📎 Clippy just wanted to help.

Kafarowski Family Turkey Recipe

Turkey dinners are a family tradition for Thanksgiving, Easter and Christmas. We typically make the turkey for a 1pm lunch for 4-8 people. Ingredient preparation starts around 7am, the turkey is prepped and into the oven by 9am, and usually comes out to rest around noon.

This is the recipe I’ve captured and formalized from collected recipe clippings, handwritten notes, and knowledge handed down. It’s a living document that I’ll update and add to as my process improves with each season.

Being able to follow a clear written process takes a lot of the stress out of the day! I’m less likely to forget or skip steps, especially while I’m waiting for my coffee to kick in, chatting with family, and/or after having a few glasses of wine!

• Equipment and Ingredients
• Preparation
• Cooking the Turkey
• Making the Gravy
• Notes
  • My turkey is still frozen! What do I do?
  • The tempered glass pane of my oven exploded!

Equipment and Ingredients

Gathering and arranging everything ahead of time is called mise en place, and makes the process smoother and stress-free!

Preparation

1. Close the door of any room in your house you don’t want to smell like turkey for two days.
2. Remove the turkey from the fridge at least an hour before planning to roast (what if my turkey is still frozen?)
3. Set oven pre-heat to 425°F (220°C) with bottom heat only, and remove the oven rack.
4. Set up your workspace with the roasting pan, turkey rack, bowls of salt/oil, paper towels, basting brush and cooking twine.
5. Don your safety glasses and gloves
6. Carefully open turkey bag and drain, then discard the turkey bag. Tip: cut a flap and drain into a bowl while the turkey is still in the bag to make cleanup easier
7. Remove any giblet bags and neck if present, set aside for soup, stuffing, or congee.
8. Place turkey on the roasting rack in a deep roasting pan with the legs up
9. Pat the inside and outside of the turkey dry with paper towels.
10. Squeeze the lemon into the cavity and lather it in.
11. Sprinkle a handful of salt into the turkey and rub it in.
12. Add most of the onion, celery, carrots and a few sprigs of rosemary and parsley into the cavity. Cap off with tin foil.
13. Baste the turkey with oil then rub a generous amount of salt/pepper over the turkey skin. Don’t forget between the wings and legs.
14. Cross the leg ends over each other, and tie together tightly with twine.
15. Press some sprigs of herbs in between the leg creases.
16. Turn the turkey over so the legs pointing down and the wings are at the top.
17. Add the rest of the onion celery, carrots and sprigs of herbs into the neck cavity.
18. Fold the wings back on top of themselves, and tie the “elbows” tight to the breast with twine. Cut excess string, otherwise it burns.
19. Press some sprigs of rosemary between the wing creases.

You’ll notice at this point that the turkey is “upside down”! We’ve found that this helps the breast stay juicier because the juices will flow downwards.

Cooking the Turkey

1. Insert an in-oven thermometer into the thickest part of the breast meat but avoid touching bone.
2. Place the prepped turkey tray into the bottom rack of the oven.
3. Cook at 425°F (220°C) for 30 minutes.
4. After 30 minutes, reduce oven setpoint temperature to 325°F (160°C) but don’t open the door.
5. While the turkey is cooking, use this time to sharpen the knives to prepare for carving.
6. Continue to cook until thermometer reads 160°F (70°C), after around 3-4 hours depending on the size and how frozen the turkey is before going in.
7. Remove from the oven. Drain turkey drippings into a saucepan for gravy (see below), then cover the turkey with a layer of foil and a layer of towels, then allow to rest at least 20-30 minutes. The internal temperature will continue to rise another few degrees during this time. Other parts of the turkey may be 10°F hotter than the breast.
8. Use the resting time to prepare the gravy, then carve and serve hot!

Making the Gravy

1. Scrape all the turkey drippings into a big saucepan and heat on high until the oil starts to bubble (this happens quickly).
2. Add about 400mL of water and allow the mix to come to a boil again.
3. Reduce temperature to medium, and slowly add the first package of gravy powder while stirring.
4. When the mixture comes to a boil again, sprinkle in the second package of gravy powder while stirring vigorously.
5. Alternate between slowly adding water and flour, while stirring consistently to avoid lumps. After adding water, allow the gravy to return to a boil. If the heat is too low the flour wont cook, and it wil taste floury.
6. Continue until desired consistency, taste, and volume is achieved. Our gravy typically doubles or triples in volume from the original drippings, water and gravy mix.

Notes

My turkey is still frozen! What do I do?

Here’s what we did one year. Hopefully you have a sink that is large enough to fit an entire turkey.

1. Thoroughly clean out a large sink with soap and rinse. Fill it with water.
2. Unwrap the turkey, place it on the roasting rack, and then lower it into the sink.
3. Change the water in the sink every 15-30 minutes until thawed enough
4. Try to remove giblets as soon as possible. If they are still frozen in the turkey, pour hot water in the cavity to thaw it just to remove them, but don’t allow the warm water to sit for longer than a few minutes.

It’s best to continue with prepping the turkey and putting it in the oven as soon as possible after doing this. Remember to clean your sink again afterwards!

The tempered glass pane of my oven exploded!

Yup, that happened to us too the first time we made turkey after moving into our new house. I suppose we were either unlucky, or the previous owners hadn’t used the oven much…