FLOWER POT KITCHEN: PERFECT JUICY ROAST TURKEY

3 Jan 2018

PERFECT JUICY ROAST TURKEY

Top Tips

There is nothing more sumptuous and totally satisfying than cooking the most moist and juiciest turkey on Christmas Day, not only to please your family and guest but for one of those Oh Yes get in the back of the net! private personal moments of triumphant with the added bonus of a brilliant meal. A little secret tip of removing the whole breast before carving makes this a really easy carve and serve process on the big day too.

8kg Turkey / Cooking time 3hours / Resting time 1.5 hrs

Ingredients

(serves 16)

1 8kg high welfare turkey

2 packs butter

Cooking The Perfect Turkey

The night before Christmas take your turkey and carefully using the back of a spoon or your hand lift the skin away from the meat, be extra careful not to tear the skin, slice the butter in to half inch thick slices and place the slices of butter under the skin all over the turkey breasts. Keep in the fridge until ready to cook.

Christmas morning bring the turkey out of the fridge for a couple of hours before ready to start cooking to come up to room temperature, this lowers the cooking time and encourages a juicy turkey. Pre heat your oven to 200 C, place the turkey in a deep roasting tin and place in the oven in covered for 30 minutes to brown off the skin, once browned cover the turkey well in foil, turn the oven down to 150 C and leave the turkey to cook for the remainder of the cooking time, around 3 hours in total. Once your turkey has reached 65 C remove from the oven and leave covered to rest.

A really good serving tip is to remove the whole breast from the turkey in one go, place on your carving board and slice, this is what I have done here, it makes for a quicker serving and less stress on the carver as it's really easy to carve and serve this way.

That's it turkey done!

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LIFE MY PASSION

Welcome to my daily life of cooking, one winters day many years ago my family and I were all inspired by a back to back rainy day of River Cottage this got us to stop talking about and start actually doing, suddenly three weeks later eight vegetable beds were dug, greenhouse erected and our first vegetables were propagating, this was the start to raising and growing our own food, our fabulous son Oscar changed our path in life which lead us to sell our small thriving restaurant of 10 yrs and to start our new life (Terrifying!) a life of the self sufficient in touch with nature and seasons, taking a step back and looking forward to a slower change of pace and making the most of every moment.

My passion for cooking was stronger than ever and having time at home with Oscar I found I had a new direction and I was no longer striving for perfection, I was suddenly very passionate for the enjoyment of the other side of food, something I had not realised, being the Chef/Cook and every other duty of your own small restaurant made me see that I never actually took time to cook what I wanted!

So there I was muddy boots and hands digging deep in more than one sense and I found myself transported back in time to where everyone grew some of their own food, it is a wonderful world with a real sense of achievement and loss, Slugs Snails and Caterpillars! But thats another story! Childhood memories of summers when I lived with my grand parents reminded me of so much that I had learnt about the make do and mend generation that I had forgotten.

Now as a family we love our free wild food days where we gather what nature has provided, have gone from being mini mini garden urban small holders, who did raised pigs at home because we could not wait to find land and supporting ourselves from our garden to now owning a very small farm that allows us to grow more vegetables for the whole of our family and neighbours, raise our own gorgeous Gloucestershire Old Spot pigs, (Sausages!) and pets! Dorset Down sheep, chickens for eggs and pet goats! Suddenly having large quantities of produce started to wake up the Cook in me!

The Cook was awake that part of me that wants to cook for the masses and I found myself setting up Flowerpot Kitchen, a Farmers Market Stall, I wanted to use our honest raised meats and make old fashioned pork pies, rabbit pies and game pies from the local game keeper along with old fashioned techniques and the best hot water crust pastry. This in turn grew to a small cottage industry from home weekly supplying three farm shops and a deli along with also attending three farmers markets A few years later there came a time when my son Oscar's health changed and it was an easy decision to stop.

I still hold the occasional pop up 40 seater restaurant or gourmet lunch which we do for local charities for the love of sharing food and to remind that Cook in me why I love our go slower self sufficient life!

So here I am sitting amoung the vegetables watching the chickens loving that every season nature teaches me something new and that nature is in charge! She has taught me to just go with it and grow. Give it a try from a tray of salad on your windowsill to a few tomato plants it all counts.