Recipe By Primal Kitchen
Ingredients
1 14-pound turkey (We used a ButcherBox all-natural turkey fed an all-vegetable diet)
Plenty of salt
1 large onion, quartered
4 apples, sliced
4 carrots, cut into 3”-long pieces
4 celery stalks, cut into 3”-long pieces
12 garlic cloves, separated
6 sprigs fresh rosemary
10 stems fresh thyme
10 stems fresh sage
2 sticks unsalted butter, melted
Freshly cracked black pepper
Equipment
1 Meat Injector Syringe (We used this one.)
1 large meat roasting pan with metal grate
1 roll aluminum foil
1 turkey baster
Blender
Meat thermometer
Instructions
The night before you roast the turkey...
If frozen, make sure the turkey is thawed completely before starting preparation process.
Remove giblets and neck from body cavity of turkey and rinse turkey thoroughly with cool water. Pat turkey dry completely with paper towels.
Blitz Avocado Oil & Vinegar Vinaigrette in a blender for 10–15 seconds.
Pour vinaigrette into injection syringe and start poking the needle into the flesh of the turkey and injecting the vinaigrette inside the bird.
You want to insert the needle just far enough into the meat that the vinaigrette doesn’t just run out of the bird. Add more vinaigrette to the syringe as necessary until you’ve evenly injected vinaigrette all over the bird. Plan to make about 30–40 injections into a large bird.
Place the turkey in the refrigerator, covered, if desired, for about 12 hours to allow the vinaigrette to distribute throughout the bird.
The day you want to roast the turkey…
Remove turkey from the refrigerator and allow to come to room temperature on the counter, about 20 minutes or so.
Season the turkey liberally inside and outside with salt.
Place cut onions, apples, carrots, celery, garlic, and half of the herbs inside of the cavity of the turkey. Scatter any remaining fruit, veggies, and herbs onto the bottom of the turkey roasting pan.
Place stuffed turkey on top of the roasting rack.
Preheat oven to 325ºF.
In a saucepan over medium-low heat, melt better. Set aside to cool.
Pour half of the melted butter on top of the bird. Massage butter onto the outside skin of the turkey with your hands so that it’s completely coated.
Grind fresh cracked black pepper on top of the turkey.
Place a tent of aluminum foil over the turkey and place in the oven. Roast for approximately 15 minutes per pound. For our 14-pound bird, we roasted it in the oven for about 3.5 hours total.
About one hour before the cooking time is done for the size of your turkey, remove the aluminum foil tent.
Baste the turkey with remaining melted butter and allow to roast and brown for another hour.
When the cooking time is complete, remove the turkey from the oven.
Insert a meat thermometer inside the breast of the turkey (away from any bone) and read the temperature. A reading of 173ºF indicates that the turkey is fully cooked.
Allow the turkey to rest for 20–30 minutes before carving (you can tent it with aluminum foil again to keep it warm).
