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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.
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Remove the neck and giblets (heart, gizzard, liver). Use the heart and gizzard for making stock for the stuffing.
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Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
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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.
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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
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The neck cavity can be stuffed with parsley and tied closed with thin skewers and string.
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Rub either melted butter or olive oil all over the outside of the turkey. Sprinkle salt generously all over the outside of the turkey
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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.
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Add several sprigs of fresh (if possible) thyme and rosemary to the outside of the turkey.
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8 Put the turkey in the oven. With the turkeys mom gets, she recommends cooking time of about 15 minutes for every pound. 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.
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out at thigh is 170u00b0F, breast 160u00b0F,
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stand 15 min.
