Roasting a Turkey - Open Pan Method

Daniel Traster: I am Daniel Traster, and I am showing you how to roast a turkey. Right now, I am going to show you how to use the open-pan roasting method.

We are going to take our turkey, which has now been seasoned, place it into a roasting pan. The roasting pan should be large enough to accommodate the size of the turkey and inside you place a V-roasting rack. If you don't have one of these you can use a traditional flat roasting rack, but a V-rack is much better. We take the turkey and we are going to place it into the rack, make sure that it fits in completely; some people like to roast the turkeys upside down, some people will rotate the them through the cooking process or if you want to go completely hands off just leave it with the breast meat up and roast it that way.

A lot of time, people will worry about basting their turkeys as it cooks. You are welcome to baste your turkey, however, it will impact the texture of the skin and it doesn't necessarily add a lot of moisture to the meat when it's finally done. It's making sure that you pull the meat out at the right internal temperature that keeps it's moist.

Next, we are going to put this into the oven. You do want to make sure that your oven is preheated to 325 degrees well in advance before you put your turkey in. You will also want to make sure that your oven is adjusted with the rack at the lowest setting, so there is plenty of room for your turkey when it goes in. And now very simply, we place it in the oven, close the door, and allow it to roast. Fifteen minutes per pound of turkey. Now that the turkey is in the oven, I am going to let it roast until it hits its final internal temperature.

In our next segment, I will show you how to tell when the turkey is done by using a thermometer and looking for that final internal temperature of 165 degrees.