Easter Roast Turkey

Skin sausages if necessary and put meat in a bowl. Snip the chives with some scissors and add a handful or so to the sausagemeat followed by a teaspoonful or so of salt and six or seven turns of black pepper. Thoroughly mix in the yolks of the two eggs with a fork until all the sausagemeat stuffing ingredients are evenly mixed.

Cut off the crusts and the stale surfaces of the bread. Strip most of the stalks off the parsley. Use a blender to take portions of the bread and parsley to make portions of green parsley flavoured breadcrumbs.

Grate the lemons into the breadcrumbs along with the suet, a couple of teaspoonfuls of salt and some black pepper and mix thoroughly. Very carefully add some cold water until the stuffing is moist but not wet.  Picture  

Salt and pepper the turkey all over. Put the lemon and parsley suffing into the main cavity of the carcass followed by the sausagemeat into both cavities. Lay the bacon across the breast, leg and wings of the turkey. Put the turkey into an ovenproof dish and cover completely with foil.

Cook the turkey in the oven at 375°F/190°C/Reg5 for 15 minutes to the lb/500 gms of stuffed weight plus 30 minutes. When there is an hour left, remove the foil and put the bacon slices into the roasting dish.

Prepare the Roast Potatoes  Picture    Recipe   and Parsnips  Picture    Recipe  

If the turkey starts to over brown in the last hour, replace the foil. Use a sharp pointed knife in the last 15 minutes to check that the breast is moist and the legs cooked. If necessary cut the legs partially away from the turkey to finish off.

When the turkey is ready take out of the roasting pan along with the bacon, cover with foil and keep warm.  Picture  

Pour off an excess fat if necessary and leave a couple of tablespoonfuls. Stir in the flour with a wooden spoon, followed by the red wine stirring all the time. Put back on a medium heat and slowly pour in ¾ of the chicken stock stirring as you do so. Finish off the gravy to taste with salt, pepper wine and stock as required.

Carve the turkey and serve with the stuffings, stuffing, gravy and vegetables.