Transplanted Christmas

A friend of mine commented on an old post, (which I posted in 2015), about cooking a Christmas turkey that doesn’t dry out, so I thought I’d post the recipe again, because Christmas is only a few weeks away.

Christmas comes but once and year, & this is the only time my wife and I eat turkey.
Over the years we have experienced different ways of cooking the bird so that it doesn’t dry out.

The ‘must have Christmas turkey’ is a hangover from our time in the UK, before we emigrated.
Our Australian friends favour pork, ham or shellfish – prawns, oysters etc.
This coming Christmas will be our 38th Christmas in Australia, which for me, is three years longer than my UK Christmas’s.

The only ‘Pommy’ things that we have transplanted from our life in the UK is turkey at Christmas  and home made mince pies, from Maureen’s mum’s recipe.

and it has to be Roberton’s

The best turkey recipe that we have found was sent to me a few years ago by a HMS Conway friend, who is half Dutch and half English, and now lives in the UK.

The process is quite simple – cover the turkey in streaky bacon, and then foil.

Set the oven to switch on at 1.30 am Christmas morning, at a temperature of 70 degrees ‘c’ and set the timer for seven hours.

At 8.30 am increase the temperature to 180 degrees ‘c’ for three hours. This allows us to attend the 9.00 am service at church.

At 10.30 am remove the foil from the turkey – leaving the oven at 180 c – depending on your needs, the removal of the foil can be between 30 to 60 minutes, before the end of the three hour period.

At 11.30 am remove the bird from the oven and wrap it in plenty of towels (or you can use a small blanket), which locks in the heat, but doesn’t dry out the bird . The turkey will stay warm for hours, leaving the oven free for other food to be cooked.

Lunch can be served any time after the vegetables are ready – it all depends on your timetable.

We sat down for lunch at 2.00 pm and the meat was moist, tasty and very appetising – dry turkey is a thing of the past.

It takes time to get used to Christmas in Australia,

 Snow White Boomers

Author: 1944april

Traveled a great deal - about 80 countries - first foreign country I suppose was Wales, which was only 80 miles away from where I was born. Visited each Continent, except Antarctica, and I doubt that it is on my bucket list - too cold. I love Asian food, Australian wine & British beer & trying to entertain by writing. View all posts by 1944april