How to Cook a Free Range Turkey
Roasting a turkey doesn't have to be complicated. Here's exactly how to do to it for maximum deliciousness with minimal fuss.
Servings: 8
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 free-range turkey 10 to 14 pounds
- 8 tablespoons cultured salted butter at room temperature
- Small handful thyme sprigs
- 1 lemon zested and halved
- 1 onion halved or quartered if large
- ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
- ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F with the top rack in the lower third of the oven.
- Remove the neck and the bag of innards and giblets from inside the cavities. Sometimes they’re both in the large main cavity, but sometimes the bag is in the smaller neck cavity around the other side.
- If there are any pin feathers still on the bird, pluck them out.
- Place the turkey breast-side up into a large roasting pan. No racks or fancy positions necessary.
- Place butter into a small bowl. Strip one teaspoon of leaves from the thyme and add it to the bowl, reserving the rest. Add the salt, pepper, and lemon zest, and mix it all together thoroughly with a fork.
- Use your fingers to carefully separate the turkey skin from the breast meat to create pockets. Tuck some of the compound butter into the pockets and distribute it between the skin and the breast meat by wriggling it in as best as possible. Spread the remaining compound butter all over the outside of the turkey.
- Place the lemon and onion pieces into the large cavity of the bird along with a the remaining thyme sprigs.
- To truss, tuck the tip of each wing under the bird and tie the tips of the drumsticks together with a small piece of twine if this isn’t already done.
- Place turkey into oven and roast to your desired level of doneness. For me this means that an instant read thermometer inserted into the deepest part of the breast should read 155-160°F. Refer to the notes section below to learn more. A 10 pound turkey will probably need between 2 and 2 ½ hours. A 14 pound turkey will probably need between 2 ½ and 3 hours.
- Remove turkey from oven and let rest for at least 30 minutes before carving.
- How to make gravy from pan drippingsIf you like, you can make gravy right in the roasting pan while the turkey rests. Here's what to do.
- Set the roasting pan with the drippings over medium heat on the stovetop. Depending on your stove and the size of the pan, sometimes it's best to do this over two burners, sometimes one.
- Estimate the amount of drippings in the pan. If it seems vaguely like ½ cup, you're all set. If it seems like a lot more, spoon some out. If it seems like a lot less, add some butter and let it melt.
- Sprinkle in ½ cup flour and stir vigorously with a sturdy whisk or a wooden spoon, scraping up browned bits from the bottom of the pan and incorporating the flour into the fat to form a roux. Cook for a minute or so, stirring constantly.
- Pour in 8 cups chicken broth or turkey stock (or seven cups stock and one cup dry white wine). Bring to a boil, stirring constantly.
- Reduce heat and simmer, stirring frequently, until thickened to your liking.
- Taste for seasoning and then ladle into a gravy boat to serve.
Notes
- Unless you’ve brined your turkey, do NOT rinse it. Buying a good-quality bird, defrosting it safely, working with clean hands, and cooking it properly are all you need to do. Rinsing does a better job of spreading bacteria than removing it.
- There is no need to baste a turkey. It doesn’t contribute to moistness. It can help the turkey skin brown evenly, but I find that a turkey rubbed with compound butter and roasted at 350°F doesn’t need any help getting evenly brown — and leaving the oven door closed cuts down a little bit on cooking time.There is also no need to rotate the turkey during cooking unless you know that your oven cooks in a particularly uneven way.
- Ovens vary. Rather than blindly following a timing chart, the best thing you can do is make a small investment in an instant-read thermometer and learn how to use it. Here’s a GREAT video that shows exactly how to use an instant-read thermometer to check the temperature of your turkey in the three critical places.That said, in my oven an unstuffed 10-pound bird tends to take more than two hours but less than two and a half. A 14-pound turkey will probably take more than two and a half hours but less than three.
- The U.S. Government recommends cooking breast meat to 165°F before taking the turkey out of the oven. Some people (myself included) prefer to take it out earlier. I aim for between 155 and 160°F. As long as you let the turkey rest for 30 minutes before carving — which you should — any temperature reading over 150°F will result in meat that’s safe to eat. Beyond that point, it’s a matter of preference.