With friends and family coming around, pressure will be on the chefs in the kitchen to produce the perfect turkey for people to eat alongside their pigs and blankets and Yorkshire puddings.
Senior food editor from the YouTube channel Good Food, Barney Desmazery, recently shared in a video the best way to make the ideal turkey.
The expert said people will need the following ingredients.
- Turkey crown (one used in the example is 2kg)
- One tablespoon of Chinese five-spice
- Four tablespoons of honey
- One tablespoon of dijon or British mustard
- One tablespoon of red wine vinegar
- Salt
The expert shared how to make the perfect turkey
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To start with, the expert said: “Our oven is on 190 degrees Celsius, 170 fan, gas five, and we are going to sit our turkey in a shallow roasting tray and season it all over with the salt for fine spice.
“We need to smother our turkey with soft butter. Now this can be done with a brush but to be honest, the easiest way to do this is with your hands. That just goes all over the turkey and you want to get that completely covered, make sure you get some on the wings.
“When your turkey is completely covered in the butter, it is just a matter of seasoning in with a bit more salt and then our spice.
“So now our turkey is ready to roast and we will put the turkey in the oven for 30 minutes and meanwhile I am going to make my glaze.”
Barney mixed together the mustard, honey and red wine vinegar by whisking them all together to create an excellent glaze.
He said: “We’re going to add the glaze which is just a matter of brushing it over generously, then we are going to roast it for another hour, glazing a few more times throughout to build it up.
“The glazing is going to caramelize, and as soon as it starts to caramelize and go deep coloured, we’re going to add a bit more, so we are just adding layer after layer.
“In total, this is going to take another hour, but we’re going to glaze it maybe every 20 to 25 minutes.”
The turkey is a staple piece of Christmas dinners
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Once the turkey has finished glazing, Barney said to let the turkey rest on the side before carving.
He explained: “Now with anything that is roasted, it needs to rest for at least 20 minutes. There is no need to cover it with foil or a tea towel, all you’ll do is steam that glaze off the skin.
“Just set it aside for 20 to 30 minutes, it’ll still be piping up and ready to carve.”
For carving, there are two ways for you to carve it. One is more efficient, and the other is much slower.
Barney said: “The first way to carve is steadying the turkey with a fork and your hands then just cutting big slices off the breast.
“The second which is a bit more efficient is to take the whole breast off and then carve it into slices. The second way gives lovely neat, smaller slice where each person gets a lovely bit of skin.”
