A delicious recipe from the kitchen at Carton House
Ingredients
- 4.5 kg turkey, thawed with giblets removed
- ? 1 orange, quartered
- ? 60 g butter, at room temperature
- ? 20 cocktail sausages
- ? 10 smoked streaky rashers
- ? bunch of sage
- ? bunch of rosemary
Method
- Preheat the oven to 190c/gas mark 5. Wash the turkey inside and out and
- dry well with kitchen paper.
- Put the orange quarters into the turkey’s cavity. If you are stuffing the
- turkey, put the stuffing in the neck end, pushing it upwards toward the
- breast. Don’t pull the neck skin too tightly as the stuffing will expand
- during cooking. Secure the skin with wooden or metal skewers crossways
- and tie the turkey legs together at the top of the drumsticks for a good
- shape.
- Weigh the turkey and calculate the cooking time. 18 mins per 450g.
- Grease a large roasting tin with some of the butter. Smear the rest over
- the turkey skin and season well with salt and pepper, then place in the tin.
- Loosely cover the foil and roast for the calculated time. Meanwhile, halve
- the rashers, stretch slightly and wrap around each cocktail sausage.
- Baste the turkey every hour. One hour before cooking time ends, remove
- the foil and drain off the excess fat. Thirty minutes before the end of
- cooking, put the sausages around the turkey or in a separate lightly-oiled
- tin, if you have no space.
- To check if the turkey is cooked, insert a skewer into the thickest part of
- the thigh – the juices should run clear. If they are pinkish, cook for 15
- minutes more and test again.
- Transfer the turkey and sausages to a platter, tightly cover with tin foil
- and allow to rest for thirty minutes before carving. Serve with vegetables
- and stuffing balls and garnish with sage and rosemary.
