The Perfect Turkey Recipe for Christmas

The year is racing towards its end at a tremendous speed – just to think; in just over a month from now, we will be celebrating the festive season with our loved ones. And what better way to celebrate it with a well-cooked meal with turkey as main ingredient.

Here is how to prepare the perfect turkey with chestnut stuffing and bread sauce.

Ingredients for the turkey

• One turkey, trussed and weighing about 5 kg (10 lb.)
• 500 g (1 lb.) back bacon, thickly sliced
• 2 cups chicken stock
• 500 g (1 lb.) chipolata sausages
• 2 lemons
• A bunch of watercress

Ingredients for the chestnut stuffing

• 500 g (1 lb.) fresh chestnuts or if not readily available, a can of chestnuts in water
• 250 g (½ lb.) streaky bacon
• 250 g (½ lb.) minced pork
• ⅓ tsp. ground nutmeg
• Salt and pepper to taste

Ingredients for the bread sauce

• 2 cups milk
• 1 onion, stuck with 8 cloves
• 5 slices stale white bread with crusts removed
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 2 tbsp. butter
• A pinch of mace

First, make the chestnut stuffing

1. Place the chestnuts into a pan, cover it with cold water and bring it to boil. Take the chestnuts out from the boiling water and remove the outer shell and inner skin. Put the prepared chestnuts into a mixing bowl.
2. Mince the bacon and add it to the chestnuts, together with the minced pork, salt, pepper and nutmeg. Mix the ingredients together but try to keep the chestnuts whole.
3. The stuffing is ready to use.

Now you can stuff the turkey with it

1. Starting at the neck, work your hand under the skin of the turkey to about halfway along the breast. Be careful not to split the skin. Insert the stuffing carefully under the breast skin, pressing it well into the turkey so that it will help to keep the breast moist during roasting.
2. Make sure the stuffing gives the turkey a well-rounded appearance. Tuck the loose skin, which covers the neck under the wing, as this will help to keep the stuffing in place.

Now the turkey can be roasted to perfection

The cooking time should be 20 minutes for each 500 g (lb.) and after calculating the time according to its weight, add another 20 minutes additional time overall.

1. Cover the turkey completely with the rashers of bacon – starting with the legs. Place the bird in a suitable roasting tin, pour the chicken stock around the bird, and cover the tin with cooking foil.
2. Roast the turkey in a pre-heated oven at 200⁰ C (390 ⁰F) for an hour and then reduce the heat to 180⁰ C (350 ⁰F) for the remainder of the calculated cooking time. After this first hour, baste the turkey without removing the bacon. Prick the chipolata sausages and arrange them around the turkey.
3. When a half an hour cooking time is left, remove the cooking foil and bacon to allow the skin to become golden brown.
4. When the turkey is cooked, transfer it to a warm dish and arrange the sausages around it. Cut the lemons in slices and garnish the turkey with the slices and the watercress.
5. Skim the fat off the liquid in the roasting pan and keep the sauce aside.

The last step is to prepare the bread sauce

1. Put the onion into a pan with the milk and heat it gently so that the flavor of the onion and cloves infuses into the milk.
2. Break the bread into small pieces and put it in a saucepan. When the milk is almost boiling, strain it over the bread. Cover the saucepan and leave the bread sauce to soak for an hour.
3. Beat the sauce with a fork until it is smooth. Add the gravy from the roasted turkey, the salt, pepper, mace and butter and bring to boil. It is ready to serve.
Serve it with yellow rice, seasonal vegetables, roasted potatoes and all the love in the world!

Enjoy with the people dear to you!

What Women Should Know About Special Diets

Following a special diet demands a certain amount of self-discipline and the co-operation of those around you. However, if you are determined to get and keep well it is worth any inconvenience.

With the increased awareness of the relation between diet and health, and recent scientific discoveries about the connection between certain foods and illnesses, more and more people are being advised to follow special diets.

These are usually prescribed because some part of the body is not working properly. For example if there is some problem with your digestive system a change in your eating habits will give it a chance to rest and heal. Dietary restrictions may also be imposed after serious illnesses when appetite is impaired or certain foods cannot be tolerated. And sometimes people develop allergies to specific foods which should be excluded from their diets. 

Special diets can vary from only slight modification to the normal eating pattern to a complete change in the type of food consumed. But whatever the diet, it is essential that it is followed carefully for maximum benefit.  

Preparing special diet foods 

When the restrictions imposed by the special diet try to make sure that the food you prepare is tempting enough to help restore the appetite - whether yours or someone else’s. 

One way to do this is to vary the menu as much as possible. On a low-fat diet, for example, it may be easy to serve grilled white fish every day but the dish will very quickly lose its appeal. A little advanced planning is really worth the extra effort to provide a changing menu, which makes the person on the diet look forward to mealtimes. 

You can also enliven special diet meals by experimenting with different flavorings and seasonings. Although some diets specifically exclude sodium products such as salt, most permit at least a small amount of herbs. But do use heavy species with discretion - special diets do not usually permit spicy foods such as curries and some also exclude highly flavored vegetables such as onions and garlic.

Because most special diets permit only a limited variety of foods, it is important to get the maximum goodness out of those that are allowed. You should therefore use the freshest possible foods and if you buy, packaged products read the list of ingredients on the label carefully to make certain they do not contain any of the foods excluded by the particular dietary restrictions. 

The correct cooking process is also important as cooking can reduce food’s nutritional value and make it hard to digest. Cheese, if permitted, should be cooked only lightly; meat should be lean and well-cooked without being overdone. Vegetables should be lightly cooked in as little water as possible so that their vitamins and minerals are conserved. They should also be served immediately and never reheated. 

Being on a special diet should not prevent you from eating out as long as you take steps to overcome any possible problems. For instance, if you are invited to a dinner party warn your host in advance and tell them which foods you cannot eat. When eating out, it may also help to suggest a dish that they could easily provide in restaurants, it is not always possible to trust the menu descriptions so you may have to ask the waiter exactly what the various dishes contain and to specify anything you may want left out.