How to Roast a Turkey

Hi, this is Chef David Bishop from the Chef To You. Welcome to my kitchen. Today, I
would like to show you how to make a roasted turkey.

Before we start seasoning on turkey, let’s talk about a little bit of food safety. Always
remember when you get a turkey, you want to thaw it out in the refrigerator, do not thaw
it out on a counter, that’s one rule you got to remember all the time. You can thaw it out
underneath cold running water, cancel in moving cold running water. Best
recommendation is to do it in the refrigerator three to four days so it would be a scale out
of this -- to tell you how you always need to massage that turkey.

When you’re ready for turkey, you want to go ahead and unwrapped it, wash it
thoroughly, inside the cavity all around, pour all the water out, take a paper towel, dry all
your outside and inside cavity. Make sure it’s good and dry. Place it on the pan, you’re
going to cook it in, wash your hands thoroughly, then you could start seasoning.

The great -- using today our melted butter, one-half cup, one tablespoon of lemon pepper,
one-half teaspoon of salt, one-half teaspoon of black pepper, one-half teaspoon of
granulated garlic, celery, onions, we need some water and put it on our pans.

Let’s get started with our seasoning. Get the butter, just run it down the -- of your turkey,
rub it in, take some of your, just spring across half, the -- stick. We’re not only concern at
the back as well on the front. We’ll turn it over then pour our butter. Rub it in as it pours
all around the legs down on the side, put -- on the inside of the cavity. We’ll be okay.
You want to dry your hands a little bit then take our herbs, sprinkle evenly so I have a
nice even coating of herbs on the outside. Once all the herbs are around, you want to go
ahead and rub to the turkey, make sure all the herbs kind of spread all around the turkey,
maybe it's hard to get to the to start with.

Have a few more dimensions to here. This is a little accurate here with the -- in it.
remember this is not stuffing. If you don’t want to use it, remove it and dispose off it. do
not leave it in the turkey then you cook inside the turkey.

Our next step is I’m going to take some celery sticks. Stick inside of our cavity, push
them all the way back inside, 10 or 12 sticks would be fine. Then we’re going to take
some onions, some yellow onions, diced and peeled. Stick those in the cavity. What this
does, it helps for the moisture to keep our turkey moist. Also it helps from the flavor of
our drippings when we make gravy later on.

Well last thing before we put our turkey in the oven, then we’ll take the neck, lay it down
inside of the pan. We’ll take our gizzards, and our heart, place those in the pan, when you
need giblets later. I got two cups of water here; we pour them in the pan. it’s ready to go
in the oven. We have a few options at this point. We take the foil and wrap it tight,
making from the first hour and some steam cook our turkey and then uncover that brown
the rest of the way.

This is a small 10 pound turkey so what I’m going to do is I’m going to cook it 325 for 2
½ to 3 hours, for the internal temp, it should be 165 uncovered because I’m looking for a
nice golden brown across on this.

So let’s do this in the oven. Our turkey just came out of the oven. Let’s take a look if it’s
nice golden brown. We’re going to take a quick -- just take the thickest part of the breast
without touching the bone. One in the internal temperature 165 -- let’s look a nice golden
color waiting. Just use tongs and then we’ll take out the celery and the onion out of the
cavity. Look here I have about 175 so it would be in good shape.

Next thing I’d like to do is we set the spoon inside of the cavity, paper towels at the back.
We’re going to drain in the liquid that might be inside. We’re going to take it over very
slowly or to the plate.

A couple of things I’d like to mention to you before we leave today. Allow the turkey to
sit for 15 to 20 minutes. A lot of juices -- would be nice. Please watch my video on how
to carve a turkey. Last thing to remember and this is one of my peptides. A lot of people
would like to take the turkey carve in lunch time, sit down the counter, go watch TV, go
do some activities for the day about 6:00 and grab that turkey that’s been sitting on the
counter for five hours and eat supper. That is something you do now want to do. When
you get down with your turkey after the meal, place in the refrigerator, bring it back out,
and bring it warm, but don’t leave it out at room temperature for more than an hour.

Chef David Bishop, cooking and teaching until next time, may God bless.