Slow-cooked fall-off-the bone Turkey
A slow-roasted Christmas Turkey that’s moist and delicious
Turkey is a traditional addition on the Christmas table, but when cooked badly, it is dry and not enjoyable. Fortunately I have some tips and tricks for you that will make your Christmas turkey moist and delicious.
Throw away any other turkey recipe you have and use this one. It’s fail proof!
Ingredients to make the turkey
1 turkey
1 fennel bulb
1 ginger
2 lemons
2 purple onions
150g Parmalat Garlic & Parsley Butter
5 tsp Hellmann’s Mayonnaise
3 Ina Paarman’s Liquid stock concentrated sticks
1.5 litres of stock
Salt and Freshly Ground Pepper to taste
Roasted Dad Tip: Leave the turkey out of the fridge for a few hours as meat is best cooked from room temperature.
How to prepare the turkey
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
Peel the fennel bulb and cut in slices.
Peel the first layer off the onion and cut them into quarters.
Peel the lemons and cut them into quarters, then slice the quarters.
Separate the turkey skin from the meat with a knife and by pulling gently.
Cut the butter in slices and shove underneath the skin of the turkey. This helps to flavour the turkey meat and keep it moist.
Push pieces of ginger under the skin
Cut the onion in pieces and stuff this the cavity of the turkey.
Spoon the mayo over the turkey and rub it all over the skin of the turkey.
Put the turkey in an oven-proof dish and add the stock.
Cut the fennel and the root off the fennel bulb and pull apart pieces off the fennel bulb. You can place these pieces around the turkey in the oven-proof dish. This will form the basis of your stock.
Generously season with ground black pepper salt and cover the dish with foil.
Cook the turkey at 180 degrees Celsius for 45 mins, then 120 degrees Celsius for 6-7 hours. Exact cooking time depends on the size of the turkey.
You will know the turkey is ready when the meat easily comes off the bone when you pull at it with a fork.
Don’t carve / pull the meat off the turkey until you’ve left it to rest (still covered in foil) outside the oven for 45 minutes.
Your slow-roasted fall-off-the bone turkey is ready to serve. Enjoy!
I served the turkey on a bed of sunflower shoots and a spinach and kale cream for a light lunch, but you can also go the traditional route with twice-fried potatoes and oven-roasted vegetables.Enjoy! Please tag me on Instagram if you’ve made this recipe, I’d love to see it!
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About Shawn Godfrey
Photo credit: Niki M Photography
Shawn Godfrey is an entrepreneur based in Cape Town, South Africa. After the Covid-19 lockdown saw his business in financial distress, cooking was the creative outlet that helped to keep him sane. To keep track of his recipes, and encourage friends and families to join him, he starts his instagram account The Roasted Dad.
Fast-forward to late 2021 - on a whim Shawn (encouraged by his wife Lianne) enters MasterChef South Africa. It is a crazy time of life: running a 200 people business and struggling to keep it profitable, two small children with a third on the way, and about to move into a new house. But when Shawn gets selected to be one of the 20 contestants participating in the fourth season of MasterChef South Africa, he decides to go all in. Leaving his 7-month-pregnant wife to look after their then three and one-year-old children, he battles it out and comes back home five weeks later with the trophy and a million rand prize money in his pocket.
It all started with an Instagram account, but The Roasted Dad is so much more now. Shawn has stayed his entrepreneurial self and whilst he hosts Private Dinner Parties and Cook-with-Me Demos, does Restaurant Take-Overs, he still runs the lighting company and several other businesses.
On his blog, Shawn shares Restaurant Reviews and Accommodation Reviews, and gives an insight into the wild and wonderful life he leads together with his wife Lianne, and their three children Aiden (6), Olivia (4) and Harvey (2).
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