Conventional thinking about oven-cooked turkey is often off the mark. People focus too much attention on how the meat heats, even though how it dries in the oven is at least as important.

What actually controls the baking of food in an oven is not the temperature you set but the humidity created by water evaporating from the food. A drier bird cooks faster, so start by using a rack to keep it out of its own juices, and baste the bird with oil. This reduces the rate of water evaporation, raises the surface temperature of the meat, and consequently speeds up cooking.