How to Prepare the Perfect Christmas Dinner

The year is racing towards its end at a tremendous speed – just to think; in just over a month from now we will be celebrating the festive season with our loved ones. And what better way to celebrate it with a well-cooked meal with turkey as main ingredient.

When I was little, my grandmother prepared the most wonderful turkey for us as family. She past away back in 1973 but my mother kept the recipe and every two years she made it for us. She past away January this year and the recipe ended up with me. I want to share it with you as it will be the first time my wife and I will try it solo.

Here is how to prepare the perfect turkey with chestnut stuffing and bread sauce.

Ingredients for the turkey

· One turkey, trussed and weighing about 5 kg.

· 500 g back bacon, thickly sliced

· 2 cups chicken stock

· 500 g chipolata sausages

· 2 lemons

· A bunch of watercress

Ingredients for the chestnut stuffing

· 500 g fresh chestnuts or if not readily available, a can of chestnuts in water

· 250 g streaky bacon

· 250 g minced pork

· ⅓ tsp. ground nutmeg

· Salt and pepper to taste

Ingredients for the bread sauce

· 2 cups milk

· 1 onion, stuck with 8 cloves

· 5 slices stale white bread with crusts removed

· Salt and pepper to taste

· 2 tbsp. butter

· A pinch of mace

First, make the chestnut stuffing

1. Place the chestnuts into a pan, cover it with cold water and bring it to boil. Take the chestnuts out from the boiling water and remove the outer shell and inner skin. Put the prepared chestnuts into a mixing bowl.

2. Mince the bacon and add it to the chestnuts, together with the minced pork, salt, pepper and nutmeg. Mix the ingredients together but try to keep the chestnuts whole.

3. The stuffing is ready to use.

Now you can stuff the turkey with it

1. Starting at the neck, work your hand under the skin of the turkey to about halfway along the breast. Be careful not to split the skin. Insert the stuffing carefully under the breast skin, pressing it well into the turkey so that it will help to keep the breast moist during roasting.

2. Make sure the stuffing gives the turkey a well-rounded appearance. Tuck the loose skin which covers the neck under the wing as this will help to keep the stuffing in place.

Now the turkey can be roasted to perfection

The cooking time should be 20 minutes for each 500 g and after calculating the time according to its weight, add another 20 minutes additional time overall.

1. Cover the turkey completely with the rashers of bacon – starting with the legs. Place the bird in a suitable roasting tin and pour the chicken stock around the bird and cover the tin with cooking foil.

2. Roast the turkey in a pre-heated oven at 200⁰ C for an hour and then reduce the heat to 180⁰ C for the remainder of the calculated cooking time. After this first hour, baste the turkey without removing the bacon. Prick the chipolata sausages and arrange them around the turkey.

3. When a half an hour cooking time is left, remove the cooking foil and bacon to allow the skin to become golden brown.

4. When the turkey is cooked, transfer it to a warm dish and arrange the sausages around it. Cut the lemons in slices and garnish the turkey with the slices and the watercress.

5. Skim the fat off the liquid in the roasting pan and keep the sauce aside.

The last step is to prepare the bread sauce

1. Put the onion into a pan with the milk and heat it gently so that the flavour of the onion and cloves infuses into the milk.

2. Break the bread into small pieces and put it in a sauce pan. When the milk is almost boiling, strain it over the bread. Cover the saucepan and leave the bread sauce to soak for an hour.

3. Beat the sauce with a fork until it is smooth. Add the gravy from the roasted turkey, the salt, pepper, mace and butter and bring to boil. It is ready to serve.

Serve it with yellow rice, seasonal vegetables, roasted potatoes and all the love in the world!

Enjoy with the people dear to you!