Recipe

November 25, 2021

A Golden Bird

Recipe: Mary Berg

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Try A Golden Bird from the new cookbook, Well Seasoned: A Year’s Worth Of Delicious Recipes.

“Mayonnaise might sound like a strange ingredient to use on a turkey, but I find it’s easier to spread over the bird and creates a more even golden-brown color than butter. I got the idea originally from my brother, who introduced me to a grilled cheese made with mayo rather than butter.”

Ingredients

  • 1 (12–14 lbs.) turkey, fresh or frozen and fully thawed
  • 1⁄4 cup butter, room temperature
  • Kosher salt and black pepper
  • 1 small handful flat-leaf parsley sprigs
  • 1 bunch sage
  • 1 bunch thyme
  • 1 yellow onion, quartered
  • 1 head garlic, halved crosswise
  • 1 clementine, unpeeled, halved
  • 3⁄4 cup mayonnaise
  • 4 cups low-sodium chicken broth

Directions

Yield: Serves 8-10

Prepare Turkey

  1. Line roasting pan with wire rack and place turkey, breast-side up, on rack. Remove giblets from neck or cavity to use as base for gravy if you’d like, and let turkey come up to room temperature, about 30 minutes.
  2. Dry inside and outside of bird with paper towel. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 350°F.

Season Turkey

  1. In small bowl, season butter with 1⁄2 tsp of salt and pinch of pepper. Pinch 2 tbsp worth of parsley leaves off sprigs, pick about 12 sage leaves from bunch and strip 5 thyme sprigs of their leaves.
  2. Finely chop herbs, set half aside, and add remaining half to butter. Stir until well combined. Gently separate skin from breast of turkey and, using spoon or your hands, spread butter under skin, pushing and spreading it as far and as evenly as possible. Season turkey liberally with salt and pepper, and stuff cavity with remaining unchopped parsley, sage and thyme, as well as onions, garlic and clementine halves.
  3. In separate bowl, stir together mayonnaise and remaining chopped herbs, and spread thin layer evenly over skin of turkey, discarding any remaining mayo.

Roast Turkey

  1. Tie legs of bird together, tuck wings underneath and pour broth into bottom of pan, but not over bird.
  2. Roast turkey until internal temperature of thickest part of thigh reaches 165°F, about 3 to 3 1⁄2 hours. If broth evaporates and bottom of pan becomes dry, add more broth or water. If turkey is browning too quickly, tent it with foil.
  3. When turkey is fully cooked, remove it from oven, cover with loose tent of foil, and allow to rest for 30 to 40 minutes before carving.
Tags: Cookbook Recipe cookbook recipes cookbook spotlight Mary Berg roast turkey turkey

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