Roast Christmas Turkey with Clementine and Thyme

We've been curating some of the most interesting festive recipes to help you navigate a testing (and intense) period of the year in the kitchen. They may not be the most straightforward but they're certainly unique!

Enjoy the challenge.

First-up, Turkey with Clementine and Thyme.

Ingredients

1 x 5kg turkey
1 x 100g butter, softened
4 x large celery sticks halved

10 x clementines, halved 
1 x large onion, sliced
4 x bay leaves
6 x fresh thyme sprigs

For the stuffing

1 x 50g butter
4 x fat garlic cloves, crushed
25g fresh breadcrumbs
450g British free-range pork sausage meat
100g semi-dried tomatoes, finely chopped
2 tbsp chopped fresh flat leaf parsley
3 fresh thyme sprigs, leaves picked and roughly chopped
Freshly grated nutmeg
Finely grated zest 2 clementines

Method

Stuffing:
Warm the 50g butter in a small frying pan with the garlic and cook gently over a low heat for 10 minutes. Stir in the breadcrumbs, then set aside to cool. In a large mixing bowl, combine the sausage meat with the tomatoes, herbs, nutmeg, zest, seasoning and the cooled garlic butter crumbs.

Heat the oven to 200°C/180°C fan/gas 6. Gently ease the skin away from the neck end of the turkey and use your fingers to carefully spread the 100g butter under and over the skin. Season inside the cavity, then stuff the neck end with the stuffing.

Put the celery and onion in a large, roomy roasting tin. Sit the stuffed turkey on top, then roast for 30 minutes. Turn down the heat to 180°C/160°C fan/gas 4, cover with foil (securing well) and roast for 1 hour 40 minutes – see Know-how – basting occasionally with the juices.

For the last 30 minutes of the cooking time, add the herbs and clementines. Baste everything with the juices, then return to the oven.

The turkey is cooked when it reaches 70°C on a digital probe thermometer or the juices run clear when you pierce the thickest part of the thigh with a skewer. Rest the turkey, loosely covered in its foil, somewhere warm. Turn up the oven to 200°C/180°C fan/gas 6 to cook the rest of your Christmas lunch.

Serve with the clementines.