- Mar 25, 2007
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Bake a stuffed 8-12 lb. turkey at 325F for 4 - 4 1/2 hours, per Better Homes and Gardens cookbook.
Here is how I do it so it doesn't dry out: Put a quart of broth or water in the pan. You could probably use brineing mix, although I never tried that. Leave the lid on the roasting pan real tight for the first four hours--if your roasting pan has those little vents, close them up. At this time you do not need to baste it, you can go about making all the other stuff. After 4 hours, take the lid off and rub a stick of butter all over the top, and baste with pan juices. Crank the heat up to 375-400F (I haven't had a very good oven for the past 12 years that I've made turkey this way, so "bread oven temperature" is about right). Wait, oh, 15-30 minutes, until the skin gets nicely browned. Baste every 10 -15 minutes at this point. You may need a helper to get the turkey from the roasting pan to the serving platter when done. I use a rack inside the roasting pan, and I let it rest for 20 minutes after I take it out of the oven, but I often still end up cutting slices and arranging them nicely on the platter instead of serving the whole bird, just because it's such a pain in the butt to get it out of the pan.
You could probably soak the turkey in brine the night before per Alton Brown, but I never tried that. Maybe this year I will try. Anyway, this will produce a very very moist and tender turkey with crispy skin. The only downside is that it is extremely hard to transfer to a platter and cut nicely.
Once you have the turkey out of the pan, put the pan on the stovetop and add 3 cups of broth and 2 cups of wine (Madeira is nice for this) to it. Turn the burners on medium. You can cook the giblets in a saucepan with water, chop them very fine and add that to the pan. Simmer this for about 15-20 minutes, stirring and scraping the little burnt bits and skin off the bottom of the pan--you want as much of those little crispy bits to get into the gravy as possible, they are yummy. In a separate cup or canning jar or something, put 1/4 c. flour. Scoop up about 1/4 cup of the boiling liquid and wisk into the flour, or shake real hard if you put it in a canning jar. When it's a smooth pasty goop, stir that into the boiling pan liquid, wisking as needed to blend it in and keep it from getting too lumpy. Then add about 2 tbsp. finely chopped fresh rosemary, salt and pepper to taste, and simmer until the whole mess thickens into gravy.
Here is how I do it so it doesn't dry out: Put a quart of broth or water in the pan. You could probably use brineing mix, although I never tried that. Leave the lid on the roasting pan real tight for the first four hours--if your roasting pan has those little vents, close them up. At this time you do not need to baste it, you can go about making all the other stuff. After 4 hours, take the lid off and rub a stick of butter all over the top, and baste with pan juices. Crank the heat up to 375-400F (I haven't had a very good oven for the past 12 years that I've made turkey this way, so "bread oven temperature" is about right). Wait, oh, 15-30 minutes, until the skin gets nicely browned. Baste every 10 -15 minutes at this point. You may need a helper to get the turkey from the roasting pan to the serving platter when done. I use a rack inside the roasting pan, and I let it rest for 20 minutes after I take it out of the oven, but I often still end up cutting slices and arranging them nicely on the platter instead of serving the whole bird, just because it's such a pain in the butt to get it out of the pan.
You could probably soak the turkey in brine the night before per Alton Brown, but I never tried that. Maybe this year I will try. Anyway, this will produce a very very moist and tender turkey with crispy skin. The only downside is that it is extremely hard to transfer to a platter and cut nicely.
Once you have the turkey out of the pan, put the pan on the stovetop and add 3 cups of broth and 2 cups of wine (Madeira is nice for this) to it. Turn the burners on medium. You can cook the giblets in a saucepan with water, chop them very fine and add that to the pan. Simmer this for about 15-20 minutes, stirring and scraping the little burnt bits and skin off the bottom of the pan--you want as much of those little crispy bits to get into the gravy as possible, they are yummy. In a separate cup or canning jar or something, put 1/4 c. flour. Scoop up about 1/4 cup of the boiling liquid and wisk into the flour, or shake real hard if you put it in a canning jar. When it's a smooth pasty goop, stir that into the boiling pan liquid, wisking as needed to blend it in and keep it from getting too lumpy. Then add about 2 tbsp. finely chopped fresh rosemary, salt and pepper to taste, and simmer until the whole mess thickens into gravy.
