Lunch: Roast Turkey with Pomegranate Gravy

Pomegranates are plentiful this time of year, and easy to juice; we found bottled pomegranate juice too sweet for this particular recipe.

Ingredients

1 (14- to 16-lb) turkey, any feathers and quills removed with tweezers or needlenose pliers, and neck and giblets (excluding liver) reserved for making stock
1 1/4 sticks unsalted butter, 5 tablespoons softened and 5 tablespoons melted
1 tablespoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons black pepper
1 onion, quartered
4 large fresh thyme sprigs

Instructions

Put oven rack in lower third of oven and preheat oven to 350 °F.
Rinse turkey inside and out and pat dry. Working from neck (small) cavity, run your fingers between skin and meat to loosen skin from breast, legs, and thighs, being careful not to tear skin. Rub softened butter between skin and flesh, then sprinkle turkey cavities and skin with salt and pepper. Fold neck skin under body and secure with metal skewer and fold wing tips under breast. Stuff large cavity with onion and thyme sprigs and tie drumsticks together with kitchen string. Brush skin all over with some melted butter.
Put turkey on rack in a large flameproof roasting pan and roast, basting with some melted butter and/or pan juices every 20 minutes (if turkey is browning too fast, cover loosely with foil), until thermometer inserted into fleshy part of a thigh (do not touch bone) registers 170 °F, 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 hours.
Carefully tilt turkey so any juices from inside large cavity run into roasting pan, then transfer turkey to a platter (do not clean roasting pan) and let stand, loosely covered, 30 minutes (temperature of thigh meat will rise to 180 °F).

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