Herb Butter Roasted Turkey
Ingredients
- Cannings Whole Free Range Turkey
- 2 brown onions
- Cannings Bacon, Chestnut and Cranberry Stuffing
Herb Butter
- Grass fed butter (softened)
- 1 bunch of mixed fresh herbs such as sage, thyme and rosemary
- Pepper
Brine
- 1 cup Murray River Salt Flakes
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 - 2 tablespoons of peppercorns
- 1 small bunch of fresh thyme
- A couple of bay leaves
- 5 - 6 litres of water (or enough to produce enough brine to cover the whole bird)
Method
1. If you are brining your turkey, you’ll want to get everything organised the
day before. Start by bringing your brine ingredients to the boil, then reduce
heat and simmer for around 5-10 minutes. Take off the heat and transfer to
a large, deep container that’s big enough to submerge your whole turkey
in. Make sure the liquid has cooled completely before you pop your turkey
into it. Submerge your turkey in the liquid (you can use a plate to weigh the
turkey down if you need to), cover and refrigerate for 24 hours. Make sure
you have removed any offal from the cavity prior to brining (set aside for
gravy if you like).
2. While you’re doing your day-before prep, you can also make your herb
butter - making it ahead of time will give the flavours a bit of extra time to
infuse into the butter. Take your fresh herbs and finely chop them, then add
to a food processor or electric mixer with your butter and a pinch of pepper
to taste. Mix together on low (you don’t want to whip the butter, just combine
everything!) until the ingredients are well mixed. Pop this mixture into the
fridge to sit overnight.
3. The next day, remove your turkey from the brine and pat dry with paper
towels. Let both your turkey, stuffing and herb butter come up to room
temperature (you want it to be soft so it’s easy to spread) - this will usually
take at least one hour.
4. Preheat your oven to either 160ºC - 180ºC depending on the weight of your
bird (see table below)
| Weight | Temp | Time |
| 4kg | 180ºC | 2.5 hrs |
| 6kg | 170ºC | 4 hrs |
| 8kg | 160ºC | 5 hrs |
5. Gently push half of the softened herb butter under the skin of the turkey
breast, being careful not to tear the skin. Rub the remaining herb butter all
over the skin of the turkey, then season with some extra salt and pepper.
6. Loosely fill the cavity with stuffing and secure with a skewer.
7. Roughly chop your onion and lay down as a trivet in your roasting tin - this
will add a beautiful flavour to your meat as well as raise the meat off the
bottom of the pan.
8. Place your turkey in the baking dish on top of your onion and cover with foil.
Depending on the size of your turkey, you’ll have to adjust the cooking times
and temperatures slightly. See the table on pg 5. Keep covered in foil for first
half of cooking time, then remove foil and baste with the turkey juices every
half an hour. If you have a meat thermometer - check to ensure that the
thickest part of the breast is reading 70ºC and if stuffed, the stuffing should
read at least 65ºC.
9. Once cooked - rest your turkey for 5 mins per kilo of meat.
10. Serve with rosemary roasted sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce and gravy.
