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1. COMPLETELY THAW YOUR TURKEY!
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2. Place one oven rack at the second to lowest position in your oven and remove the other rack. Preheat your oven to 475 degrees.
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3. Rinse and thoroughly dry the outside skin of the turkey.
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4. Take oil of your choosing and rub the turkey all over, using about 2 tablespoons
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5. Make a mixture of salt, herb, and pepper, about 1 tablespoon each per 5 pounds.
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6. Generously sprinkle your seasoning mixture from the previous step all over the turkey, trying to just do one pass per side of the turkey (top, bottom, and sides). The whole turkey should have a thin crust of salt, pepper, and herb. Make sure all of the skin is covered.
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7. Put your turkey breast side down into your roasting pan (this allows the turkey breast to absorb the drippings from the tastier parts of the turkey)
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8. Put the turkey with the drumsticks closest to the back wall of the oven: they should be about an inch away from the wall with the turkey perfectly centered and facing you. THIS IS IMPORTANT! Try to get the dark meat close to a wall of the oven with the breast in the center. This will allow the dark meat to be done simultaneously with the white meat, which would otherwise really require a separate cooking temp/time. This is the main reason people's turkeys come out so nasty: the white meat is done much earlier than the dark if it's all cooked at the same temperature. Putting the dark meat close to an oven wall actually makes it cook at a higher temperature.
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9. Cook turkey according to Turkey Time Table:
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8-14 lbs. 45 minutes
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15-20 lbs. 60-90 minutes
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20+ lbs. 90 minutes
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10. Take the turkey out and check the temperature in 4 locations: the inner thigh near the joint to the body and the breast near the center of the bird for both left and right sides of each. Hopefully the breast should be somewhere in the 140-150 range and the thighs will be in the 150-160 range. If not, stick it back in the oven with the coldest part close to the rear wall.
