Bacon-roasted turkey with pumpkin, sausage and fruit mince stuffing

Name: Bacon-roasted turkey with pumpkin, sausage and fruit mince stuffing
Yield: 6-8
Ingredients: 1 fresh or fully thawed 5kg turkey; pumpkin, sausage and fruit mince stuffing (see recipe); 1 tsp salt; 750g rindless bacon rashers

Jill Dupleix

December 13, 2016

The bacon-wrapped roast turkey centrepiece (with pumpkin and fruit mince stuffing, top).William Meppem

Wrapping your turkey with bacon not only protects the meat from drying out, it gives you a spectacular end result.

Ingredients

For turkey

1 fresh or fully thawed 5kg turkey
pumpkin, sausage and fruit mince stuffing (see recipe)
1 tsp salt
750g rindless bacon rashers

For pumpkin, sausage and fruit mince stuffing

600g butternut pumpkin, skin removed
1 onion, halved and sliced
2 tbsp olive oil
3 pork sausages such as Toulouse or pork and fennel
100g stale sourdough bread, crusts removed
1 tsp each ground ginger, ground cinnamon, mixed spice, dried oregano
1/2 tsp grated nutmeg
200g fruit mince, store-bought or home-made
2 tbsp dried cranberries
2 tbsp chopped parsley
1 egg, beaten

Turkey tips

Allow 35 to 40 minutes a kilogram cooking time at 180C (about three hours for a five kilogram bird).
Stuffing the neck cavity and breast not only prevents the meat from drying out, but gives each carved slice a nice border of stuffing.
To carve, first cut the legs from the turkey and separate the thigh from the drumstick. Slice the meat from the thigh, cutting parallel to the bone. For the breast, hold the knife at an angle and carve downwards from the breastbone, so that each slice has layers of skin, stuffing and meat.
Serve with a jug of gravy and a big platter of broccolini, asparagus or green beans tossed with toasted walnuts.

Method

1. Heat the oven to 180C. Rinse the turkey and wipe it inside and out with paper towels. Tuck the wings under the turkey and tie the legs together with kitchen string. Add the salt to the main cavity.
2. To stuff the turkey, open up the neck cavity, and slide your hand between the skin and the breast meat to separate them, then push a few tablespoons of the cooled stuffing under the skin to cover the breast. Secure the opening with a bamboo skewer or two. Wrap the remaining stuffing in oiled aluminium foil.
3. To cook the turkey, place on a roasting pan covered with baking paper. Arrange the bacon, slightly overlapping, to completely cover the turkey, legs included, securing with bamboo skewers where necessary. Cover the turkey with kitchen foil and roast for 1½ hours. Gently remove the foil and bake for the remaining time. Wrap the remaining stuffing in foil and Bake the foil-wrapped stuffing for one hour.
4. Rest the turkey in a warm place for 15 minutes before carving. Either serve the turkey wrapped in its crisp coat of bacon and carve right through it, or remove the bacon for the final 30 minutes of cooking in order to crisp the skin and serve the bacon alongside with the carved meat Serve the bacon with the carved meat. Rest the turkey in a warm place for 15 minutes before carving, and Serve turkey and bacon and the extra stuffing.
For stuffing
1. Heat the oven to 200C. Chop the pumpkin into two centimetre2cm cubes, toss the pumpkin and onion slices in olive oil, salt, pepper and bake, tossing occasionally, for 45 minutes or until tender. Remove Skin the sausage skins, and pinch the meat into the baking pan and cook for 15 minutes until firm, then allow to cool.
2. Whiz the bread in a food processor to a coarse crumb. Finely chop the sausage and toss with the bread, pumpkin, onion, all spices, fruit mince, cranberries, parsley and egg, squishing and mulching everything together with your hands until well mixed. To stuff the turkey, see turkey recipe.