Gimmie Some Sugar! Old Family Recipes Shared! Enjoy!

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Herbalicious Turkey

This is a step by step on my Herbalicious turkey. Dont like cooking turkey cuz it just takes too darn long? Try this! You wont be disappointed!

First things first pre-heat your oven to 425. Yes, I said 425. Trust me. Then you will need the following-

  • 2 sticks of butter
  • healthy handful of thyme
  • healthy handful of basil
  • sea salt
  • garlic powder
Add the 2 sticks of butter to a microwave safe bowl and nuke until melted.

Once its all melty and smelling good, add all of the spices above into the bowl.
Mix up all the goodness and then throw it in the freezer. Yup, the freezer. This is what it looks like after it freezes and is ready to use.
Ok, now for the turkey. Wash and get all up in there. Take that stupid plastic thingy off of the legs.
Ok, heres the secret, get a sharp knife and cut the backbone out of the turkey. Trust me, it will seriously cut down on cooking time. This bird in question is 20lbs. And will cook in under 2 and a half hours. Promise!
So here it is with no back bone.
Yeah, its kind floppy, but its ok. Here's what you grab next.

  • 1 carrot
  • 3 celery stalks
  • 4 cloves of garlic
  • 1/2 an onion
Rough chop it all.

Now its time for the fun part. Really getting up close and personal with your bird. What you wanna do is get all up under the skin to make pockets for all of the goodness . Make pockets under the thigh skin and the leg skin.
Next start adding the frozen herbed butter under the skin in the pockets you just made. We're building the goodness! Ok, hers what it'll look like.
Yeah, it looks crazy, but we're not done. Next add all the veggies under the turkey. We're building more goodness, plus the gravy from this will be awesome!
Next drizzle the skin with a little olive oil and sprinkle all the herbs that you added to the herbed butter onto the bird.
See, now we're getting somewhere. Throw this bad boy in the 425 oven til the skin starts to brown, like this.
Then I add either some water or some chicken broth, throw the lid on the on the roaster. Lower the oven temp to 325. If it'll make you feel better you can add the turkey timer thingy in the breast if you dont believe me that it wont take hours and hours to cook.
Once its done, I threw mine under the broiler for a few secs after I basted it with all the juices. (My fam loves the skin). This part is optional, but it makes it good!
And voila! Its done!
Enjoy!!

~Megan~