Roast Turkey
Easy
Maryanne Dalton’s Roast Turkey with a Sage & Onion Stuffing. One of the tricks to ensure your turkey doesn’t dry out is place a layer of stock into the roasting pan before it goes into the oven, this way the meat partly steams and retains moisture. And, once your foils is tightly crimped sealed, you shouldn’t need to repeatedly remove from the oven to baste so it takes away at least that cause of stress on the big day.
SERVE
8-10
Roast Turkey
Easy
Introduction
Maryanne Dalton’s Roast Turkey with a Sage & Onion Stuffing. One of the tricks to ensure your turkey doesn’t dry out is place a layer of stock into the roasting pan before it goes into the oven, this way the meat partly steams and retains moisture. And, once your foils is tightly crimpe
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Ingredients
- 7kg (14-16lb) turkey
- 160g (6oz) soft butter
- 1 batch of sage and onion stuffing
- 1 lemon, quartered
- 300ml Chicken Stock
- Salt and pepper to season
- 250g (9oz) bread crumbs
- 10 fresh sage leaves, finely chopped (or 2 tsp dried sage)
- 50g (2oz) butter
- 1 very large onion, (or two medium) finely chopped
- 1 Tbsp salt
- 1 Tbsp freshly milled black pepper
- 1 organic vegetable stock cube
SAGE & ONION STUFFING
Method
- 1. Allow the turkey come to room temperature before roasting. Preheat the oven to 180ᵒC
- 2. Stuff the neck of the bird with cold stuffing, and use a cocktail stick or two to secure the skin underneath the bird. Don’t be tempted to over-pack the stuffing as doing so will most likely cause the skin to tear during cooking as the stuffing expands with the heat of the oven. Excess stuffing can be baked separately in an oven proof dish. Despite many, many recipes advising you to do so, never, ever stuff the cavity of a turkey with stuffing. Leaving the cavity mostly open will allow the hot air to circulate inside as well as outside of the breast meat. This means the meat is being cooked from both sides, so it will cook far more quickly and evenly, and the chances of it becoming dry and stringy are dramatically reduced.
- 3. Even though you shouldn’t stuff the cavity of the turkey, you can, as suggested here, add citrus fruit or even halved whole garlic bulbs in to cavity for flavour. You could even put sprigs of herbs in the cavity, instead of or as well as the citrus or garlic.
- 4. Prepare the roasting tin with two long sheets of wide aluminium foil. Place the first sheet of foil, centred, inside the tin and follow with the second sheet at 90 degrees to the first.
- 5. Transfer the stuffed turkey to the roasting tray, sitting in the centre of the foil. Once the bird is in the tin spread a layer of soft butter all over the whole turkey and then season with salt and pepper. Place the lemon quarters into the cavity
- 6. Pour the chicken stock onto the base of the roasting tray then use the overhanging tinfoil to make a package around the turkey, leaving circulation space for the steam from the stock to baste the turkey as it roasts.
- 7. Carefully transfer the roasting tray into the hot oven and roast for 45 minutes per kg plus an additional 20 minutes. 30 minutes before the end, removed from the oven and open the foil to allow the urkey to brown for the final duration. Once cooked, remove from the oven and place on a platter. Cover with foil and then a tea towel and allow to rest.
- 8. Allow the turkey to rest for a minimum of 40 minutes, but the turkey will remain hot for a good hour and a half if covered while resting.
- 9. For the stuffing:
- 10. Melt the butter over a gentle heat and then sweat the onions. Add the salt with the onion to discourage browning of the onions and keep them translucent.
- 11. Add the sage to the pan and allow to infuse in the butter for a minute or two, remembering to keep the heat low so as not to burn the herbs.
- 12. Crumble in the stock cube and pepper and mix thoroughly.
- 13. Tip in the breadcrumbs and thoroughly mix. Set aside to cool thoroughly before stuffing and meat.
- 14. Alternatively, transfer to an oven proof dish and bake at 180ᵒC until golden.
