I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas and New Year! I had a busy few days cooking my first crispy roast duck, an 11kg ex breeder turkey (you can get these from Crozier's Turkeys), a risotto, soup and pie made out of the leftover turkey! So today, I'm going to share a few of those recipes with you :)
First off, this was my first attempt at cooking an ex breeder turkey so I wasn't entirely sure of cooking times. I did mine for 10 hours, though I think 8-9 would've been enough.
Here's what I did:
Pull turkey out of fridge ahead of time to bring it back up to room temperature. Preheat oven to full blast while you make the stuffing.
Pork and fruit stuffing
500g pork mince
diced onion
garlic, crushed
breadcrumbs - fresh or dried
cranberries
dried apricots, sliced
egg
salt and pepper
Heat oil in a pan and slowly fry onion and garlic until soft. Dice cranberries and apricots and add to the pan. If using fresh breadcrumbs, add them too to soak up some of that flavour. Set aside to cool.
In a large bowl, mix pork with onion and fruit mix, egg and season with salt and pepper.
Separate around a third of the mix for the turkey, and place the rest in a greased ovenproof dish. Add a few slices of orange/mandarin on top and set aside until the turkey is cooked.
Stuff the third in the turkey neck, then wrap the skin back over it.
Turkey
Firstly, remove giblets and give the bird a rinse.
You want to keep the turkey off the bottom of the tray so it's not sitting directly in the juices. To do this, place an onion (chopped in chunks), some carrots and garlic cloves in the tray along with the turkey neck. Sit the turkey on top.
Now, to keep the moisture in, you can either rub butter over the skin, or using the back of a spoon, push a gap between the skin and the meat and push the butter in there. Season the bird with salt and pepper.
Place a chopped mandarin in the cavity along with a sprig of rosemary.
Cover the entire bird in tinfoil and pop in the oven, turning down to 180C for a store bought bird or 160C for an older bird. You want to allow around 45 minutes per kilo, and allow resting time too.
An hour before your bird is ready, remove the foil and if you like, add some bacon strips across the bird before placing back in the oven.
When it is done, set the bird on a dish/tray and cover with tinfoil and a couple of tea towels. This will keep the heat in. I rested mine for 2 hours and it was still piping hot.
While that is resting you can get onto your gravy and cooking those roast veggies!
Turkey risotto (based on Jamie Oliver's risotto recipe)
leek
onion
carrot
leftover turkey meat
half a pack of arborio rice
splash of rose wine
chicken/turkey stock
cream cheese
butter
parmesan
leftover gravy
Heat a pan with oil, or if you saved any of the turkey flavoured butter (from roasting) you can use that for an extra flavour kick. Add diced onion, carrot and leek to the pan and cook until softened.
Meanwhile, heat a pot of chicken stock or use turkey stock if you've managed to cook up your bones already ;) You'll need approx 4-5 cups of stock.
Add rice to the onion and stir through to coat. Splash a bit of rose or white wine in the pan and cook for a minute or two.
Slowly ladle stock into the pan, one ladle at a time. You want to make sure the first lot is soaked up before you add the next one. It takes a bit of time, but it's worth it, trust me. You don't need to constantly stir, but you do need to keep an eye on it, stirring before each ladle is added.
When the rice is fluffy and tender, add one final splash of stock and remove from heat. Stir through around 25g butter, a large dollop of cream cheese and around 1/3C grated parmesan.
To top this off, make a small well in the centre of each dish and pour in some leftover gravy - this really adds a boost and makes the dish!
There you go, a few recipes to try next Christmas, or perhaps at your next mid-winter get together :) I hope you have a great week! Happy cooking!
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