You can Do Turkey and Gravy

So you have decided upon roasting a whole turkey so it looks like a painting done by Norman Rockwell! Good for you! Let me help you achieve your dream meal. Picture crispy, well-browned skin and moist, juicy, well-seasoned meat. And don’t forget a lightly thickened, full-flavored gravy.

It can be easy but with steps you must follow. Allow me to tell you some slave secrets. Biggest problem is that a turkey is really two different roasts. The dark meat is hard to over-cook and to develop its succulent goodness it has to reach 175 degrees, but it is attached to the white meat that will dry out if it’s cooked beyond 160 degrees. Let's face it Grandma fixed a lot of tough, dry white meat in her efforts to completely cook the bird.

The gravy is easier to get right, but it takes about an hour of simmering to produce rich, well-rounded flavor.

Yeah, I know, it looked so easy when you didn't have to do it. Allow slave to serve.

Take off the netting and the plastic wrap! Pat the bird dry with paper towels. Remove the neck and giblets and put if refrigerator until needed for gravy. Always let the bird come to room temperature before roasting!


First, salt! This alters the proteins in meat and helps it retain moisture as it cooks. It also helps balance the cooking times for dark and white meat.

There are two ways to add salt: brining and salting. A brine penetrates the bird, in 6 to 12 hours, but there are drawbacks.

Brining adds water to the skin, which hinders browning. Also the process requires a container large enough to hold 2 gallons of brine along with a 14-pound turkey—that takes up a lot of refrigerator space. I've seen TV's Alton Brown use a cooler in the bathtub – interesting to say the least.

Salting the turkey underneath the skin allows the meat to retain its juiciness without adding unnecessary moisture to the surface, which can inhibit browning.


Also incorporate just a tad of sugar, stay with me here, we're not turning this into candy. 4 tsp of sugar and 4 Tbs of salt were the right amounts for a 12- to 14-pound bird. Mix this into a paste with some softened butter.

Using fingers, loosened the skin of the turkey and then rub this salt-sugar blend on the flesh and in the cavity of the bird. Place the bird on a wire rack set in a rimmed baking sheet, on the bottom shelf of the fridge. Wait 24 hours for the salt to do its work. Note you can't do this with a frozen bird so add 1 day to the thawing time!


Oh but wait! MAKE IT EASIER BY SIMPLY buying a kosher bird! The koshering process involves bathing the bird in salt. Ask your local mega-mart meat department ahead of time to order one for you.


A turkey will cook more evenly if it is not stuffed. For the stuffing lovers, cook the dressing in a muffin pan on the side.

Now before the turkey goes in:

If you have skipped the salting step the night before, now is a good time to do it. Just poke the salt-sugar-butter mixture under the skin.

Now mix 1 teaspoon of baking powder with 1½ teaspoons of oil for the skin. Especially rub the top! Baking powder has alkaline that speed up browning. It also causes proteins in the skin to break down more readily and produce crispier results.

Now tent the breast with a double layer of foil to shield it from some of the heat. Don't have to seal, just lay it on top.

The Key is pizza!

We've already found the secret of a good Pumpkin pie with a cooked bottom crust was cooking it on a heated pizza stone. Works with either pepperoni or pumpkin.

The dark meat needs to cook to a higher temperature than the white meat, and the dark meat is on the bottom, SO....

Placing the bird breast side up on its rack directly in a preheated (foil lined) baking pan that is sitting on a stone transfers heat into the portion of the bird that needs it most—the thighs and legs. At the same time, the convection currents act more slowly on the breasts. The result? A perfectly cooked turkey.

Place the pizza stone with the pan on the bottom rack of the oven and turn the dial to 500 degrees.

When the oven was up to temperature, open and place the turkey on its rack in the pan and shut the door. Now don't forget to drop the oven temperature to 425 degrees immediately after putting in the turkey.

Then, after about 45 minutes, Set an alarm because it it important to again reduce the temperature to 325 degrees for a gentle finish. If you don't remember these steps the firemen will remind you! Pull off the foil when you turn the oven to its final 325 so the breast will brown.




This will produce the Saturday Evening Post results you want. This was no small victory: With no extra effort—just a strategically placed piece of kitchenware—the turkey legs and thighs register 175 degrees just as the breasts reaches 160.


Quick reminder of the steps:

We preheat both a pizza stone and a roasting pan in the oven before placing the turkey in the pan.

The stone absorbs heat and delivers it through the pan to the turkey’s legs and thighs, which need to cook to a higher temperature than the delicate breast meat (which we protect with a foil shield).

After the leg quarters have gotten a jump start on cooking, we reduce the oven temperature from 425 to 325 degrees and remove the shield to allow the breast to brown while the bird finishes cooking.

The boost of heat provided by the stone also helps the juices brown and reduce into concentrated drippings that can be turned into a flavorful gravy in the time that the turkey rests.

Now for the gravy!

Now you will notice the drippings in the pan. The supplementary heat from the pizza stone causes the juices to reduce far more than usual, making them super concentrated. Transfer these magical drippings to a fat separator, making sure to get the flavorful fond from the bottom of the pan.

Use some of the fat from the pan and stir in flour to make a roux.

Take out the giblets that you have removed from the turkey before you cooked it ~~ you DID take them out didn't you? Put this in a skillet and brown with some onion and carrot, with some of the reserved fat. When browned, add the roux and whisk in some white wine and water. Let the gravy simmer to thicken.

After about 10 minutes the drippings are so intense that no real reduction is necessary. Adjust to your taste with salt & pepper.

Now you have a deeply flavorful gravy—in record time all while the turkey rested for about 30 minutes.

A word about “carving”

Forget about what you have seen on videos! The white or breast meat can be the star of the meal. However it can be tough and dry.

You have worked so hard making sure it will be juicy, don't blow it by cutting it wrong.

All meat has fiber, like a piece of 2 by 4 wood. If you cut it with the grain, it will be tough. If you cut it across the grain, it will stay tender.

Consider that piece of 2x4. You don't want to cut it lengthwise, you want to cut it across.


Now at the bird:

Always use a sharp knife or even an electric knife. Cut to the joints to remove the legs and wings from the bird. Set them aside for now. This gives you room to maneuver.

Cut into the side of the bird, about halfway down cutting sideways to the ribs. Now cut straight down on each side of the breastbone. This will give you a big “loaf” of white meat. (the 2x4). Now cut the end off and proceed to cut across the piece, arranging the pieces on a different platter. You will be amazed at the difference this makes.