Roasted Turkey Drumsticks
Our family is cooking the big turkey on the grill this year which means no pan gravy. We decide to cook some turkey drumsticks before Thanksgiving to provide some drippings and an early start to Thanksgiving! Originally served as part of Turkey Before Thanksgiving.
Ingredients
- 2 pounds drumsticks turkey
- 2 large carrots (peeled and quartered)
- 2 medium parsnips (peeled and quartered)
- 2 medium onions (peeled and halved)
- 1 stalk celery (rinsed and quartered)
- ½ tablespoon canola oil
- 8 leaves fresh sage (cleaned)
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
- salt & pepper
- ½ cup orange juice
- ½ cup turkey stock
Instructions
We start by preheating the oven to 375°. We toss the oil on the carrots, parsnips, onions, and celery in a roasting pan. Next, we rinse and pat dry the turkey drumsticks and push the sage leaves under the skin. We rest the legs on the vegetables and smear the butter on top of them and a little under the skin as well. We wash our hands well and sprinkle the turkey and vegetables with some salt and pepper.
We roast the turkey for 1 hour and 40 minutes, checking the temperature occasionally and rotating the pan after 45 minutes. We want the temperature in the thickest part of the leg to reach 180°.
When the turkey is cooked, we remove the legs to a plate to rest. We put the stove-top safe roasting pan (with the vegetables still inside) on the stove over medium heat and deglaze with the orange juice and stock. We bring the liquids to a boil and simmer for 5 minutes. We remove the vegetables to the plate with the turkey legs and strain the deglazing liquid into a measuring cup. We refrigerate the measuring cup, covered with plastic wrap, to be used for the gravy.
We serve the drumsticks with the vegetables.