Hello this is Chef John from Foodwishes.com with how to cook a turkey. The Holidays are coming up, Thanksgiving, Christmas and a lot of people are afraid to cook turkey. They’re chicken so here’s how I do it. This is a very simple basic method; I want to make a seasoned salt with some black pepper, some salt and some poultry seasoning.
Just a very basic seasoning mix, the second part of the seasoning is a smear pot. This is carrot, celery and onions cut up and then I do a flavored butter with some rosemary and sage and a little bit of garlic. You are going to take the package that comes in the turkey; you got to take out the neck.
The heart and the gizzard but not the liver with one bay leaf in about six cups of water. And you can put that on too simmer and that is going to cook for a couple of hours. That is going to make a quick turkey stock that we will use in part two. This is part one, now to prep the turkey by the way it is a 12 pound turkey. I hate burned wing tips, there’s nothing uglier than a burned wing tip.
So we are going to fold that underneath like that and that is going to give a nice stable base. And it’s going to look a lot prettier, now we are going to pull the turkey up on its head. And you are going to liberally season the inside all over, you need a good amount. We are also going to put a handful not a lot. Just a handful and then we are going to stuff some rosemary and sage in there also.
And that is going to make for a very aromatic turkey kind of flavored from the inside. Then we are going to tie the legs together with some string, you can use unflavored floss. Don’t use the minty fresh kind but to any kind of floss will work. So that is the inside – done, now for the outside, I’m going to go in and I’m going to loosen the skin on the top of the breast. Now you can start with your fingers, what I like to do is take a thin rubber spatula. It has to be something that is dull because a metal object will might tear through to the skin.
The skin is very tough, the sharp edge will poke through which is now what you want. So I might take a spatula like that and just kind open up that skin, it’s actually not that hard. Then I will put two big spoons of my flavored butter, my herb butter underneath the skin. I’m going to rub it down until it kind of spread out evenly. And that’s going to really keep the breast moist and flavor from the inside.
Then I will take the rest of the butter and I will spread all over the outside and the side. Just don’t do on the top and that’s really going to keep the outside moist and flavorful. We’re going to salt and pepper with our spiced mix there, the outside liberally. I’m going to dump the rest of the mere pot in a pan, I’m going to put the turkey on top and I will going to pour in a little bit of water to make free moist cooking environment.
And also it gives me some great juices later to add to my gravy. I will be going to put some foil over the turkey breast – very important for the first half of the cooking approximately. So why did doesn’t get overcooked too dark on top? And then I will be going to pull it off and it’s going to get nice and brown later. You’ll see that in part two; we are going to roast at 325 a nice slow oven.
One of the secrets slow oven, we are going to do that about 18 minutes per pound. You get the assistant approximate time. You got to check with a thermometer at 165 is what you want. So you can do the math to see if you have an idea but towards the end you are going to test it in the thickest part of the thigh. And that’s you know it’s done, so that is part one how to prep the turkey. Get it in the oven and in part, two we’re going to pull it out – let it rest to make the gravy okay?
So anyway I hope you enjoy that I will do ingredients for that stuff on the site and as always enjoy.
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