Maple & Sage Roast Turkey

This was the first time I've ever been involved in roasting a turkey, so at first I felt very clueless as to how to go about this endeavor. I found lots of different recipes, but this one from weelicious which was featured on GOOP seemed to be the most understandable and written in a way I could understand. So I took that as our base, but made a lot of changes. Including with the cooking time, since we had a little eight pound gluten free turkey. This recipe below was excellent for our little turkey and we got an incredibly moist, well and consistently cooked white and dark meat. However, if you're making a larger turkey you might want to adjust the quantities of the ingredients a bit and definitely increase the cooking time.

Day 1: Brining 

Ingredients

• 1 cup dark maple syrup
• 1 cup dark brown sugar
• 1 cup kosher salt
• 5 sprigs of sage
• 2 tbsp of cloves
• about 16 cups of water

Make

Pour the maple syrup, salt, and brown sugar into a large stockpot.

Add 4 cups of hot water.

Stir until the sugar and salt have disolved.

Add the sage, cloves, and about half the remaining water, 6 cups.

Wash the turkey inside and out.

Remove all the inside bits and pieces.

Place the turkey, breast side down, in the stockpot with the brine.

Add the remaining water, until you are just covering the turkey with the brine.

Place stockpot in the refrigerator for at least 24 hours.

Day 2: Roasting

Ingredients

• 5 sprigs sage
• 5 tbsp softened butter (you could easily subsitute a non-dairy butter here)
• 5 tbsp dark maple syrup
• 1/2 cup chicken broth
• 1/2 cup water

Make

Pre-heat the oven to 450 degrees.

Whip together the butter and maple syrup.

Take the turkey out of the brine and rinse inside and out with cold water.  Discard the brine.

Place the turkey on a roasting rack in a large pan.

Place the sage inside the turkey.

Rub the butter and maple syrup mixture all over the skin of the turkey.

Cover the wings with small pieces of aluminum foil.

Roast on the lowest rack of the oven for 30 minutes.

Reduce temperature to 350 degrees and place a small piece of tented tinfoil over the breast, pour the chicken stock and water into the bottom pan. Roast for 1 hour.

Remove the foil from the breast, turn the pan, and roast another 15 minutes.

Check internal temperature of the turkey in the deepest part of the thigh. If the temperature reaches 160-165 degrees it's time to take the turkey out of the oven. If not, continue to roast until temperature is reached.

Cover the turkey with tented tinfoil and allow to rest for at least 30 minutes before carving.