Jamie Oliver has shared the essential step to take when prepping your turkey this Christmas to guarantee it becomes a “right royal feast”. The festive roast dinner is a staple on many tables up and down the country come December 25.
Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has detailed his methods for crafting the “perfect” roast dinner with all the trimmings. The usual spread typically includes roast turkey with roast potatoes, stuffing, pigs in blankets, roast vegetables including carrots, parsnips, and Brussels sprouts, with generous servings of gravy as well as bread sauce and cranberry sauce.
In a YouTube tutorial, Jamie, 50, said: “If I could give you anything this Christmas, it will be the foundations of the perfect roast Christmas dinner.” For the food whizz, these crucial foundations come down to three things – the turkey, the roast potatoes and the gravy.
To achieve the perfect turkey, the esteemed chef recommends following one crucial step at the beginning of the process.
He explained: “Number one in my foundations of Christmas, the ultimate Christmas turkey with crispy golden skin, crunchy smoked bacon, and succulent juicy meat. This is a right royal feast.
“The beginning actually starts with the preparation for the gravy – the trivet – what the turkey sits on.”
This early preparation step is vital for locking in flavour, according to the pro.
He continued: “Chop two sticks of celery, two onions, and two carrots. This is going to be the base. This will slowly cook down for the whole cooking time of the turkey. Caramelize; give real depth of flavor. So, cut them big, cut them proud, and cut them chunky.”
He demonstrated his technique as he explained, adding the chopped vegetables to a roasting dish alongside half a bulb of garlic with the skins still on.
After that, he chopped the giblets of the bird and added them to the dish, too. He said: “This is where the depth of flavour comes from.”
One the roasting tray is prepped, the chef moved onto the main event – the turkey. To begin, he added chopped clementines and a chilli inside “the cavity” of the bird.
Jamie explained: “Just stuff that into the cavity of the turkey. I don’t want to block it up because it’s important that the oven air is not just roasting it from the outside. We want it circulating inside as well.”
He also added herbs – sage, rosemary and bay – and whipped up some stuffing to further enhance the turkey’s flavour.
Jamie then detailed “a trick to make your turkey really juicy” – squeeze and squish “a whole pack of butter at room temperature” and rub it all over the turkey.
He seasoned with salt and pepper, then grated a whole nutmeg over the top, before “pressing sage, rosemary and thyme onto the buttery layer”.
Those concerned about “all that fat” from the butter need not worry as it will “all melt off, leaving the flavours to permeate the bird.
Once all the prep work of the turkey is done, he recommends covering it tightly in foil, leaving the cavity open.
Finally, he placed the turkey onto the trivet – on top of the chopped vegetables and giblets from the beginning of the process – and then cooked it in the oven.
The cooking time depends on the size and weight of the turkey.
Dining and Cooking