Who doesn’t love Christmas? Even if you are not religious the holiday spirit will capture you and you’ll love being with your loved ones in these daunting times. 

This will be a lockdown Christmas as I foresee, so we will have to cook and share in our homes.

For dinner, I will give you a great recipe for the perfect turkey. You can cook the turkey easily in 2 hours and get ready for the big night. 

The perfect Turkey Ingredients

6 kg higher-welfare turkey w/giblets

125 g unsalted butter

1 clementine

A bunch of fresh herbs (whatever you have, thyme rosemary, etc.)

2 onions

2 celery sticks

2 carrots

Salt

Black pepper

Cayenne pepper (optional)

The Perfect Turkey – Preparation

You need to get the turkey to room temperature before you start preparing, so take it out of the fridge two hours in advance. 

Check the turkey, you need to get the bag of giblets out and use them for something else. Put the giblets on your roasting tray, they will add perfect flavour to the gravy.

You will get your hands dirty. When the Turkey is at room temperature, get the butter in your hands, warm it up a little and rub all over the turkey. Massage it on all the nooks and crannies. Then season the turkey with salt and pepper. If you want it hot, you can sprinkle a little cayenne pepper. 

Cut the clementine in half and place in the main cavity with the fresh herbs but do not stuff the cavity, leave a little space for the hot air to circulate. Then pull the skin back over it and tuck it under. 

Roughly chop the onions, celery and carrots. Chuck the veg into the tray with the giblets to make a blanket for the turkey and then sit the turkey on top. To cook evenly you need to cover the tray with tin foil but you’ll remove the foil at some point. Continue to read to learn when.

The Perfect Turkey – Cooking

Preheat the oven to 180ºC.

A higher-welfare bird cooking guide is 25 to 30 minutes per kilo.

A standard bird cooking guide is 35 to 40 minutes per kilo. 

We have got a 6kg bird, so we will cook it for 2 hours 45 minutes and we will remove the thin foil for the last 45 minutes, this way you will get a golden turkey. 

Normally the given time will be enough for the turkey to cook but to be clear you can stick a knife into the thickest part of the thigh, if the juices are clear, it’s done. 

Take the turkey out of the oven and transfer it to a platter, cover it with a double layer of tin foil and a clean tea towel.

The veg on the tray is going to be your gravy—for the gravy recipe check here.

The Perfect Turkey – Carving

To carve, start with the wing, remove it and then slice the skin beside the leg. Go to the legs, pull them out to chop off. Find the backbone and then cut all the way down, stop when the knife touches the carcass. Take the whole breast off the bone to a board and slice.