Roast Turkey Spanish Style
Enjoy flavours of sage, oregano and garlic in this Spanish Style Roast Turkey Recipe, you can go one step further and use a Spanish style stuffing recipe and sherry gravy both included here.
Ingredients for the Roast Turkey
6 to 8 kg turkey
1/4 cup 60 grams butter, at room temperature
1 tbsp paprika
2 tsp dried oregano leaves
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground sage
1/4 tsp garlic powder
Cooking the Turkey
Make the herb butter. In a small bowl, stir butter with seasonings. You can make this ahead if doing so, cover and refrigerate for up to 1 week or freeze for up to 1 month. Bring to room temperature before using. This can also be used for chicken.
Preheat oven to 325ºF,160ºC.
If present remove neck and bag of giblets from inside of turkey; use for Sherry Gravy (see below).
Rinse bird inside and out under cold running water. Pat dry.
If using a traditional stuffing mix. Place the turkey breast side down in a roasting pan, fill neck cavity with stuffing. Don’t overpack it as the stuffing expands as it cooks. Bring neck skin up over back to enclose stuffing. Fasten with skewers or sew shut. Turn the turkey breast side up. Add enough stuffing to body cavity to completely fill again don’t overpack. Fasten with skewers or sew shut. Tuck wing tips under bird. Tie legs together or tuck under skin flap.
Rub a generous amount of herb butter over skin. Turn breast side down in pan. Rub with more butter. Cover with a tent of foil and seal to pan edges.
Roast in centre of preheated oven 2 hours. Remove foil and turn breast side up. Baste with pan juices. Brush with remaining butter. Continue to roast, uncovered and basting occasionally with pan juices, until drumstick moves easily in joint and a meat thermometer inserted into thigh reads 180F (80C). This will take 2 to 3-1/4 more hours, about 20 minutes per pound (500 g). If turkey is browning too quickly in one area, cover just that area with a piece of foil.
Remove roasted bird to a cutting board. Cover loosely with foil. Let stand at least 15 minutes before carving.
Roast Turkey Spanish Style
Spanish style stuffing recipe based on the Spanish dish called migas con chorizo. This is to be served separately/on the side, not used to stuff the turkey.
Ingredients
1 large stale baguette
2 fresh links of Spanish style chorizo roughly chopped
1 piece of salt pork pancetta or bacon, chopped into small bits
1/2 red pepper diced
1/2 green pepper diced
1 head of garlic
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon of smoked Spanish paprika sweet
Extra virgin olive oil Spanish of course!
Salt
Roast Turkey Spanish Style
Make the stuffing.
Rip the stale baguette into chunks and put into a food processor (if you prefer, you can also do this part by hand). Pulse a few times until the bread becomes half breadcrumbs, half small chunks.
Place the breadcrumbs in a large bowl and drizzle about 1/4 cup of water on top. Mix everything together with your hands. The bread should absorb the water and be damp, but not saturated or soggy (or dry!). Add more water if necessary.
In a large frying pan over a medium heat, add two generous tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil and add the cloves (with skin on) of one head of garlic and the bay leaf. Fry over medium heat, browning the garlic cloves.
Add the chorizo and salt pork/bacon, cut into small rough chunks. Stir and brown. Once browned, remove everything from the oil with a slotted spoon.
Add the diced peppers to the seasoned oil and fry until golden brown.
Add the paprika and saute for 10 seconds. Then add back the garlic and chorizo and season with salt.
Add the rehydrated bread crumbs and saute with everything for about 5 minutes, allowing the bread to absorb any oil and become golden. The result should be a very dry stuffing.
Before serving you can add a spoonful of cooking liquid from the turkey if you wish.
Sherry Gravy
Ingredients
Giblets from the Turkey
1 onion, cut into quarters
2 carrots, cut into chunks
1 stick of celery, cut into chunks
1 fresh bay leaf
3 sprigs of parsley
1 sprig of thyme
5 black peppercorns
1 tsp redcurrant jelly
750ml of turkey giblet stock
100ml sherry
2 tbsp of plain flour
Method
Wash the giblets in cold water, place in a large pan with 1.5 litres of cold water. Bring to the boil and removed any scum of the top of the water with a slatted spoon. Then add the rest of the ingredients, cover and simmer for 40 minutes.
Uncover the pan and simmer for a further 20-30 minutes or until the stock has reduced by half. Remove from the heat and strain into a bowl, leave to cool, cover and place in the fridge or use immediately.
The giblet stock can be made 2 days before required.
To make the gravy, bring the stock back to the boil and remove from the heat.
When the turkey is cooked pour off the fat from the roasting juices, place the tin on the hob, whisk in the flour and place over a low heat and cook the flour mixture making sure you have scrapped up all the meaty sticky bits, on the bottom of the tin and stir constantly. After 2 minutes, remove from the heat and whisk in the turkey giblet stock and redcurrant jelly, bring slowly to the boil, stirring constantly.
Add the sherry and cook for a further 3 minutes, stirring constantly. Season to taste add a little more sherry if you want and then strain into a warm jug and serve. Any leftover turkey sherry gravy can be frozen.
