Roast turkey with lemon and herb butter

This turkey was about 5,5 kg.

This time it was our turn to prepare the New Year's Eve dinner. I wanted to make something I never had done before and chose turkey. When I was in USA my family was invited to Easter dinner there we were served this beautifully moist turkey. My friend told that the secret behind the moistness is brining.

But I was still a bit of scared of the fact that maybe the turkey still will stay dry so I decided to combine the brining with Gordon Ramsey's lemon butter turkey. So I first brined the turkey for about 24 hours and then had butter all over the bird. And here is the recipe.

Brining:

about 3 litres water
2,5 dl salt
5 dl sugar
2,5 dl apple cider vinegar
2 tbsp sage
2 tbsp thyme
2 tbsp rosemary
2 tbsp pepper
1 l ice

Cook 1 l of water boiling hot and mix the salt and sugar in it. Stir until they are dissolved in the boiling water. Take the casserole off the stove and add the rest of the water and ingredients in to the salt and sugar water. Add the ice to the water. Dry the turkey with paper towels and remove the giblets (save the giblets for the gravy). Put the turkey in the water and let it marinate about 24 hours in a cool place. Our turkey was about 5,5 kg.

Brine the turkey about 24 hours below 10 °C.

The next day take out the turkey from the water and dry it thoroughly, also the cavity. Let the turkey to be in the room temperature about 2 hours before putting it to the oven.

Ingredients for the lemon and herb butter:

400 g butter
1 tbsp olive oil
2 lemons
3 garlic cloves
bunch of parsley

Grate the butter. Grate the lemon zest and crush the garlic. Season the butter with salt and pepper. Mix well. Add the olive oil. Mix well. Add the grated lemon zest, lemon juice, garlic and parsley. Mix well.

Grate the butter, season it and mix the lemon zest, juice
garlic and parsley in it.

Other ingredients

salt and pepper
1 lemon
1 whole garlic
2 onions
6 bay leaves
olive oil
8-10 slices bacon

Heat the oven to 220 °C.

Season the cavity with salt and pepper (you have already the day before removed the giblets). Stuff the cavity with halved lemon, halved onions, horisontally halved garlic, couple of bacon slices and couple of bay leaves.

Now we should add the butter under the skin of the turkey. For this you need to loosen the skin with your fingers. You should do this from the both ends but be careful and not to break the skin. Take the butter in to your hands and stuff the skin underneath. Move the butter from the outside of the skin by gently massaging it all over the turkey. After you have stuffed the half of the butter under the skin you can add some bay leaves under the skin too.

Finally spread the rest of the butter all over the bird. Drizzle some olive oil on the butter to prevent the butter from burning in the oven.

After you have stuffed the butter under the skin, you may
spread the rest of the butter on the outside of the skin.

Roast the turkey for 15 minutes in 220 °C. Then take the bird out and baste it with the juices on the oven pan. Cover the turkey breasts with bacon and baste the bird again. Now lower the temperature to 170 °C and put the turkey back in to the oven. 2,5 -3 hours. You can calculate half an hour per kilo. Remember to baste the turkey once in 30 minutes.

After roastin the turkey for 15 minutes, take it out from the
oven and then cover it with bacon.

When the turkey is ready take it out and let it rest at least 45 minutes.

From the juices that are in the oven pan you can easily make the gravy for the turkey. I cooked the onions, lemon and garlic from the cavity in the juice. I also added 1 tomato to the gravy and some rosemary. In addition I had the giblets cooking the gravy as well but the liver I threw away.

Serve with mashed sweet potatoes, steamed vegetables, gravy
and good red wine.

Mashed sweet potatoes

I should use sweet potatoes more often. I think mashed sweet potatoes with cream finally proved it :)

For 4-6 people follow the direction under:

about 1 kg sweet potatoes
1 dl cream
1 large tbsp butter
salt
pepper

Peel the sweet potatoes. Cook them until they are soft. Mash the sweet potatoes, add the cream, butter and season with salt and pepper.

Serve for instance with turkey :)

Mashed sweet potatoes are prefect match with turkey.

Plum jam

Finnish Christmas pastries with plum jam filling.

I thought making plum jam would be difficult but it is not. All you need is plums, apple juice and sugar.

400 g plums
1 dl sugar
2 dl apple juice
2 star anis
5 cloves

Put the plums, sugar, apple juice and spices in a casserole. Boil on low fire for 15-20 minutes. Remove the star anis and cloves. Mix the plums into jam with a hand mixer.

Serve with cheese or as filling in different pastries.

So good, so tasty!

Cook on low fire for 15 minutes.

Remove the star anis and cloves before mixing the plums.

Mix the plums with hand mixer as long as it has a smooth
texture.

Satay sauce

I learned this recipe from my dear Dutch friend for about 15 years ago. For the satay sauce you will need

1 dl milk
2 tbsp peanut butter
0,5 tsp sugar
0,5 tbsp soy sauce
0,5 tsp lemon juice
salt
pepper

Mix the milk, peanut butter, sugar and soy sauce together and warm the mix on low fire. Let it boil quickly. Season with lemon juice, salt and pepper.

This sauce is perfect with spicy pork slices.

Chicken in green curry

Serve with sticky rice.

Thai food is so excellent. Full of taste, full of flavors.... I like green curry because of the bamboo shots and sweet Thai basil I use in it. This recipe is for 2-4 people.

400 g chicken
400 g coconut milk (1 can)
2 tbsp green curry paste
2-3 dl shredded bamboo shots
1,5 tbsp fish or soy sauce
1 tbsp sugar
cherry eggplants
4 Thai eggplants
Thai basil

From the left you have bamboo shoots, in the middle Thai
basil, green curry paste and coconut milk. In the bowl to the
right you have diced Thai eggplants and smaller
cherry eggplants.

Cook the shredded bamboo shots for 10 minutes in water.

Pour the half of the coconut milk on a frying pan, let it come to a boil. Add the green curry paste and mix it with the coconut milk until the texture is oily. Add the sliced chicken pieces in the curry and cook the meat. Add three times small amounts of coconut milk in the curry. See that the curry boils all the time to make sure that the chicken is cooked thoroughly. Add the cooked bamboo shots and add also the cherry eggplants and sliced thai eggplants. Season with soy or fish sause and sugar. Let the curry to boil a bit more. Add the Thai basil in the end and take the pan off the stove.

Serve with sticky rice (glutinous rice).

Plums cooked in spices

Serve with vanilla ice cream.

The fall is just a wonderful time of the year. When the days are getting darker you can easily experiment with spices.

This recipe serves 2 people:

4 plums
A bit less than 2 dl of water
0,5 dl sugar
10 cloves
0,5 tsp cinnamon powder (or 1 cinnamon stick)
1 tsp black currant jam

Cut the plums into boats and remove the stones.

Cut the plums in to small boats and remove the stones.

Warm up on low temperature the cloves and cinnamon to release the aromas of the spices. Add the water, sugar and the jam. Let the mix boil for 5 minutes.

Add the plums and cook for 5 more minutes or when the plums are soft.

Pour the hot plums with its sauce on top of vanilla ice cream.

Cream of Jerusalem artichoke

Garnish with crispy ham, Jerusalem artichoke chips and
thyme. Try also with dash of olive oil.

For some reason I never had heard about this before - Jerusalem artichoke. My colleague told me about it at work and I just had to try it too.

Jerusalem artichoke on the left.

This recipe is for 4 people:

400 g Jerusalem artichokes
2 shallots
3 cloves of garlic
2,5 dl vegetable buillon (or chicken buillon)
5,5 l milk
1,5 dl cream
juice of half a lemon

Garnishing

100 g Jerusalem artichokes
80 g air-dried ham
Thyme

Slice thinly the Jerusalem artichokes used for garnishing.

Cut the shallots and garlic in small pieces and cook them quickly in butter until they are transparent but not brown. Cut the Jerusalem artichokes in small pieces and cook them with shallots and garlic. If you want to use white wine add it in this point, 0,5 dl white wine is enough. Let the wine cook together and then add the buillon, milk and cream. Let the soup to cook until Jerusalem artichokes are done.

When the vegetables are done mix the soup with a hand-mixer. Add the juice from the lemon. Taste with salt and pepper.

Mix the soup with a hand-mixer.

Garnishing: Slice thinly the 100 g Jerusalem artichokes and fry them in oil. Meanwhile cook the air-dried ham crispy in an oven for 5 minutes in 180 °C.