Roast Turkey

I forgot to buy a turkey until the week before Christmas, and the only ones left were massive, or really, really small. This big bird was 11.38kg (25.09lbs)! I had a momentary panic Christmas morning when I suddenly wondered if it would fit in my roaster. Luckily, it did. I'll have to buy some of those foil roasters to keep on hand "just in case" for future years!

This year's turkey was the best turkey I have ever cooked. I think several factors came into play, but I believe the number one reason it was so perfect was the fact that it was completely thawed before it went into the oven. The last few years my turkeys have been frozen in the middle, so the outside gets overcooked while the inside is still not at the right temperature. It has been disappointing, to say the least. But not this year!

• First, thaw the turkey. Pick your best method. Note: it takes days.
  
• Next, pull the bird out of the fridge and allow it to sit in room temperature while your oven is preheating to 350*F (177*C).
  
• Mix up a spice blend. I used the same spices for both my stuffing and my bird: 1/2 tbsp ground sage, 1/2 tbsp onion powder, 1/2 tbsp garlic powder, 1/2 tsp ground black pepper, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp thyme for each thing- both stuffing and turkey had this amount of seasoning.
  
• Put your turkey into the roaster. I have a little base thing to lift the turkey off the bottom of the pan so it doesn't stick. If you don't have that, I recommend some onions, carrots, and celery to sit under your bird.
• Spread a tbsp of fat on your bird. I used vegetable oil, but butter is pretty popular too.
• Spoon the spice blend over your bird. I actually just used my spoon to spread it around, but if you want to get your fingers into it you'd probably get better coverage.
• I covered my turkey with foil. I know many places say not to, but it worked well for me.
• Check out this link here with cooking times. Mine was bigger than the chart, so I estimated 6 hours, and checked it at 5 hours. I used an instant thermometer to determine that the breast was done and the thigh was not, so I put it back into the oven for another 45 minutes, covered again with foil. I did pull it out of the oven to allow it to "rest" before cutting into it.

This turkey was way too big and awkward to pull out of the pan to slice when it was cooked, so we just sliced it in the pan. I wish I had taken a picture of this beautiful turkey before cutting into it, though! You can see how brown it got even though it was covered. We got 3 crockpot's worth of bones for stock, 2 large freezer bags of meat- one white, one dark, ample drippings for gravy, and some we didn't use for gravy as well that we can use like stock.