Classic Roast Turkey

Roast dinners aren’t difficult, in fact they are probably the easiest meals that I cook. However, turkeys don’t come in small sizes, so making a classic roast turkey dinner requires you to set aside a decent amount of time to be in the house to keep an eye on your dinner. Which is, I suppose, why roast turkey is reserved for big family occasions such as Christmas and Easter in our house.

There’s much more meat on a turkey than on a chicken. You can feed far more people at dinner time, and of course that means that the leftovers are particularly bountiful the following day. As always, once your roast cools to room temperature, strip the meat away and freeze it for another meal, then get the carcass into the slow cooker to make a flavourful stock.

[recipe][recipe title=”Classic Roast Turkey” servings=”12″ time=”4 Hours” difficulty=”easy”]

Ingredients

• 1 6kg Fresh Turkey
• 2kg potatoes, peeled
• 2 tablespoons sunflower oil
• 4 large carrots, peeled and sliced
• 1 large head of broccoli, chopped into chunks
• 2 onions, peeled and diced
• 100g butter
• 300g fresh breadcrumbs
• 1 pack of fresh parsley, finely chopped
• A couple of sprigs of fresh thyme, picked from the stem
• Salt & Pepper
• 1 stock cube
• 75g plain flour
• Boiling kettle of hot water

Method

Preheat a fan oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Put the turkey into a roasting tray. Cover the turkey with tinfoil (shiny side up), and place into the preheated oven for 3 hours 30 minutes.  Once a total of 3 hours 30 minutes has passed, remove the turkey from the oven, lift it from the roasting tray, place on a serving dish and cover. Leave your roast turkey to rest for at least 30 minutes before carving and enjoying.

Gravy

Pour the cooking juices from the roast turkey into a large saucepan and heat it on a medium/high heat until bubbling. Boil 1L of water. Sprinkle in the plain flour and stir so that it’s mixed into the cooking juices and the flour begins to cook. Reduce the heat a little and pour in the hot water, little by little, stirring all the time to prevent lumps. Continue to stir while the gravy comes to the boil. If you find it a little bit bland season with salt and pepper and/or crumble in a stock cube into the gravy to boost the flavour.

Stuffing

Put the butter and the diced onions into a large saucepan. Cook on low until the onions become translucent (see through) and soft. Once the onions are cooked, pour the breadcrumbs into the saucepan and stir so that they soak up the butter and onion mixture. Add the chopped parsley and thyme, then turn off the heat. Stir well so that everything is mixed together. Leave the saucepan to one side for about 20 minutes (so that you don’t burn your hands). Once the stuffing mixture is cool, roll the breadcrumbs into small balls and put in a separate roasting tray. Roast in the oven for the final 30 minutes of the turkey cooking time.[/recipe]

Disclosure: This recipe was originally developed, written, and photographed for the Lidl Ireland Easter Brochure 2018.