Spatchcocked Roast Turkey

By susanwadle

From Susan Wadle and Food 52

Ingredients

• 1 Turkey (you choose your size!)
• Salt for the rub (1 tablespoon for every five pounds of turkey; for a smaller bird, you might need a bit more.)
• Fresh herbs for the rub. (I use a combination of fresh marjoram and thyme; you could use rosemary and sage, or your favorites.) 2-3 thick sprigs of each for a small bird, and 5-6 for a large one.
• White wine (one glass for the bird, one for you)

Details

Servings 1
Adapted from food52.com

Preparation

Step 1

First things first: make your rub. Pile all your ingredients into a food processor

After a quick blitz, your mixture will look like fine, herb-flecked sand.

The salt and herb mixture anxiously awaits its time to shine.

If you want to roast a spatchcocked turkey, you really should buy your bird from a butcher who will "butterfly" it for you. Make sure you have her or him give you the backbone and other parts that are removed, as they are perfect for roasting and making a rich stock for gravy.

Wrap up the turkey back and neck in butcher paper or put them in a plastic bag; refrigerate until you need them. They are perfect for roasting separately, to make gravy.

Heat your oven to 450 degrees. When it's been 450 degrees for at least 20 minutes, put the turkey in. I usually add about a cup of water, to keep the juices from browning too much before the turkey releases its juices into the pan. Roast at 450 degrees for 30 minutes, then lower the temperature to 400 degrees; then, roast for about 10 minutes per pound, total.

Cover the breast after an hour with heavy foil (or after an hour and a half for a larger bird). I usually pour a glass of white wine over the bird at this point. Then I pour myself one -- this is optional but recommended. (For a larger bird, I'd do this about an hour before I expected to remove it from the oven.)

The turkey is done when the thigh's internal temperature is 165 degrees. Start checking early though (about half way through the expected total time), as the temperatures and heat circulation activity of your oven, the number of times the door is open, the temperature of your refrigerator and the ambient temperature on your counter, etc., all contribute to extreme variability in the actual time required to roast any particular bird. Also, it seems that larger birds require less time per pound. Although I was told by Melissa Clark on the Gilt Turkey hotline last year that a large bird should be roasted at 450 degrees for 1/2 hour and then 10 -12 minutes per pound at 350 degrees after that, I learned from a FOOD52 member via the Hotline that her spatchcocked 30 pound turkey was done in about 3 1/2 hours, instead of the 6 hours that formula would require. So start checking early, especially with a larger bird.