Bourbon And Canadian Maple Syrup Roast Turkey ©
Happy Thanksgiving !
A marathon blog, hope you find it useful and be sure to let me know how you got on, love your feed back 🙂
With ” Thanksgiving” just around the corner, I have been asked if I have a favorite “Roast Turkey” recipe?
This one I have been making for several years and it really is delicious. Cooking Turkey is much like roasting a chicken, but some how due to the larger size and it being for a special occasions, this seems to add to the stress! Turkey breast easily becomes dry and so it is important to observe certain procedures to keep it moist.
1. Roast breast downwards.
2. Place butter under the skin.
3. Baste every half an hour.
4. Cook until the last 40 minutes under tin foil.
Before beginning, read through the recipe carefully, especially if it is your first time. A frozen Turkey should de-frosted at room temperature in it’s sealed bag, from the day before preparation begins. I always prepare my ‘fresh’ turkey the day before, so if it is frozen, begin de-frosting two days before.
This I dedicate to my ‘young cooks,’ who are doing it for the first time!
Medium- Easy
8-10 Persons
Cooking Time : 20 mins per 450g plus 35 mins.
Oven Temperature : 220.C / 425. F. For the first 30 minutes.
Then turn down to 180.C /350. F for the rest of the cooking time.
Special equipment : Trussing needle 10-15 cms long, Trussing string. Roasting Trivet.
Large oven roasting tin big enough to fit potatoes too!
Ingredients
One 3.5-4.5 kilo turkey
2-3 tsp salt and freshly ground pepper, to rub over Turkey
1 large onion for inserting into cavity
A few sprigs of thyme for inserting into cavity
1 lemon cut in half for inserting into cavity
For Butter mixture
1oog softened butter. ( Remove butter from fridge 1/2 hr before.)
1 tsp fresh thyme
Finely grated zest of lemon
1 tsp Salt and freshly ground pepper
4 tbs Canadian Maple Syrup
4 tbs Kentucky Bourbon
Olive oil to generously drizzle over turkey when trussed.
My Gravy
Giblets, 1 carrot, stick celery, small onion
Juices from turkey, fat removed
1 tbs flour
1 tbs bovril ( Bovril is an English concentrated beef stock, available in International food Halls.)
1 tsp dijon mustard
dash of worcestershire sauce
4 tbs brandy
Garnish
225 g hungarian or dry-cured bacon, rolled into roles
Fresh herbs for decoration: Thyme, Rosemary,Parsley.
Method
Place oven shelf 1/3rd up from the bottom, so that turkey sits in center of oven.
Pre-heat oven 220.C/425.F. if cooking straight away. (1/4 hour beforehand is enough.)
Preparation of turkey:
1. Remove turkey from plastic wrapping. Remove Giblets ( Neck, liver, stomach,) from cavity and wash thoroughly under the running tap. Place giblets in saucepan, together with vegetables, cover with water and simmer for one hour. Reserve for gravy.
2.Wash turkey thoroughly, remove any lingering feathers and leave to drain. Pat dry with kitchen paper and place on large wooden board.
Preparation of Butter
1. In a mixing bowl cream softened butter with a wooden spoon.
2. Add finely chopped thyme and lemon zest.
3. Season well and add 1 tbs of Canadian maple syrup, followed by 1 tbs of Kentucky Bourbon.
4. Chill mixture in refrigerator for 15 minutes.
5. At the cavity end, place your fingers under the skin either side of the breast bone and carefully separate the skin from the flesh. Spread most of the flavored butter over the breast, keeping a little to rub over turkey and inside main cavity.
6. Place onion, lemon and thyme in cavity.
7. At this point if you are also stuffing your turkey, place half the stuffing in the neck and pin down and the other half in the main cavity and sew up with trussing string. See photographs. ( Greek Chestnut Stuffing will soon be featuring for Christmas!)
8. Truss turkey into a nice shape, using a large cook’s trussing needle, 10-15 cms long and trussing string. See photographs and link below…
https://whatscookinginjaneskitchen.wordpress.com/2012/04/22/how-to-truss-a-chicken/
9. Weigh turkey to calculate cooking time. ( Times given above.)
10. Rub over generously with salt, freshly ground pepper and drizzle generously with olive oil. Place turkey breast downwards in tin, or on ‘Trivet’ in tin and cover loosely with tin foil. ( No foil underneath.)
Turkey Cooking:
1. Pre- heat oven 15 minutes before beginning cooking at 220.C/425.F.
Cook turkey for 20 minutes per 450g plus 15 minutes.
After 35 minutes, turn down oven to 180.C/350.F
Make sure the turkey is gently bubbling always, if not turn heat up a little.
2. One hour before cooking time is up, add par-boiled, ( bring potatoes to the boil, boil five minutes, take out of water, season and oil and place around turkey. ( If potatoes don’t fit cook in separate tray, but add some of the oil and juices from the turkey roasting tin.
*IMPORTANT : If at any time during cooking the roasting tin starts to dry, add a little stock or water.
BASTE THROUGH OUT, every half hour.
3. When there is 40 minutes cooking time left, take turkey out of oven. Remove foil and with two large forks turn turkey breast up. Baste well with the remaining Maple Syrup and Bourbon, mixed together with the turkey juices and return to the oven. At this point watch over it carefully, because it can easily burn and you want a golden uniform color!
4. To test that the turkey is cooked, stick a skewer into the thickest part of the turkey thigh and the juices should run clear. If they are at all red, place in oven, covered with foil for another ten minutes. Test again.
5. Lift Turkey onto platter and cover loosely with foil and leave to rest for 30 minutes somewhere warm! This is important as the turkey is much easier to carve when left to rest.
6. Place bacon rolls under grill and grill on both sides until crisp. Place round turkey and garnish with fresh herbs.
N.B. I usually carve the turkey before the guests arrive. This takes at least 20 minutes, but is well worth it as it is much easier to serve. I drizzle the turkey with the turkey juices and cover with tin foil and keep warm in the oven, 50.C. This gives you time to serve out your vegetable too, make the gravy and get the kitchen tidy!
To make gravy :
Pour off fat from roasting tin. Mix together in bowl liquid ingredients. Place roasting tin on medium heat on stove. Using a whisk add 1 tbs flour to absorb any fat. Cook until flour becomes frothy, 2-3 minutes, add rest of ingredients stirring continuously until it thickens. Dilute with a little giblet stock. Sauce should cover the back of a spoon in thickness. Boil for two minutes for alcohol to evaporate and flour to thoroughly cook. Taste and pass through sieve into gravy boat.
Gather your ingredients together.
Unwrap turkey from plastic wrapping, remove ‘Giblets’ from inside cavity and wash thoroughly. Reserve neck
liver and stomach for gravy, discard rest. ( I keep liver for Chestnut stuffing at Christmas, recipe coming up.)
Add onion, carrot and celery and cover with water. Simmer for one hours and use as stock for gravy.
Remove lingering feathers using a sharp knife.
Cream softened butter and add thyme, bourbon and maple syrup
The bourbon and maple syrup get absorbed into the butter slowly.
Cream together and place in refrigerator for 15 minutes.
From the large cavity end of your turkey carefully separate the skin from the flesh either side of the breast bone, as far as your fingers will reach.
The further you reach the more the butter will keep the turkey breast moist.
Remove your butter mixture from the refrigerator and press 1/2 the cold butter down the breast, reserving the rest to rub in the cavity and over the outside.
In the main cavity place salt and pepper, some remaining better, your peeled onion, lemon halves and thyme sprigs. Now add half your stuffing, if using, keep the other half for the front.
Begin trussing your turkey by sewing up the main cavity.
Sew all the way round until completely closed. Take plenty of flesh, so it doesn’t break open during cooking. ( Here I have stuffed my turkey with Greek Chestnut Stuffing, recipe coming up!)
Now tie the legs together with the bottom.
Taking a new long piece of trussing string, double thickness, pass the needle right through your turkey, just under the thigh.
Then pass it back again and pull both ends tight. This pulls the turkey into a nice plump compact shape.
Tie a tight knot.
Now using your thumb, turn the turkey wings under the bird.
Push until they are trapped underneath.
Turn your turkey upside down, pull out the neck flap and stuff.
Press the stuffing well down and fill up to neck bone.
Then neatly turn flap over and secure with a couple of stitches!
Now re-thread your needle and push through wings.
Using a little kitchen paper to help, pull needle through and then thread back again.
Tie securely.
Here you have a nice compact, trussed, turkey!
Spread with the rest of the butter mixture.
Top and bottom. The underside was rather wet and the butter had difficulty in sticking, despite drying the skin off!!!!
Place upside down on trivet. Breast downwards, it keeps a lot more moist this way. Drizzle generously with olive oil. Add stock during cooking if the oven tray starts to dry out.
Cover loosely with tin foil. This you remove during the last 40 minutes of cooking, when you turn your turkey over to go golden. Be very careful, because the maple syrup can cause it to burn easily.
Baste every 30 minutes.
White meat.
Roast potatoes. Drizzle with a little oil from the roasting just before serving, it makes them nice and shiny.
These are the soft kind of roast potatoes. The Crispy English kind, need to be par-boiled, fluffed up with a fork and roasted separately in pre-heated fat, perfect when you have two ovens! Or do them while your Turkey is resting.
For your bacon rolls, role them up and thread them on a skewer.
Place under the grill.
Yummy!!! Good Luck!
Homemade Gingerbread ! ©
Home made Gingerbread, there is nothing like it! It is absolutely delicious and just thinking about it makes me want to go and make it straight away, so here goes!
This is for Trish. Her parents were truly wonderful cooks and I was fortunate enough to be invited out from Boarding School on several occasions and will never forget all the lovely meals I enjoyed in their home. Food was an important part of their lives, the best of English and French, Italian, Indian anything that took their fancy and it was an inspiration for me. Both husband and wife cooking that was fairly unusual in those days and they judged each other on the final result and this was very educative, because it made one realize how important it is to take time to taste and taste again, like sampling a good wine, and there was a wonderful selection of that too! The perfect match was chosen diligently and what could be better than dinning with two expert cooks and wine specialists in the warmth of their beautiful home…..those were the days!
This is a good cake to make at Christmas time to have on hand when friends drop by.
Category 2. Melted Cakes
Unlike other raw cake mixtures,
a melted mixture has a pouring
consistency, similar to a thick batter.
When baked the cakes have a close
texture, are moist and quite rich.
This is like making a giant mud pie!
It is fun to make, even if a little time
consuming, the result is well worth it.
It makes a 23 cm square Cake
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Oven 180.C
Cooking time: 1.1/4 hrs
Ingredients
450 g Plain Flour
1 tbs ground ginger powder
1 tbs Baking powder
1 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
1 tsp Salt
225 g Demerara Sugar
175 g butter
175 g black treacle
175 g golden syrup
300 ml milk
1 large egg
* Special equipment : Gingerbread tin 23 cm square, 5 cm deep.
** There are 3 main categories of flour on the market:
1. Plain Flour: For cake making,pastry etc.
2. Self Raising Flour: Where the baking powder has already been added.
3. Strong Flour: For making Bread and Pizza Dough, usually using yeast as a raising agent.
Method
1. Turn Oven on to 180.C. Place shelf 1/3rd up in oven.
2. Grease and line with grease -proof paper a 23 cm square cake tin, or oven-proof dish, about 5 cm deep.
3. Sift all the dry ingredients, except the sugar into a large bowl.
4. Place your small saucepan on the scales and zero the counter. Pour in your sugar, followed by golden syrup to the required weight, followed by the treacle. If you over pour you can remove a little with a spoon. Do this as described, otherwise it is difficult to measure out the sticky liquids correctly.
5. Place your saucepan on a medium heat and add your weighed butter. Stir until just melted. Remove from heat.
6. In a bowl, lightly beat your egg and add the milk.
7. Using a wooden spoon, make a ‘well’ (hole) in the center of your dry ingredients.
8. Pour into the ‘well’ your melted ingredients, followed by the egg and milk.
9. Using a large balloon whisk stir in the center of your ‘Well,’ slowly enlarging your circle, so that the dry ingredients are gently incorporated, with out forming lumps. If lumps do form, beat vigorously in the center to break them up. The mixture should gently thicken and this should take up to 5 minutes, so do not hurry. Your circular movements will get bigger and bigger, until all the dry ingredients at the sides of the bowl are incorporated.
10. Pour into your pre-prepared cake tin and place in the center of your pre-heated oven.
11. After about half to three quarters of an hour the cake may begin to smell as if it might be burning. If it over darkens on top, which it easily does, due to the treacle, just slide in a sheet of grease- proof paper on top of your cake, opening the oven as briefly as possible to do so. ( As you all know, never open the oven door when baking a cake, or the cold air will cause it to drop. This can only be done towards the end of the cooking time and should be done as quickly as possible, for example in order to test if it is done. Never take cake out of the oven, test in oven.)
12. When the cake has been cooking for an hour test with a skewer. If it comes out clean, cake is ready, if not, leave another 5-10 minutes.
13. Remove from oven, turn out onto a cooling rack and leave to cool.
14. When it has cooled, remove paper, thus having kept the moisture in,( important.) Turn up right and when completely cold, store in an air tight tin.
Gingerbread improves with keeping as they used to say and this is a wonderfully old fashioned recipe.
N.B. When making cakes follow instructions ‘precisely,’ small changes which you might not think matter, will not give a good result.
When measuring spoons are used and the word ‘level,’ is not specified, always make it ‘level.’ If they mean
‘heaped,’ it will say so.
Butter and line cake tin or oven-proof dish with grease-proof paper 23 cm square, 5 cm deep.
Weigh out ingredients with precision. If you have a non-digital weighing machine always check before
weighing that you have adjusted it to ‘zero.’
Sieve flour into large mixing bowl. This is the first sieving, all dry ingredients should be sieved twice when
making a cake it really adds to the lightness! ( Except for the coarse brown sugar…)
Add 1 level tablespoon ginger powder,for this recipe, only powdered ginger is suitable. ( Note the word
‘level,’, not heaped!
Add 1 level tablespoon of Baking Powder.
Add 1 level ‘teaspoon’ of Soda. Be careful not to mix the quantities up here.
Sieve altogether again, ‘second sieving,’ to mix together ingredients and add more air to your Gingerbread.
Wonderful English Lile’s Black Treacle and Golden Syrup to be found in most International Supermarkets
in the sugar section. They are unique and can not be substituted, if you want the original flavor.
Place small saucepan on scales, deduct weight of saucepan and add specified weight of sugar, butter, golden
syrup and treacle.
Make a ‘well’ in the center of your flour mixture.
Pour in melted sugar syrups.
Add lightly beaten egg and milk.
Starting in the center of your well stir with your whisk in circular movements and slowly the surrounding
flour will be incorporated. Do not hurry this process, so that the flour amalgamates slowly to form a thick
paste in the center.
Slowly but surely you make ever widening circles, until you reach the edges. If any lumps do form beat
vigorously.
Here one is about half way through the process.
Give a final vigorous whip to your mixture to ensure there are no pockets of flour.
Pour mixture into prepared baking container. The grease-proof paper is essential in this recipe, so that it
does not stick.
Once cooking time has been reached, test with a skewer in the center, pressing down to the bottom. If skewer
comes out clean, Gingerbread is ready. If not leave a little longer, 5 minutes. You don’t want to over cook
your Gingerbread, as you are aiming for a nice moist cake.
YUMMY!
Place rack on top of tin and turn out. Leave to cool with grease-proof paper on, so as to keep moisture in.
Remove grease-proof paper carefully and turn the Gingerbread the right way up.
Leave to cool on a cake rack.
Now if you are like me and can’t wait….cut your self a slice and divide it into four.
Place the rest in an air tight tin, once the gingerbread is completely cold. Each day it increases in flavor….
if it lasts that long!
The texture is light and moist and the taste is delicious.
Serve on its own or with whipped cream or ice cream!
Kashmiri Meatball Curry ©
Preparation time 10 minutes
Cooking time 30 mins
4-6 Persons
Ingredients
750 g good quality minced beaf, fat free
1 egg
9 tsp garam masala spice powder
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
800 ml thick Greek yogurt
salt
3 tbs olive oil
7.5 cm cinnamon stick
6 green cardamom pods, bruised
2 fresh bay leaves
6 whole cloves
5 cm piece fresh root ginger, finely grated
2 tbs chopped fresh coriander, to garnish
To Cook Basmati Rice
Add 2 cm water to your medium saucepan together with 1/4 tsp salt. Rinse 1 cup of basmati rice in a sieve under cold water.
Bring to the boil, turn heat to minimum and leave rice to swell until all the water is absorbed, 10 minutes. Proportions should be, 1 cup of rice to 2 of water.
Method
1.Put mince, 1 tbs of the oil, garam masala, cayenne and 6 tbs yogurt in a bowl. Season with salt, 1 tsp approximately and mix well using your hands.
2. Wash hands clean and oil palms, with a few drops of oil. Place a table spoon of the meat mixture in your hands. Shape into 16 oblongs, about 4-5 cm long.
3.Heat oil in large shallow based saucepan, (where they can all fit, 28 cm diameter,) add cinnamon, bruised cardamom pods, bay leaves and cloves.
Stir-fry for a few seconds, then add meat balls and fry until lightly browned on all sides. Do not hurry to turn them over, they need to brown well first, otherwise they will disintegrate. Best way to turn them is to unstick them with a long narrow spatula and turn them over with the help of a fork.
4. Add ginger at the end of the frying time, fry for a few more seconds and then add remaining yogurt, dilute with a little water before pouring over.
5. Simmer gently,with lid on for 20 mins. Taste sauce for seasoning, add more yogurt if wished. If the yogurt appears to have curdled,remove from heat and just add a little more yogurt just before serving and it will come right. Don’t re-boil.
6. Serve in warmed serving dish along with Basmati rice ( see instructions above) and garnish with freshly coriander leaves.
N.B. The spices you will find in Indian stores.
Place ingredients in bowl and mix.
Mix thoroughly with hands . Wash hands clean and oil palms. Now form into oblongs.
Finely grate ginger to have ready to add after frying.
Cover base of large saucepan 28 cm in diameter with olive oil and add cinnamon, cardamon and cloves, along with two bay leaves.
Heat oil and spices until just beginning to form bubbles, 3-4 minutes and add your meatballs.
Fry until well browned, then turn over using a spatula to unstick and a fork to turn over. Make sure they are well browned, before turning over, or they will disintegrate.
Add finely grated ginger in last two minutes of cooking.
Finally pour over remaining yogurt, diluted with a little water. Simmer very gently for ten minutes. Should this curdle in the cooking, add more yogurt just before serving and the sauce will combine.
Final Result!
Serve on warmed plates together with basmati rice.
Delicious!
What's Cooking In Jane's Kitchen 