-         Dawn Turbyfill, Heirloom Heritage Farms

Growing up, I got really spoiled to Holiday Turkeys being roasted in large Nesco appliances.  I had my Grandmother’s Nesco, and up until last year (2005) after the appliance gave out after reaching about 60 years of age, was roasting beautiful birds every year.

This year was my first year in roasting a turkey – never mind it was a Heritage Turkey -  in the oven; the old fashioned way.  All I have read or heard from other people was how difficult it was to have the fatless birds come out juicy and worth every penny put into them.  I was very nervous!!  But, I figured it out with some helpful hints and a slight mix of the old way of cooking and the use of a few “newer” items, the turkey came out incredible!

The size of the turkeys we ended up keeping were slightly small – between 6 pounds and 7-1/2 pounds.  The larger turkeys had been sold in advance for the Thanksgiving celebrations of customers.  One thing I kept in mind was what the early cooks had to work with – including this basic breed of turkey.

My bird was 7 pounds, 3 ounces in weight.  I preheated the oven to 440 degrees (yes, 440 degrees) and made sure the rack was on the center slot.  First, I rinsed the bird out well with cold water, and pin feathered the skin clean.  The easiest way to get the pin feathers out is to take your thumbs and pinch each side as if squeezing a zit; they’ll pop right out!  I salted the inside of the bird very well, and then seasoned the turkey’s back onto a baking rack in a roasting pan.  Early cooks didn’t have tin foil, but they did have parchment paper.  With no fat on the bird, another “fatty skin” had to be added to keep the bird from drying out during roasting.  I had ripped off a piece of parchment big enough to completely cover the breast and tops of the legs.   So instead of oiling the parchment paper, I had slathered at least 3 tablespoons of butter onto one side of it, added the seasonings onto the butter, and pressed the buttered paper from the neck onto the breast and into the crease between the legs and body and onto the legs.  I had tied the ends of the drumsticks together with string so that the bird would stay more confined and cook more evenly.  I added an inch of water to the bottom of the pan, and covered the entire bird with tin foil, crimping the foil to the pan edge to form a good steam seal. 

After one hour, I removed the turkey and carefully removed the foil and the parchment paper.  If you wanted to, you could baste the turkey with the drippings, but I didn’t see a need to.  I replaced the parchment with another buttered and seasoned sheet of parchment.  The bird was recovered with the foil, crimped around the edges onto the roasting pan, and returned to the oven for another hour.

When I removed the bird from the oven, I removed the parchment paper, basted the bird with the drippings, recovered the bird with the tin foil, and allowed the bird to rest for about 20 minutes.  Since this bird was not going to be eaten until the next day, I carved it and set the meat into zip bags along with the drippings to further baste and flavor the meat.  This bird turned out incredible!