How To Cook A Turkey: Christmas Dinner 2023 Recipes

Whether you like your turkey traditional, glazed, or even stuffed with a clementine there is a multitude of recipes to suit everyone.

How To Cook A Turkey

Celebrity cook Nigella Lawson has two main tips to cook a festive bird; always brine the meat with herbs and spices and add maple syrup.

Nigella Lawson

Brining means submerging meat in salt and/or sugar solution, and it keeps the meat as moist as possible.

Nigella Lawson

On her website, she recommends filling a large pan or plastic bucket with water, salt and spices and putting the turkey in it.

Nigella Lawson

Then set it in a cold place – perhaps by an open window or even outside. Adding to her brine, the chef puts in oranges, cinnamon sticks, bouquet garni, carraway seeds, cloves, allspice berries, star anise and mustard seeds.

Nigella Lawson

Then, combine goose fat and butter or maple syrup together, and smother the turkey with the glaze – after drying the skin thoroughly – before putting it in the oven.

Nigella Lawson

In 2018, on Channel 4’s Jamie’s Quick and Easy Christmas, the chef shared an “easy” turkey recipe. He makes a butter with festive flavours like cranberries, bacon and thyme, then spreads it between the meat and skin.

Jamie Oliver

Then place it on a baking tray and wrap it up in foil before cooking. He recommended putting a large bird in the oven for 25 to 30 minutes per kilogram and a standard bird in the oven for 35 to 40 minutes per kilogram.

Jamie Oliver

Michelin-starred chef Gordon Ramsay thinks a turkey is the best festive bird. He also makes a flavoured butter, mixing salt and pepper into a bowl of soft butter, to which he adds a dash of olive oil, the zest of two lemons and their juice.

Gordon Ramsay

Then crush three cloves of garlic and chop a generous handful of parsley before giving everything a good mix.

Gordon Ramsay

Delia Smith – the much-loved cook – admits that cooking a turkey can be a traumatic experience.

Delia Smith

Her secret is to give the turkey a good blast of heat to begin with, then once the heat has penetrated right through, you can reduce the temperature and let the turkey cook more gently.

Delia Smith

She says it’s also a good precaution to calculate your starting time, so that the bird should complete cooking at least thirty minutes before you plan to sit down to eat.

Delia Smith

This way the meat can relax, so the flesh is able to re-absorb the juices that have bubbled to the surface.

Delia Smith

He told BBC Good Food: “My bird of choice is always turkey. I absolutely love it. To be fair, I love every meat roasted, but turkey for me is fantastic. It’s special because you have it at Christmas and it reminds me of childhood.

Tom Kerridge

But also, it’s most definitely the best meat to have cold. I’m a massive Boxing Day fan – cold meat, bubble and squeak and pickles. So yes, turkey is most definitely the one for me.”

Tom Kerridge

Ottonlenghi has a more unusual turkey recipe using just the breasts. He puts mint, garlic, coriander, parsley, lemon juice, olive oil, white wine, cumin, salt and pepper in a food processor and mixes them together. He covers the turkey in the marinade and leaves it for at least 24 hours.

Yotam Ottolenghi

Cornwall’s Rick Stein is also an advocate of brining the meat. He says: “As turkey is a lean meat, it can become dry quite quickly, so Ian recommends to brine your bird for around 12 hours before popping it in the oven to cook.

Rick Stein

“During this process, it’ll absorb extra moisture, which in turn helps it stay moist and juicy, and the brining liquor will also help to season the meat.”

Rick Stein

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