- Prep: 4 hours
- Cook: 2.5 hours
- Yield: 5 servings
Ingredients
4.5 kg whole butterball turkey
1 English lemon
Sea salt to taste
10 gm black peppercorn
5 gm fresh rosemary
30 gm garlic peel elephant
100 ml white wine
100 gm butter
5 gm oak smoked streaky bacon
500 gm chicken mince
100 gm Christmas cake
200 gm red onion
100 gm fresh celery
50 gm carrot
50 ml olive oil
2 eggs
Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 160°C.
2. Melt the butter in a small saucepan, add the lemon zest juice and thyme leaves to the butter mixture and keep it for cooling.
3. Clean the turkey cavity by removing all the internal organs and washing the turkey inside and out. Remove any excess fat and leftover pinfeathers and pat the outside dry. Place the turkey in a large roasting pan on the bed of vegetables. Season it with salt and pepper outside and cavity and keep it to rest for 4 hours.
4. Now make a stuffing separately with Christmas cake, chicken mince, raw whole egg, rosemary and adjust with sea salt and pepper.
5. Apply flavoured butter underneath the skin and keep it for some time.
6. Stuff it with above made minced mixture, tie the legs together with string and tuck the wing tips under the body of the turkey.
7. Cover it with oak-smoked streaky bacon and roast the turkey for about 2.5 hours covered with silver foil or until the juices run clear when you cut between the leg and the thigh. Remove bacon and roast it again for 20 Minutes at 180°C.
8. Serve with cranberry sauce, turkey gravy, and seasonal roasted vegetables.
