Stuffed Herb-Rubbed Roast Turkey with Gravy from ‘The Food Lab’

This week, we’re spotlighting recipes from The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science by J. Kenji López-Alt (W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.). The book is based on The Food Lab column López-Alt writes for Serious Eats.

Photograph by J. Kenji López-Alt

By J. Kenji López-Alt

Stuffed Herb-Rubbed Roast Turkey with Gravy
Serves 10 to 12

If you’ve got just one bird in your holiday roast arsenal, make it this one. It’s got it all: moist breast and thigh meat; crisp, burnished skin; tasty gravy; and plenty of turkey-flavored stuffing, cooked (safely) inside the bird, to boot.

Most turkeys are too large and cumbersome to fit nicely on a rack in a rimmed baking sheet, like I’d use for a roast chicken. In this case, the handles of a roasting pan are worth the trade-off in poorer air circulation around the bird, because of the higher pan sides. And with the extra cooking time a turkey needs, the skin gets plenty crisp anyway.

1 whole turkey, 10 to 12 pounds, neck and giblets reserved for gravy
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
12 tablespoons (1? sticks) unsalted butter
? cup finely minced fresh parsley
1 tablespoon finely minced fresh thyme (or 2 teaspoons dried thyme)
1 tablespoon finely minced fresh sage
1 tablespoon finely minced fresh rosemary
2 medium cloves garlic, minced or grated on a Microplane (about 2 teaspoons)
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 recipe Classic Sage and Sausage Stuffing (optional)
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 large onion, roughly chopped
1 large carrot, peeled and roughly chopped
3 stalks celery, roughly chopped
6 cups homemade or low-sodium canned chicken or turkey stock; or as needed
2 bay leaves
1 teaspoon soy sauce
? teaspoon Marmite
? cup all-purpose flour

Adjust an oven rack to the lowest position and place a pizza steel or stone on it. Place a heavy stainless steel roasting pan on the pizza steel or stone and preheat the oven to 500°F for at least 1 hour.

Meanwhile, when the oven is almost preheated, season the turkey on all sides with salt and pepper.

Heat 8 tablespoons of the butter in a small skillet or microwave until just melted (it should bubble). Transfer to a small bowl. Whisk in the parsley, thyme, sage, rosemary, garlic, and a generous amount of salt and pepper. Rub this mixture evenly all over the bird and under the skin (it will harden and clump a bit as it hits the cold bird). Place the turkey on a V-rack.

If desired, stuff the turkey. Line the cavity with a double layer of cheesecloth. Fill with the stuffing, then use twine to tie the cheesecloth into a sack. Remove the sack and place on a plate. Microwave on high power until the center of the stuffing registers at least 180°F, about 10 minutes. Carefully return the stuffing to the turkey cavity. Stuff the cavity at the turkey neck with the reserved stuffing.

Remove the roasting pan from the oven, transfer the V-rack to the roasting pan, and immediately place it on the hot steel or stone, with the legs of the turkey facing the rear. Reduce the oven temperature to 300°F and roast until the turkey is golden brown, the deepest part of the breast registers 150°F on an instant-read thermometer, and the legs register at least 165°F, about 3 to 4 hours, spooning the browned butter from the roasting pan over the turkey every hour or so.

While the turkey is roasting, chop the neck into 1-inch chunks with a cleaver. Heat the oil in a medium saucepan over high heat until smoking. Add the turkey neck, onions, carrots, and celery and cook, stirring occasionally, until well browned, about 10 minutes. Add the stock, bay leaves, soy sauce, and Marmite and bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and simmer for 1 hour.

Strain the stock through a fine-mesh strainer into a large glass measure. You should have a little over 4 cups; if not, add more stock or water. Discard the solids and set the stock aside.

When the turkey is cooked, transfer the V-rack to a rimmed baking sheet. Pour the hot melted butter from the bottom of the roasting pan over the turkey. Tent with foil and allow it to rest for at least 30 minutes before carving. (If you stuffed the turkey, for presentation you can remove the stuffing from the turkey, discard the cheesecloth, and replace the stuffing in the turkey.)

Meanwhile, set the roasting pan over medium heat and add the reserved stock, scraping up the browned bits from the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon. Pour the stock through a fine-mesh strainer into a 1-quart glass measure or a bowl.

Finely chop the turkey gizzard, heart, and liver if desired. Melt the remaining 4 tablespoons butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the chopped giblets, if using, and cook, stirring frequently, until just cooked through, about 1 minute. Add the flour and cook, stirring constantly, until golden brown, about 3 minutes. Whisking constantly, add the stock in a thin, steady stream. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook until the gravy is thickened and reduced to about 3 cups. Season to taste with salt and pepper and remove from the heat.

Carve the turkey and serve with the gravy and stuffing, if you made it.

STUFF IT!
You may have heard from various reputable sources that stuffing a bird before roasting it is a bad idea. There’s no problem with stuffing the neck cavity—it’s in the interior of the bird that safety issues arise. Even though it might be safe to consume your stuffing itself at a lower cooking temperature than the turkey or chicken as the bird roasts, its raw juices can drip down into the stuffing, contaminating it. So, in order to be completely safe, your stuffing must come up to at least the same 145° to 150°F you’re gonna cook your bird to. Unfortunately, because the stuffing is in the very center of the bird, by the time it is cooked through, your bird is overcooked.

There is, however, a solution, though it’s a slightly tricky one: cook the bird from the outside and the inside. What you’ve got to do is stuff the bird with hot stuffing just before roasting. That’s right: bring your stuffing all the way up to at least 180°F (to compensate for the heat it will lose while you’re working with it) and, while it’s still hot, jam it into the bird’s cavity. The easiest way to do this is to form a cheesecloth pouch inside the turkey, stuff that pouch, tie it off, remove it, and microwave it on a plate, then put it back in the turkey before roasting.

Not only does the method give you stuffing that’s perfectly safe to eat (so long as it never dips below 145°F while it is roasting, and it shouldn’t), but it’ll also help your turkey cook more evenly, insulating its breasts from the inside so that they cook a little more slowly and end up coming to temperature at the same time that the legs do. Of course, in my family, we still need an entire tray of stuffing on the side, because there can never be enough.

Reprinted with permission from The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science by J. Kenji López-Alt (W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.)

More Thanksgiving turkey recipes:

Turkey Breast ‘Porchetta’ from Giada DeLaurentiis

Deep-Fried Turkey from Chef Rob Newton

Brined and Smoked Turkey from ‘Heartlandia’