Roast Turkey with Bacon Nut Stuffing and Wine Sauce

Method

1. Make the stuffing: chop 50g onion, 50g leek, 50g celery stalks, 100g red dates, 2 baguettes and 200g bacon. Melt 30g butter in a pan, then add the onion, leek, celery, thyme, sage leaves and bacon in turn and stir, add the red dates and stir again, season with a little salt and pepper and turn off the heat.
2. Tip the mixture into a bowl and add the bread, 50g pistachios, 50g walnuts, 50g dried prunes, 2 eggs, a little red peppercorn, salt and ground pepper, and mix well.
3. Stuff the mixture into the turkey cavity along with 1 lemon, some celery leaves and parsley. Scatter salt, pepper, chili powder, olive oil, thyme and rosemary over the skin.
4. Make the glaze: mix 50ml honey, thyme, 50ml olive oil, 2g orange zest, 2g lemon zest, 50ml lime juice, salt, pepper and chopped parsley.
5. Roast the turkey at 150 degrees C for 2 hours. Open the oven, brush on the glaze, close it and roast for another hour at 125 degrees C. Brush on the glaze once more, roast at 150 degrees C for 5 minutes, then turn off the oven and take the turkey out.
6. For the vegetables: cut 400g pumpkin, the broccoli, green zucchini, yellow zucchini and potato into bite sized pieces, peel the baby carrots and trim the okra. Sear the pumpkin with a little olive oil and rosemary until golden on both sides. In another pan, melt 20g butter with 20g onion and cook the remaining vegetables through, seasoning with a little salt and pepper.
7. For the sauce: heat a pan with 20g butter, then add 70g whole shallots, 50g chopped leek, 50g chopped celery, thyme, rosemary and red peppercorns and stir. Pour in 200ml red wine, 200ml beef stock and 50g beef seasoning powder, bring it to a boil, then strain it roughly.
8. In another pan, melt 20g butter with 20g onion and cook 50g button mushrooms, 50g white beech mushrooms and 50g brown beech mushrooms, pour in the strained sauce, bring it to a boil and turn off the heat.
9. Set the turkey on a tray, arrange the vegetables around it and serve with the sauce.

Tips

• Whole turkey in Vietnam mostly shows up in import supermarkets around the year end holidays, so it is worth ordering ahead, or a large free range chicken can take its place with the roasting time cut to about half.
• White and brown beech mushrooms are the seafood mushrooms sold in supermarkets.
• Beef seasoning powder can be swapped for a concentrated beef stock cube.
• The bird taken out of the fridge an hour ahead comes to room temperature and roasts evenly.
• Twenty minutes of rest out of the oven before carving keep the juices in the meat rather than on the tray.
• A sheet of foil over the breast for the first two hours helps in a fierce oven, since turkey breast dries out very quickly.