Jamie Oliver has shared how to make the ‘tastiest turkey ever’ (Image: Jamie Oliver/YouTube)
has revealed the best and easiest ways to create the most delicious turkey which will cut your cooking time down and allow you to enjoy the day with family.
The celebrity chef takes the classic Christmas turkey and puts his own unique twist on it, using a simple stuffing that goes two ways, as well as adding mulled wine gravy which will leave your kitchen smelling delightful.
Jamie’s culinary hacks are unveiled in his new Channel 4 show, Jamie’s Christmas Shortcuts, where he promises to share “amazing cheats” to perfecting the turkey.
“Once a year you come together with this mighty bird,” Jamie says. “My job is to give you the basics, to hand-hold you through how to cook the best turkey. There’s loads of little things that really make a difference. So let’s get those hacks, shortcuts, those little guarantees of maximum flavour, so you can just carve it and enjoy it and be really proud of yourself.”
The turkey has been stuffed and allowed to rest for an hour and a half (Image: Jamie Oliver/YouTube)
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The prep
Bring your meat to room temperature for around an hour and a half – this ensures the meat doesn’t tighten up in the oven when coming out of the fridge.
Jamie’s key to efficiency on the big day is making the stuffing the day before.
Ingredients you will need for the stuffing:
- Six regular onions, peeled and quartered
- Olive oil
- Two tablespoons of butter
- 100g dried cranberries
- Pot of dried apple slices
- Half a grated nutmeg
- Zest of one clementine
- 300ml cider
- 1kg good quality minced sausage meat
- 800g breadcrumbs from any bread you like, mixed in a processor
- Salt and pepper
Method
Whizz up the onions with salt and pepper in a food processor before adding olive oil to a frying pan alongside two tablespoons of butter. Add the onions and allow this to bubble. Next, add herbs. Grate half a nutmeg and add it to the mixture, cooking for approx. 15-20 minutes. Once the onions are light brown, add a handful of chestnuts and the dried apple, along with black pepper, salt, clementine zest and cider. Mix together and cook. After, allow it to cool and mix in the breadcrumbs with your hands. Add in the minced sausage meat and split into thirds and place the largest portion into an oven proof bowl.
: [RECIPE] [HACK]
Take half of the remaining stuffing and push it into the neck end of the turkey, folding the skin over to contain it. Using the rest of the stuffing, press into the carcass at the other end where the large cavity of the turkey is, being careful not to block the area because air needs to flow so the turkey cooks properly and is perfectly juicy.
The trivet
This sits under the rack and holds the turkey off the roasting tray – it will be the basis for the gravy.
Ingredients:
- Two sticks of celery chopped into large chunks
- Two carrots skin on roughly chopped into large chunks
- Clementine halved
- One onion quartered
- Turkey giblets
- One star anise
- Inch portion of a cinnamon stick
- Couple of sprigs of rosemary
- One bay leaf
- Two tablespoons of plain flour
- Generous cup of red wine
- 1 ½ pints of stock (either homemade or bought)
Add the carrots, celery, onion and clementine to a roasting tray with a rack on. Crack the giblet bones several times to release the flavour and add to the tray with the star anise, rosemary and bay lead.
Cooking the turkey
Place the turkey on top of the rack and drizzle some olive oil, season with salt and pepper and massage the seasoning in. Jamie suggests taking a clementine and securing a bay leaf to it with a clove – put this in the microwave for a minute and a half and pop it in the turkey cavity.
Cover the bird with foil pressing down across the legs, leaving the cavity exposed. Place into a preheated oven at 180C / 350F for an hour and a half with the foil on and another hour with the foil off.
Voilà.