November has come, Christmas and the New Year are near. In the times of old Russia, turkey was a traditional dish on Christmas, and we offer you a simple and delicious recipe for roast turkey.
To cook this dish, you should choose a whole turkey, it should be large and fat.
A good turkey can be identified by white skin, it should be neither very young nor old. The older is a turkey, the thicker its legs and neck, the skin is purple in the joints and the claws are red. Too young turkeys have dark-colored claws and small legs.
A turkey can weigh from 5 to 10-12 pounds. Depending on the breed, it will be large enough, even it weighs less. You need to choose the most comfortable size for you. It will be enough half a 5-pound turkey for 6-8 persons.
To cook a roast turkey, we will need a minimum of products:
- 1 turkey
- 50-100 grams of butter
- Salt for rubbing (1/2 teaspoon for 400 grams of turkey)
- Piece of ginger (put in a roasting turkey, if you don’t like its smell when cooking)
Method of cooking
- If you bought an uncut turkey, cut off the head, legs, wings and clean out the craw.
- Rub the turkey with salt (1/2 teaspoon per 400 grams of turkey) and grease it with oil.
- Take the turkey, put it on a greased baking sheet and add to it 2-3 tablespoons of water.
- Put the baking sheet in the middle of oven preheated up to 240 degrees. If possible, you may spit the turkey and put the baking sheet with a little water under it.
- Wait until the turkey is browned on all sides (about 30 minutes). From this moment, it is necessary to reduce the temperature of the oven to 180-200 degrees and baste the turkey every 10 minutes with gravy that accumulates on the sheet. Average time for cooking a turkey in the oven is 30-40 minutes per kilogram of weight.
- To make sure that the turkey is ready, it is necessary to pierce it at the widest point. When a fork easily enters the meat, and the gravy is clear and transparent, the turkey is ready. Before removing it from the oven, it must be poured with gravy for the last time.
- Drain the sauce from the baking sheet, pour into it 2-3 tablespoons of water, boil and strain it.
- Elena Molokhovets recommends to cut turkey in 20 pieces. First you should cut off the joints of legs and wings, and then carve the turkey lengthwise into three parts. Then you should carve obliquely the resulting sides into another three parts, and separate the meat from keel and back in the middle of the turkey. This part of meat should be divided into eight parts. The bigger the turkey, the greater the number of pieces you can cut the body.
- To serve up the turkey, fit neatly all the cut pieces together so the turkey looked solid.
- Before serving, pour the turkey with gravy again, and serve the rest gravy in gravy boats.
We got a delicious and simple dish, prepared according to an old Russian recipe. You may serve the bird with different side dishes, salads or the traditional chestnut sauce.
Bon appetit!
