My first roasted turkey!

Yeah! This winter I baked my first turkey ever! It's a 14.5 lb young bird, so big that I had to make sure there are friends willing to share the spoil before cooking it. Our home does not have the big equipments needed for handling turkey, so I tried to use foil to loosely cover it to prevent splitting. A friend told me that I may not need a drip pan for such a small turkey because the juice won't be plenty. So that saved me a lot of trouble. One trick I learnt from food.about.com, which seems to be very helpful, is to put some butter and seasonings underneath the turkey skin. The resultant turkey breast is really flavorful and tender. The cooking procedure is actually very simple, and clearly outlined on the turkey wrapper. This is what I did after studying the instructions.


Recipe: Roasted turkey with seasonings underneath skin


Ingredients:
- 1 whole young turkey, frozen
- 2-3 tablespoon (TB) softened unsalted butter
- 1/8 teaspoon (tp) salt
- 1 TB herb mix of thyme, marjoram, parsley, rosemary
- 2 TB onion powder
- 1 TB paprika powder 
- 2 TB rosemary grilling oil


Procedure:
1. Defrost in fridge for 3-5 day. After opening the wrapper of the turkey, remove gibbets and neck from the front opening and the back opening of the turkey. Then rinse the whole turkey, both inside and outside, with tap water. Trim off any large pieces of visible fat.
2. Mix salt and herb mix with softened butter. Use a knife to lift up the skin of the breast and the back of the turkey so that it can be thinly stuffed. Start from both the opening at the top and the bottom of the turkey, work through as much surface of the turkey as possible without tearing the skin. Then use a small plastic spatula to gently push in the butter with seasonings. Use fingers to rub on top of the skin to spread the butter thinly over the meat underneath the skin. Let sit in a baking tray.
3. Rub the top of the turkey skin gently with rosemary grilling oil, a little of the herb mix, and onion powder all over the turkey, including areas under the legs and wings. Then sprinkle paprika powder on top. 
4. Use foil to cover the the top and the side of the turkey loosely. Bake at 325F according to the following chart:

• 8-12 lbs: 2 hrs 45 mins TO 3 hrs
• 12-14 lbs: 3 hrs TO 3 hrs 45 mins
• 14-18 lbs: 3 hrs 45 mins TO 4 hrs 15 mins
• 18-20 lbs: 4 hrs 15 mins TO 4 hrs 30 mins
• 20-24 lbs: 4 hrs 30 mins TO 5 hrs

5. Starting from one hour before the turkey is supposed to be done, check doneness of the turkey. It is done if leg joints can move freely when the drumsticks are rotated, or if clear juices flows out when inserting a fork into the deepest part of the leg joint. 
6. After taking the turkey out of the oven, let sit in room temperature for 30 minutes before carving.
7. Save turkey drippings in the pan for other use. Separate the fat from the juice before storage.

I probably should uncover the foil during the last hour of roasting to let the skin brown. I'll try that next time (which might be next year!)