CHRISTMAS TURKEY

ROAST TURKEY



Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas mark 6

Remove giblets from inside turkey. You may like to make a little stock with these for your gravy later .....or, go straight to “Stuffing” (below)!

Fill the central cavity with a stuffing of your choice and weigh the turkey again.

To calculate cooking time allow 15 minutes per lb for a bird up to 14lb and 20-25 minutes for a larger bird.

Melt a little butter and oil in the roasting tin and place the bird on its side on a rack in the tin. Spread it with more butter, or wrap in butter-soaked muslin. Add the giblets and a pint of water to the tin and cover the whole thing in tin foil. Keep the liver to fry and add to the gravy later. Place the bird in the centre of the hot oven.

A little before half time take the turkey out of the oven, turn it onto its other side, baste well and re -cover carefully.

Twenty minutes before the end of the cooking time remove the bird from the oven and turn breast up, baste again and sprinkle with salt and pepper and return to the hot oven to brown.

Test at the end of cooking time by sticking a long skewer into the thickest part of the thigh, if the juice is clear the turkey is cooked.

When cooked allow the bird to REST, covered in a warm place for about 20 minutes. This will make it much easier to carve.

To make the GRAVY remove a little of the melted butter from the roasting pan, mix it with a desert spoon of cornflour and return to the roasting pan. Add a little red wine and red currant jelly, then stir the gravy over a brisk heat until it is a rich syrupy consistency. Strain before serving. The sliced and lightly fried liver may be added to the gravy after straining.

STUFFING helps to keep the bird moist, it bastes from within. Older cookery books often suggest stuffing the turkey at each end; traditionally forcemeat one end and chestnut the other.

Here is an exotic version from The Constance Spry Cookery Book 1964.

• 12 prunes soaked in red wine
• grated rind half lemon
• 8oz peeled and cooked chestnuts
• 1oz butter
• 1 head celery chopped
• 2oz chopped onion
• 1dsp chopped mixed herbs
• salt & pepper
• 1 small beaten egg

Simmer the prunes in the wine till tender, cool, stone and cut into four. Soften celery and onion in butter over a low heat, add prunes, herbs, salt and pepper, lemon rind, and chestnuts, broken into pieces. Stir lightly with a fork, allow to cool thoroughly before binding together with the beaten egg.

Or...how about this adapted version of a Traditional Italian stuffing based on Orvieto Chicken.

• turkey giblets
• 1 lb potatoes
• large onion
• 30 garlic cloves unpeeled ..yes!
• fennel bulb
• 8oz black olives
• fresh sprig rosemary
• lemon zest and juice
• glass dry white wine
• 3 tbsp. virgin olive oil

Take the turkey giblets : first remove “oysters” of meat from gizzard with a sharp knife then chop up together with the heart and liver. Dice peeled potatoes, fennel and onion. Pull apart Garlic heads until you have about 30 cloves. Crush 2 cloves of garlic. Pit olives .....or better still, buy them pitted! Pull leaves of rosemary from the twig and chop (please don’t bother with dried rosemary...!!) Zest and juice the lemon. Melt the potatoes, fennel and onions in the olive oil until just soft. Add the giblets and crushed garlic, then stir in the whole garlic cloves (don’t bother to peel!), then the olives, fresh chopped rosemary, zest and juice of lemon, salt and pepper and the white wine. Spoon all this mixture into the turkey....Delicious!

Cold Turkey is delicious but just in case you want to ring the changes here are a couple of ideas...

LA GOUGERE

Now here is a really delicious and exotic way to use up that left over turkey! And very simple too...
Bake a ring of Cheese Choux Pastry and fill it with the turkey, warmed in a rich cream and sherry sauce. For the pastry put 150ml of water in a small pan with 50gm of butter. Bring it to the boil and then shoot in 75gm of sifted plain flour and beat like mad with a wooden spoon having taken it off the heat. Leave it to cool then beat in two eggs. Next stir in 80gms of tiny cubes of gruyere cheese (cheddar will do!) a pinch of salt and some freshly ground black pepper. Grease an oven proof dish and pile the rich yellow paste around the edges to make a ring (with a hole in the centre for the turkey filling later). Bake at 220c ((425f or gas 7) for about 40 mins. depending on your oven. The secret with choux pastry is to cook it longer than you think you should! It smells wonderful after 20 mins. but it must have a chance to dry out inside.

Meanwhile make a sauce in the usual way: 25gm butter and 25gm flour melted and mixed to form a roux, whisk in 300ml milk, stock or left over gravy ( if you use gravy remember to cut down on the flour in the roux). Bring to the boil stirring all the time and continue to cook for a couple of minutes to cook the flour. Cheer it up with a dash of sherry, a spoonful of that cream at the back of the fridge or a dollop of creme fraiche. You can add mushrooms, a little blanched broccoli, left over stuffing....whatever you fancy. Season it well and pile it up into the crispy ring of Gougere.

All you need now is a green salad and a glass of wine.

TURKEY PUDDING !

Here is an OLD ENGLISH recipe which still survives in Sussex.

Line a deep pudding basin with suet crust pastry, pack tightly with pieces of turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and gravy. Cover with a lid of the suet crust and steam as you would a steak and kidney pudding.

Dorothy Hartley ( Food in England: 1974) says a mushroom sauce goes very well with this.

Bon Appetit!!

Comments

[Sis inlaw]

Sal,
I love it, I can smell the turkey cooking in your wonderful kitchen. Your web site is just like you, warm friendly
and inviting, I loved it.