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled.
Early on the day of cooking, (or late the night before) combine the brine and ice water in a clean 5-gallon bucket. Place thawed turkey breast side down in brine, cover, and refrigerate or set in cool area (like a basement) for 6 hours. Turn turkey over once, half way through brining.
A few minutes before roasting, heat oven to 500 degrees. Combine the apple, onion, cinnamon stick, and cup of water in a microwave safe dish and microwave on high for 5 minutes.
Remove bird from brine and rinse inside and out with cold water. Discard brine.
Place bird on roasting rack inside wide, low pan and pat dry with paper towels. Add steeped aromatics to cavity along with rosemary and sage. Tuck back wings and coat whole bird liberally with canola (or other neutral) oil.
Roast on lowest level of the oven at 500 degrees F. for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and cover breast with double layer of aluminum foil, insert probe thermometer into thickest part of the breast and return to oven, reducing temperature to 350 degrees F. Set thermometer alarm (if available) to 161 degrees. A 14 to 16 pound bird should require a total of 2 to 2 1/2 hours of roasting. Let turkey rest, loosely covered for 15 minutes before carving.