Homestyle Turkey, The Michigander Way
This turkey was pretty much amazing. Very flavorful and extremely tender throughout. I'm not very experienced with making delicious turkeys, so I would call this a no-fail recipe. I found it originally at Allrecipes. I served it for Thanksgiving dinner and all the eaters were completely ga-ga!
Ingredients
1 (12 pound) whole turkey
6 tablespoons butter, divided
4 cups warm water
3 tablespoons chicken bouillon
2 tablespoons dried parsley
2 tablespoons dried minced onion (I used fresh)
2 tablespoons seasoning salt
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Rinse and wash turkey. Discard the giblets, or add to pan if they are anyone's favorites.
Place turkey in a Dutch oven or roasting pan. Separate the skin over the breast to make little pockets. You do not need to cut the skin. Just pull it up a little and shove your hand under it -- gross, but if I can do it, you can do it. Put 3 tablespoons of the butter on both sides between the skin and breast meat. This makes for very juicy breast meat.
In a medium bowl, combine the water with the bouillon. Sprinkle in the parsley and minced onion. Pour over the top of the turkey. Sprinkle seasoning salt over the turkey.
Cover with foil, and bake in the preheated oven 3 1/2 to 4 hours, until the internal temperature of the turkey reaches 180 degrees F (80 degrees C). For the last 45 minutes or so, remove the foil so the turkey will brown nicely.
Use drippings for fantastic, preseasoned gravy if desired.
**I made this with a 22.5 pound turkey. I doubled everything except the season salt. Do not double the season salt. I cooked the turkey for about 8 hours. I basted it twice. It was super moist and delicious. If you do this big turkey with the extra ingredients, be sure to have a turkey baster handy to slurp out the drippings before they spill out of the pan along the way. It gets really juicy in there!
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