Step one of a stress-free Christmas dinner: preparing the turkey. We’re isolating and there are only four of us, but I’d have cooked it this way anyway. It also means I can save some of it.
I cut off the legs and wings to confit them. Once confited, they keep for ages in the fat, so on Christmas Day I’ll probably only take one leg out, and the rest will do for turkey sandwiches for weeks. The joy of this is that on Christmas Day you only have the crown to roast, which takes about an hour and a half.
This is the bit I hate, because the turkey is beautiful and I’m scared of messing it up! If you’re nervous, practise on a chicken first. Pull each leg away from the body and cut all around it, following the joint, then do the same with the wings – it’s often easier to bend the joint to find where to cut. Then cut out the backbone: it goes through the rib cage much more easily than you’d think.
Nothing goes to waste. I’ll roast the backbone and wing tips before Christmas to make a fantastic stock for the gravy, and the giblets go in too.
Finally, rub my citrus dry brine (the recipe is on my feed) all over the legs and wings, into the meat as well as the skin. Leave them skin-side down in a dish, loosely covered with baking paper, in the fridge overnight. The salt draws out moisture while working the flavours into the flesh. Tomorrow I’ll rinse them off and confit them.