Orange Sage Turkey with Gravy

This is close to the one that is in the oven RIGHT NOW! Looking forward to it!

Roast Turkey with Sage and Orange Gravy
1 12- to 14-pound whole fresh or frozen turkey, thawed
2 tablespoons kosher salt
8 large oranges, scrubbed
1 large bunch fresh sage
3 heads garlic, cut crosswise in half
1 5.2- to 6.4-ounce package garlic-herb cheese spread (such as Boursin)
4 large carrots
3 small leeks, trimmed and rinsed, or 2 large onions, cut into quarters
Olive oil
6 tablespoons all-purpose flour

Remove the giblets, then rinse the turkey. Dry with paper towels. Rub the cavity with the salt. Cut 2 of the oranges into 2-inch chunks. Set aside a few sage sprigs for garnish later. Place the remaining sage, cut-up oranges, and garlic in the cavity. Loosen the skin from the breast and spread the cheese under the skin. Tuck the wings under the back; tie the legs together. Arrange the carrots and leeks in the roasting pan to create a "rack" and place the turkey on it; rub with oil. (The turkey can be prepared to this point up to 1 day ahead. Cover the pan with plastic wrap and refrigerate.) Heat oven to 350ºF. Roast for 1 hour. Place a foil tent over the turkey and continue roasting for 2 1/2 to 3 hours more or until an instant-read thermometer registers 180ºF when inserted in the breast.

Remove the roasting pan from the oven. Carefully move the turkey to a platter, pouring any cavity juice back into the pan. Cover with foil to keep warm. Set oven to 500ºF. Cut the remaining 6 oranges into quarters and arrange in a shallow baking pan. Roast for 10 to 15 minutes or until brown.

Meanwhile, discard the vegetables from the roasting pan. Pour the pan drippings into a 4-cup measure. When the fat separates and rises to the surface, spoon 1/3 cup of it into a medium saucepan; discard any remaining fat. Squeeze the juice from 12 of the orange wedges into the defatted broth; if necessary, add water or chicken broth to make 4 cups. Whisk the flour into the fat in the saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, for 3 minutes. Add the broth mixture and cook, stirring constantly, until the gravy thickens and boils, 5 to 7 minutes.

Arrange the remaining baked oranges with the sage on the platter around the turkey. Serve with the gravy.

Time-savers: Use a bed of carrots and leeks instead of a roasting rack. The vegetables flavor the drippings, and there's no rack to scour. Spread garlic-herb cheese under the turkey skin instead of the traditional mixture of butter and herbs. It adds flavor to the turkey and eliminates extra chopping and dirty mixing bowls. Roasting the turkey unstuffed shaves about 30 minutes off the cooking time.

Yield: 10 servings, with leftovers

Turkey prep goes technical

Cooking calculations and conversions from Butterball, that incidentally may be helpful with cooking turkeys, but are generally helpful as a cooking resource. There are also specific turkey-cooking tips and tricks, too: how long to thaw, portion calculators, how long to cook and even the turkey-talk hotline. An alternate to a suicide hotline. On Thanksgiving.

Another website, eatturkey.com, gives resources to cook your birdie in a convection oven/convection setting. The benefits, according to the site are that the turkey will "cook in less time with more even results when a convection oven is used. The convection oven circulates preheated air around the oven cavity for faster and more even cooking." The site has some other useful resources such as recipes for the average cook, cooking demonstrations (on every turkey variation you can dream: turkey chowder? grilled turkey chop? turkey meatloaf? and some other more "traditional" favorites...), and some seriously expert recipes (ie not for picky palates).

I would LOVE to find the perfect turkey recipe.

Turkey tips

This comes from toytowngermany.com discussion forums. Going to try it, assuming I can actually find a bird!

*My modifications: do a 20 hour brine bath, do a spice rub, then instead of covering with butter, put butter pads, lemons and oranges under skin, covering the whole backside of the turkey.*

Cooking a turkey is really simple. People get scared about it because of horror stories involving people buying frozen turkeys, andnot getting them out of the freezer early enough to thaw.

If you want a foolproof, step by step recipe, PM me, and I will put you on the right track.

Basically, the simplest way to roast a turkey is as follows:

Get turkey, give it a clean inside and out, and dry with kitchen towels.
Stuff the bird (this is only if you want stuffing of course, and yes I can also supply millions of recipes for that sort of thing, but just look on the web)

Smother the skin with butter. Remember that butter is hard in the fridge, so take some out 30 minutes before you wanna use it so it softens.

Put turkey in a roasting tin, breast side up (there is a school of though that says you should roast it on its back for half the time to produce a juicier meat, but forget it - the turkey will be butter basted anyway)

Weigh the bird, and put in into a roasting dish, and cover loosely with foil. Cook for about 20 minutes per pound (or 20 minutes per half kilo) at about 180 degrees in your oven - every 1 hour you should take out the bird, and baste it with the juices in the pan.

1 hour before the end, pour away the excess fat from the pan, and half an hour befoire the end remove the foil so that the skin can brown up nicely.

Now stick a skewer or small blade into the turkey thigh. If the juices run clear, you are OK; if they are atall pink, put back into the over for 15 minutes, and test again.

When the juices are clear (and the bird therefore done) cover TIGHTLY with foil, and leave to rest for 15 - 30 minutes before carving. This helps the meat relax after the hot oven, and will produce more tender meat. Also, it will be easier to carve!

Done. Or as a certain mockney prat witha tongue thats too big for his mouth would say, 'pukka'. Thats about it really, it is very simple. You can do other stuff of course. I get loads of bacon rashers, hammer them out to make them thinner, and build a latticework of bacon over the breast. Nobody ever sees this, as I do it as a chefs treat, and eat the bacon in a sandwich! No better way that I know off to cook bacon than to roast it on a turkey.