Video:How to Make Roast Turkey With Sage and Onions

Transcript:How to Make Roast Turkey With Sage and Onions

Hi, I'm Elaine Lemm for About.com and today i'm going to show you a truly British classic of roast turkey with sage and onion stuffing.

Information About Roast Turkey With Sage and Onions

You can eat turkey all the year round but it truly is the star of the British Christmas table. For the turkey you need a free range oven ready turkey allowing about 450 grams per person, which is roughly a pound. You will also need 225 grams of streaky bacon and 110 grams of soft butter.

Making the Roast Turkey With Sage and Onions

So to begin the first thing we need to do is make the stuffing and for this we need to put all the ingredients into a bowl, that's the sausage meat, the onion, sage, parsley and the bread crumbs, and a little pinch of salt and pepper. You can mix this with a wooden spoon but I actually find it easier to use my hand, it's a good way of getting all the ingredients mixed together.

Additional Instructions for Roast Turkey With Sage and Onions

Okay now we're going to stuff the turkey and I'm going to put the stuffing over the breast of the turkey, it's not a good idea to put the stuffing inside the cavity as it takes too long to cook. The first thing you need to do is just put your hand inside the turkey and just loosen the skin over the breast. We're coming in through the neck here, just loosen it to make room for the stuffing, and then in it goes. Then just rub it gently to even it out, and then we need the roasting tin.

Preparing the Turkey for Roasting

Into this large roasting tin I've laid some large sheets of aluminum foil, put the turkey into the tin and then to get him ready now for roasting we cover the breast and the tops of the legs with this softened butter. Then take the bacon and just lay it over the breasts and again the tops of the legs. Once that's covered, give it a good liberal sprinkling of salt and pepper and then loosely wrap the bird with the foil.

This is now going to go into the oven at 220 degrees Celsius for the first 40 minutes, we're going to turn the oven down to 160 degrees Celsius and then cook it for another 4 and half hours. And here's our turkey and a real beauty this is! This needs about 30 minutes resting before it's served, serve it with delicious turkey gravy and all the usual Christmas accompaniments.