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Hi, I'm John Kennell, and today on Preppy Kitchen I'm going to show you how to cook a juicy and flavorful turkey. So, let's begin. First of all, grab a large baking sheet and a wire rack if you have one. Remove the turkey from its packaging, remove the giblets and anything inside, and place it breast-side up on a baking sheet. Pat the turkey dry and leave it on the counter for about an hour to warm to room temperature. Never put anything icy in the oven unless you are baking. This will warm the turkey up a bit so it cooks more evenly. We dry it so it browns better. This will also help it better absorb the delicious ingredients we'll be spreading on it later. If you marinated the turkey in a wet brine, I have a
separate video on how to do that, right here. Just make sure to drain the liquid well before placing it in the baking dish. After an hour, preheat the oven to 450 degrees so it is very hot. We'll lower the temperature later, don't worry. And now we have some preparatory work to do. Take one large onion, remove the top and outer skin, and then simply cut it into quarters. OK. Take a head of garlic and cut it in half. We'll stuff the bird with aromatic herbs: add eight sprigs of rosemary, eight sprigs of sage, as well as our onion and chopped garlic. Push them inside. I have turkeys on my farm.
They are wild and love to eat my strawberries. So, this is for you for eating my strawberries Here we are stuffing the bird with aromatic ingredients. This is our family tradition, and I love the flavor they give. My mom also adds quartered oranges for extra flavor. I'm going to wash my hands now, and then we'll make some spiced butter. I love washing my hands. This is important for food safety. In a medium bowl, add 1 cup or 226 g of softened unsalted butter. There it is, nice and soft. You want it to be easy to operate. 2 tsp. salts, one and two. And 1.5 tsp. ground black pepper. This could be the end of it if you prefer the simple, clean taste of salt and pepper.
Or we can add something else. I was living in Pasadena and a Whole Foods opened there, it was really exciting. And there was so much interesting stuff there. For example, they had a counter where they could make you butter with additives. It didn't last long, but it was cool. I want to add a little more flavor. So, I have fresh thyme. I'll just chop it finely. I removed the stems, or at least most of them. You can add any herbs you like. For example, we have sage, you can add some more. I kept the recipe simple, with just salt and pepper. Herbs and additional spices-optional. This is for if you want to experiment. A teaspoon of onion powder, one and a half teaspoons of garlic powder. If
you want some chili, that would be appropriate too. In short, add the flavors you like. Now we will combine all this and knead it well. Mm. It smells almost like ranch sauce. And that's in a good way. You can even fry the butter until golden brown if you want. There are so many options for creativity here. The oil with additives can be prepared in advance, stored in the refrigerator, and then warmed to room temperature. So you can break the process down into stages so you don't get nervous on Thanksgiving.
It looks good. Let's put that aside. You want the turkey to cook evenly. The wings and legs, if they are just sticking out, will cook first and burn. This turkey already had legs tucked into the skin. If you don't have one, use cooking twine and tie them together. Click. Just to secure them. With wings, we have a choice. You can cover them with foil, but I think it's better to just fold them under the bottom. That's it. It looks like she's resting. I'll pull out some onions for a minute. And now the main thing. We want the skin to be delicious, but what about the meat underneath? You can do whatever you want with
the surface, the flavor won't seep in. So we will carefully separate the skin and rub our herbal oil under and over the skin. The main thing here is not to tear the skin. It happens. Sometimes a turkey already has damaged skin. It's not the end of the world, but we want to keep the skin if possible so that it insulates the meat and keeps it juicy. Isn't that right? Start by inserting your finger and starting to separate the skin covering the lump. Proceed carefully and slowly. If you have huge hands, you might want to enlist the help of a friend. The second one with small hands. You can also try using the
tip of a spatula or a wooden spoon. You can also move on to the legs, because we want to apply some oil to them as well. Carefully and slowly. Additionally, keeping your nails trimmed short will also help. You can also wear gloves. I try to be very careful because, secretly, I tear my skin every time and I always get upset: "Ouch!" But this time everything will be different. Keep in mind that you don't have to progress all the way to the end. You can leave a little connective tissue to hold everything together and prevent the oil from leaking out. Understand, friends? If you want to do everything carefully,
you can now move on to the neck and start separating the skin there. I'll just leave it at that. So, the legs are separated, the breasts are separated, and now it's time to add our flavored oil. Take some oil and put it under your skin. Now start distributing it with massage movements. Don't try to do all this just under the skin. This will tear her apart. Simply put some of the oil inside, and then move it around, massaging the surface of the skin. It is advisable to leave about half of the oil under the skin and the other half for greasing on top. If I were you and I were watching this video, I would think,
"Hmm, that seems like a lot of work on a holiday. I don't know if I want to do that." I totally get it, so you can make all of this the day before, put it in the fridge, and then take it out, let it warm to room temperature, and bake. So, you can break this process into stages and do some of the work in the evening. Honestly, that's exactly what I would recommend. By the way, if you like my videos, click the subscribe button. Two new recipes are released every week While I'm basting the turkey, let's talk about baking time, because this is the most important part of cooking a turkey. The baking temperature, as well as the time you cook it. You don't want to end up with a dry turkey after all this effort. We typically
calculate 13 minutes per pound for turkey cooking time. If you have a 10-pound turkey, that's 130 minutes, and so on. However, every oven is different. For example, if you saw my big oven, it's specifically designed for baking. It fries wonderfully, and I noticed that it's very fast. So I need to start checking half an hour before it's supposed to be ready. In a conventional oven, I recommend checking the internal temperature at least 15 minutes early. It wouldn't hurt to check . You might be surprised because sometimes things cook much faster or slower than you think. My recipe is for a 10 to 12 pound turkey. This is 2-2.5 hours of baking.
However, we all know that in the market you take what is available. This one, for example, is much larger. This is a 16-pound bird. So it will take 3 to 3.5 hours. If you stuff the turkey with stuffing that you want to eat, the baking time will increase by 2 minutes per pound, which is a lot. It must reach 165°F to be safe to eat. Unfortunately, it can happen that by the time the stuffing reaches 165°, the turkey will be overcooked. I recommend using aromatic herbs and making the filling separately, so you also get a crispy crust. If you're intimidated by turkey carving, click here to watch my video about it. I'll explain everything step by step. It's very simple, and you can present it beautifully.
I have some butter left, I'll put it inside, it will melt, seep in and add flavor to the herbs that I'm going to add to the baking dish now. I add four more sprigs of sage, and since I have some oil left, I'll just wipe my hands with it and clean the bowl. It won't hurt. Place this in a baking dish along with four sprigs of rosemary. Chances are, you'll use the delicious juices from the turkey to make a wonderful gravy. So let this gravy be seasoned with herbs in advance. This will make everything much tastier. And if you're making gravy, feel free to add carrots,
onions, apples, and celery to give it real flavor. I also add 10-12 sprigs of thyme here. For extra flavor and baking control, I'll add four cups of chicken broth. If you want to make silky, wonderful gravy and have never done it before, the link to the turkey gravy recipe is on the site. Link in the description below. My turkey is ready for the oven: 450 degrees for 15 minutes, and then we'll lower the temperature to 325 degrees. We want to "seal" the juices inside and get a nice crispy crust. So, we start with a high temperature, and then lower it so that everything is fried evenly and remains juicy.
Baste the turkey with the juices that have formed on the baking sheet every 30 minutes. If you notice that the turkey is browning too quickly, cover those areas with foil -only the areas that are burning. We send it to the oven. Oh, it's heavy. Let the turkey "rest" on a baking sheet for 15 minutes before carving. Strain the juice, it can be served as a sauce or used to make a delicious gravy. Mmm. This breast meat, which is usually the driest, is so juicy and just melts in your mouth. In addition, it is extremely aromatic.
I hope this video was helpful and your turkey turns out just as perfect. If you like my videos, hit the subscribe button and check out my Thanksgiving playlist.
