A Note Before You Start
When it comes to a moist bird, I have had the most success using a frozen turkey (that I let defrost in my refrigerator for 5+ days depending upon it's weight). I recently starting using a roasting bag to cook the turkey in which makes for slightly easier clean up and adds to the moistness of the bird. As for the neck & giblets from the turkey, I discard them.
Ingredients
1 12-14 lb whole defrosted turkey
3 large stalks of celery
3 large carrots
1 large Vidalia onion
Fresh rosemary, thyme, and sage
1 large orange
1 lemon
room temprature citrus herb butter (recipe to follow)
gravy (recipe to follow)
Preparation
Step 1: Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees. Cut the celery, & carrots into thirds. Cut the onion, orange and lemon into quarters.
Step 2: Remove the neck and giblets from the cavity of the bird. Throughly rinse the inside and outside of the turkey under cold tap water and pat very dry.
Step 3: Carefully begin to loosen the skin covering the breast with your fingers. The skin needs to be loose enough for you to spread (half of) the citrus herb butter UNDER the skin.
Step 4: Divide your citrus herb butter in half. Use half of it to spread under the skin of the breast of the bird being careful not to tear the skin.
Step 5: Put the quartered orange and lemon inside the bird's cavity along with 3 sprigs of thyme, 1 sprig of rosemary & 1 sprig of sage. Tie the drumsticks together with kitchen twine.
Step 6: Using 1 TBSP of the remaining citrus herb butter, spread over the outside of the bird. Season with salt and pepper.
Step 7: If using a roasting bag, follow the manfacuurers insturctions https://www.reynoldsbrands.com/tips-and-how-tos/cooking-in-oven-bags Put the bag inside a heavy duty roasting pan. Place the celery, onions, and carrots inside the roasting bag and set the bird on top of the veggies and close up the bag. Roast the bird according to it's weight. Remove from the oven and let sit for at least five minutes.
Step 8: Carefully remove the bird from the bag/roasting pan and set on a carving board. Strain the solids from the pan juices. Use the strained liquid to create the gravy. Recipe to follow.
Citrus Herb Butter:
1 stick of room temp unsalted butter
1 TBSP of chopped fresh rosemary
1 TBSP of chopped fresh thyme
1 TBSP of chopped fresh sage
1/2 tsp of poultry seasoning
zest from one lemon
zest from one orange
Mix all of the ingredients together.
Turkey Gravy:
3 TBSP of critus herb butter
4 TBSP of all purpose flour
Strained juices from the bird
salt and pepper to taste
Add the flour to the butter and mix well to create a roux. Place the strained liquid from the bird into a sauce pan and turn the heat to medium. Gradually add the roux to the juices and whisk constantly until the gravy has thickened.