Give your usual Christmas dinner a Haywards zing with our sweet onion stuffing and gravy

Serves 8-10

Ready in 4 hours

Roast Turkey Stuffed with Sweet Onion Stuffing and Gravy

Roast Turkey Stuffed with Sweet Onion Stuffing and Gravy

Ingredients:

  • 4.5kg turkey, giblets removed
  • 100g unsalted butter, softened
  • 100g smoked streaky bacon
  • 200g breadcrumbs
  • 2 eggs, beaten
  • 600g sausages, squeezed out of their skins
  • Zest and juice of 1 orange, retaining the squeezed out shells
  • 14g fresh sage, shredded, plus extra leaves
  • 30g walnut pieces, roughly chopped (optional)
  • 454g Haywards Sweet Onions, sliced
  • 2 tbsp cornflour
  • 1 tbsp blackcurrant jelly
  • Sea salt and ground black pepper
  • Orange slices, bay leaves and cranberries, to garnish
  • Serve with pigs in blankets, roast potatoes and parsnips and seasonal vegetables

Method:

  1. Preheat the oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6. Place the turkey on a roasting tray in a large roasting tin and smear completely with the butter. Leave to come to room temperature for 20 mins.
  2. Meanwhile, in a food processor or in a bowl with your hands, combine the bacon, breadcrumbs, eggs, sausage meat, orange zest and juice and sage, then mix in the walnuts and two-thirds of the sweet onions. Season with pepper and then lift the skin up of the turkey away from the breasts at the neck end, easing it away with scissors if needed, then fill with as much as the stuffing as you can, so there is a thin layer underneath the skin.
  3. Roll the remaining stuffing into small balls and set aside. Season the turkey with salt and pepper, cover the turkey and insert the squeezed out orange into the turkey, along with the extra sage leaves.
  4. Turn the oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4 and cover the turkey with tin foil and cook for 2 hours and 30 mins, basting every hour by pouring the juices over the bird.
  5. Add the stuffing balls and cook for 30 mins, without the tin foil. Remove from the oven, strain the juices from the bird into a jug, and rest the turkey, covered in tin foil for 20 mins.
  6. In the meantime, heat a large saucepan and add the fat from the top of the reserved juices and add the cornflour. Cook, stirring, for 1 min and then add the blackcurrant jelly and remaining sweet onions. Stir in the rest of the juices and 100ml of water.
  7. Bring to the boil and then simmer for 10 mins. Serve with the turkey, stuffing balls, pigs in blankets, roast potatoes and parsnips and seasonal vegetables.
  8. Haywards' tip: If your turkey is in between allow 4.5kg and 6.5kg then allow 40 minutes per kg, if it is under 4.5kg allow 45 mins per kg plus 20 mins and if it is more than 6.5kg allow 35 mins per kg.

Recipe courtesy of Haywards Pickled Vegetables.

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