Turkey recipe for 8 - 10 people, takes only 30 mins; recipe has turkey, streaky bacon, mustard, olive oil, sea salt, onion, thyme sprig, bay leaf, dry white wine, thyme, butter, wholegrain mustard, english mustard and thyme leaf.
Mustard butter-basted roast turkey with bacon
Course: Turkey
Servings
8 - 10
servings
Prep time
30 mins
Ingredients
- Olive Oil: drizzle of olive oil
- Streaky Bacon: 250g pack dry-cured smoked streaky bacon (about 12 rashers)
- Onion: 1 onion, quartered
- Butter: 85g butter, softened
- Bay Leaf: a few bay leaves
- Mustard: a little mustard (optional)
- Thyme: bay leaves and chopped thyme, for scattering
- Turkey: 5-5 1/2 kg oven-ready turkey, neck and giblets removed (save them to make stock, if you like)
- Sea Salt: sea salt flakes
- Thyme Sprig: 1 large thyme sprig
- Wholegrain Mustard: 1 tbsp wholegrain mustard
- Thyme Leaf: 1 tbsp fresh thyme leaves
- English Mustard: 1 tsp English mustard
- Dry White Wine: glass of dry white wine
Directions
- Weigh your turkey and calculate the cooking time by allowing 40 mins per kg for the first 4kg, then 45 mins for every kg of turkey over that weight. As a guide, a turkey this size should take 3 1/2 -4 hrs plus 30-45 mins resting time.
- To make the mustard butter, beat the butter with the mustards, thyme and some ground black pepper until soft and well mixed.
- Gently push your fingers under the skin of the turkey, starting from the neck, until you can push your whole hand in down the length of the breast - take care not to tear the skin. Spread the butter under the skin so that it covers the breasts. Lay the streaky bacon on your work surface in 2 rectangles of 6 overlapping rashers (for extra flavour, you can brush the bacon with a little wholegrain or English mustard first), and carefully push each rectangle of bacon under the skin to cover and protect each breast. This can be done the night before, but take out of the fridge for 1 hr before roasting so that it comes back to room temperature.
- On the day, heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Lift the turkey into a roasting tin, massage the olive oil into the skin and season well with flaky salt and pepper. Put the onion, thyme and bay inside the cavity of the turkey, then pour in the wine. Cover the tin loosely with foil and roast for the calculated cooking time. For the final 30 mins, remove the foil and pour off all of the cooking juices (use for the gravy; recipe in 'goes well with'). Increase the oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6 and roast for 30 mins more until the turkey is golden and the juices that run out of the thigh are clear, with no sign of pink, when pierced with a skewer. Leave to rest on a warm platter covered with foil and tea towels - it will keep like this for up to 45 mins.
- To serve, carve the turkey and arrange the meat on a hot platter with a little of the hot gravy poured over, or bring the whole turkey to the table garnished with herbs. To fill the platter, you could surround the turkey with potatoes, if you like. Any leftover meat can be frozen in the gravy.
