I would advise against thawing a turkey by imersing it in water. Too much of a chance for salmonella to grow. But assuming your bird was not infected and your sink and countertops are sterile…
I started cooking the Thanksgiving turkey when I was about ten. Mom was sick in bed, and I was determined to cook the meal. Turned out well, too. Mom’s been cooking the turkey since dad died, but this is how I cooked it:
(Oh, I should point out that I’ve never cooked a bird that weighed less than 20 pounds.) For the past several years of cooking turkey I’ve used a Reynolds Roasting Bag. This is a heat-resistant plastic bag for roasting stuff in. First, I boil the neck and internal organs in about four cups of water (you’ll use less, since your bird is smaller). I chop onions and celery and melt margarine for the stuffing. (It’s easiest to use a box of Mrs. Cubbison’s stuffing. I’ve made it “from scratch” and it’s a little more work.) When the neck and giblets are cooked you’ll have a nice stock. Use the stock as the liquid component of the stuffing. Add the margarine, chopped onions and celery (and water chestnuts and oysters, or raisins, or whatever else), and neck meat and mix together.
Wash the turkey inside and out, then dry it with kitchen paper. Spoon the stuffing into the body cavity. It is recommended that the cavity not be tightly stuffed, so as to prevent salmonella growth in a medium that may not reach the temperature required to kill it. However, I pack the stuffing in every time and no one has gotten sick from my cooking yet. I stuff the small neck cavity as well.
Coat the inside of your cooking bag with a couple tablespoons of flour. Add a few bits of coarsly-chopped onion and celery to prevent the bird from sticking to the bottom of the bag. Put the turkey in the bag and tie off the opening with the supplied closure strip.
Put the bag and bird into a roasting tin. Cut a couple one-ince vent strips in the top of the bag and pop it into a pre-heated oven.
Cook in the oven for the amount of time recommended on the box the roasting bags came in. Cooking time will be shorter than if you didn’t use a bag, so don’t over-cook it. You may also want to use a meat thermometer to make sure the inside temperature is correct.
When the turkey is done, remove it to a carving platter. The roasting bag in your cooking tin is full of nice drippings. I suck out about four cups of drippings with a baster and up them in a clear, four-cup container. Let it sit until the grease and juices seperate. Suck off some of the liquid (from underneath the grease) and put it in a saucepan. Add flour to make a roux. Add milk and stir very frequently. Add the chopped-up giblets, plus salt and pepper to taste, and cook over gentle heat, stirring frequently, until you have a nice gravy.
