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Oven roasted turkey

  • Salt Blend
  • 2 Carrots, thickly chopped
  • 3 Celery Stalks, thickly chopped
  • 2 Onions, thickly chopped
  • Fresh Rosemary Leaves
  • Fresh Sage Leaves
  • Turkey Butter
  1. Calculate roasting time. Weigh turkey. Roasting time is 40 minutes per kilogram (or 18 minutes per pound).
  2. Preheat oven to 165ºC (325ºF).
  3. Tuck wing tips behind shoulders of turkey.
  4. Prepare cavity. Liberally season cavity with salt blend. Add a handful of mirepoix, followed by some rosemary and sage. Tie chicken legs together.
  5. Season breasts. Working from behind turkey, gently create space between skin and breast meat on either side --- be careful not separate skin from sternum. Apply butter liberally to both breasts under skin.
  6. Season skin with remaining butter and salt blend, covering turkey on all sides.
  7. Fill roasting pan with mirepoix. Lay turkey, breasts up, in pan on top of mirepoix. Fill pan with about 15-mm water. Cover turkey breasts with foil.
  8. Roast as per calculated roasting time at 165ºC (325ºF), removing foil from breasts halfway through cooking, until it reaches an internal temperature of 74ºC (165ºF) at thickest part of thigh.
  9. Rest. Cover breasts with foil again. Rest 45 minutes at room temperature.

Foil over the breasts will prevent overcooking breasts and browning too deeply.

  1. Mitzewich, John. "How to Cook a Turkey: Part 1 - A No-Fail Method for People that Would Rather Watch Football than Wash Dishes." Food Wishes. 7 November 2008. ↩