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Choose your turkey
Perfect pancetta & roast shallot-stuffed turkey
1 Up to two days ahead, season the bird all over with flaky sea salt, inside and out and under the skin. Leave the turkey in the tin, breastside up, and put in the fridge for up to two days – the longer you salt it, the more succulent it will be. Weigh the turkey and calculate the cooking time by allowing 40 mins per kg for the first 4kg, then 45 mins for every kg of turkey over that weight. As a guide, a turkey this size should take 31/2-4 hrs plus 30-45 mins resting. SERVES 8 PREP 30 mins 2 To make the butter, mash the plus salting COOK 3 hrs 30 mins-4 hrs garlic with the thyme, lemon zest plus resting MORE EFFORT P and a pinch of salt using a pestle and mortar, then beat in the butter until 5-5½kg oven-ready turkey, neck and well mixed. Can be prepared up to giblets removed (save them to two days ahead and chilled. make stock, if you like) 3 Gently push your fingers under the 1 pack smoked sliced pancetta or skin of the turkey, starting from the streaky bacon (about 14 rashers) neck, until you can push your whole 1 tbsp olive oil hand in down the length of the For the butter breast – take care not to tear the 1 large garlic clove skin. Spread the butter under the 1 tbsp thyme leaves skin so that it covers the breasts. Lay 1 lemon, zested the pancetta on your work surface in two rectangles of six overlapping 85g butter, softened slices and carefully push each For the shallots rectangle of bacon under the skin to 400g shallots, peeled cover and protect each breast. This small handful thyme sprigs can be done the night before, but handful bay leaves lemon halves, from the zested lemon take the turkey out the fridge 1 hr before roasting so that it comes bay leaves and chopped thyme, for back to room temperature. scattering over (optional) 4 On the day, heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Tip the whole shallots into a bowl with the thyme,
Whole turkeys are hard to cook perfectly as the legs take longer than the breast, but pushing pancetta under the skin means the white meat stays succulent. We’ve stuffed the turkey with shallots which works beautifully, as the shallots and thyme flavour the turkey and the turkey juices flavour the shallots. You can use red or white onions instead of shallots, but you need to cut them into wedges.
42 BBC Good Food Middle East December 2018
bay and butter, season and toss to coat. Lift the turkey into a roasting tin, massage the olive oil into the skin and season well if you haven’t already seasoned ahead. Tip the shallots into the roasting tin around the turkey and stuff the lemon halves into the cavity. Cover the tin loosely with foil and roast for the calculated cooking time. For the final 30 mins, remove the foil and pour off all of the cooking juices (save them for the gravy). Spoon the shallots into the cavity, increase the oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6 and roast for 30 mins more until the turkey is golden and the thigh juices run clear when pierced with a skewer, or a digital cooking thermometer reads over 70C. Leave the turkey to rest on a warm platter covered with foil – it will stay warm for about 1 hr. If you want to make turkey gravy, pour the fat off the juices and add the gravy (see p42 for the recipe) to the roasting tin and bring to the boil, then pour into a gravy jug. To serve, bring the whole turkey to the table, along with the herbs, if using. Carve onto a hot platter with a little of the hot gravy poured over. Any leftover meat can be frozen in the gravy, or use up in our turkey banh mi on page 91, or turkey & ham pie on p112. GOOD TO KNOW gluten free PER SERVING 401 kcals • fat 23g • saturates 9g • carbs 1g • sugars 1g • fibre 0.7g • protein 47g • salt 1.1g