For me Christmas dinner is the culmination of a busy few weeks planning and looking forward to Christmas. Of course choosing, buying and wrapping presents is also a big job, but now that I am in charge of cooking the main meal on Christmas Day, for me this dinner is a big deal.
I have to be honest, for a long time cooking Christmas dinner kind of scared me because of the pressure to get it right, and all of those timings you need to set in place to ensure that all the food elements are ready to serve at the same time. And do not even get me started on the turkey! You hear so many scare stories about turkeys, how hard they are to cook, how easy they can be over cooked and become dry, or how easy they are to under cook. I will never forget my Mum telling me that the first Christmas dinner she cooked as a married woman at the tender age of 18, saw her not realise she had cooked the turkey upside down until it was served up on the dinner table! Still, her Christmas dinners are amazing, so that little blip was just a teething error really.
Once I tried cooking the Christmas dinner myself, I found that actually it was not that bad after all and no different to cooking a regular roast dinner, just a bigger piece of meat and a few extra side dishes to get right! I have to admit though that I watched, and indeed still do watch, a lot of Christmas cooking shows especially ones featuring Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson and I have picked up a lot of tips from these chefs which I have now adapted for my own Christmas dinner.
Below are my top tips for buying, cooking and serving a Christmas turkey. This is not to say they are the best or right for everyone, but they work well for me.
*Buy as good a quality turkey as you can afford. I always buy a free range bird, it does cost more but as we only cook a whole turkey once a year, we feel it is money well spent because the flavour is amazing. I also like the fact that each Christmas I know where my turkey has come from, something which I can pass onto my guests. The last couple of years it has come from a farm in town 12 miles away, that I used to live in and this year my bird is coming from Bude which is not that far away.
*Prep your turkey the night before you cook it which will save a lot of time on the day. I choose to make a butter which I have mixed with garlic and herbs, either thyme or sage, and the zest of a lemon or orange and I then fill the cavity between the skin and the meat with it.
*Cook your turkey early enough to enable it to be removed once cooked and rest it for a couple of hours while you cook the rest of your sides in the now empty oven. Check your turkey is cooked by ensuring that the juices are clear once a knife or skewer is inserted in a thigh and the underside of the bird. Despite the timings given to cook your turkey on the packaging or on google, always check it before because more often than not my turkey has cooked before the designated roasting time. After all, all oven vary as do all birds.
*For carving your turkey, we find doing it the Jamie Oliver way works best for us. It means that very little meat gets wasted and it is just easier.
*Turkey leftovers – if you buy a big bird chances are you will have a lot of meat leftover. Here are some recipe ideas for using up your leftovers from some blogger friends of mine:
Turkey Spring Rolls with Cranberry Dipping Sauce
Turkey Cottage Pie
Turkey and Bacon Risotto
Turkey, Cranberry & Stuffing Chelsea Buns
However, you buy and cook your turkey this Christmas, just be as relaxed as you can so you can be stress free and enjoy the whole experience. Merry Christmas x
This post has been written in collaboration with Donald Russell.
