King's Holiday Fun Recipes --- stressing fun

First: 
Get a turkey, around 18 pounds. Put it in the refrigerator to thaw (thawing often takes around three days if you let it take the natural course. If you are lucky enough to have a fresh bird unchilled bird, you can go directly to preparation at step three, below.

Second: 
After the turkey has thawed, remove turkey from refrigerator. Let the cold (not frozen) turkey stand at room temp for about three hours. 

Third: 
When you are ready to begin preparing the turkey, put the oven on 500 degrees to preheat.

Fourth: Remove giblets from breast area (in front) and neck from cavity and place in sauce pan to boil along with one piece of celery, one carrot, and one small onion. This will make four cups of stock or broth which you will need later; the King usually then boils, then chops the giblets and reserves them for use in gravy.

Fifth: 
Wash turkey in cold water. 
Salt and pepper turkey. 
Salt, pepper, and season the cavity of the turkey
Put turkey in roasting pan 
Add ¾ large onion and one half apple to cavity, then add ¼ cup of wet mustard (if working with dry mustard just add enough virgin olive oil to make a medium thin paste. 
Add ¼ onion and ½ apple under skin at front (breast area). Salt and pepper outside of turkey.

Sixth:
Add four cups of stock from giblets to the roasting pan.

Seventh:
Cook bird. Always begin with the turkey's legs  towards the back of the over, not near the door and begin with the breast side side down  at 500 degrees for the first hour, then turn the turkey so that the breast side is up and continue at 500 degrees for one and one-half hours (a total of two and one half hours at 500 degrees). When you turn the turkey breast side up you can also turn the legs so that the legs are near the oven door instead of the back of the oven.

Eighth:
After approximately two and one half hour per step seven, above, reduce heat to 350 degrees for a further one-half hour.

Ninth: 
Cook at least until the leg joint near the back bone wiggles easily, about two and one-half hours. Use a thermometer to be sure the turkey is fully cooked. 

Tenth:
Remove the fully cooked turkey to a large platter and let it sit or rest twenty minutes before carving. 

Please check and follow instructions that come with the bird

9 to 10 pounds stuffed about 1 hour 45 minutes
unstuffed about 1 hour 15 minutes

12 pounds stuffed 1 hour 50 minutes
unstuffed 1 hour 20 minutes

15 pounds stuffed 2 ½ hours
unstuffed 2 hours

20 pounds stuffed 3 ½ hours
unstuffed 3 hours

Temperatures. There are many opinions on how to cook a turkey. The King has at least a dozen recipes and often cooks a "practice" turkey when testing a new recipe. If you are cooking a recipe for the first time, you should assume that it might not be fit to serve.

The following comments are fairly common guidelines according to many cooking experts.

The United States Department of Agriculture recommends that the turkey be cooked to a temperature of 165°F (74°C), as measured in the innermost part of the thigh. 

If the thigh is 165°F, the breast meat is likely to be 10°F hotter. A Great many cooks would tell you that any turkey roasted to those temperatures is overdone and would taste unacceptably dry. 

Some professional cooks suggest that if you know how well the turkey has been cared for since its demise, you have a little latitude. If it has traveled  long distances (and therefore bacteria had plenty of time to multiply), consider a temperature of at least 170° for the breast. Another concern about frozen turkeys is whether they may have partially thawed accidentally.

The minimum breast temperature — the point at which bacteria are killed — is generally considered to be 150°F (66°C). The King, who never tires of supervising the Chef, suggests that you follow the instructions that come with the bird (or if you are lucky enough to have a really fresh bird, so much the better). 

The King's most solemn advice is that "an accurate thermometer is more important than your timepiece" (trust your thermometer and not the elapsed time --- an oven may not properly calibrated, the turkey may not have been completely thawed, but you should be able to depend on the thermometer

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