thyme and garlic turkey crown
Intensify your roast turkey with the flavors of thyme, garlic, and lemon on a festive dinner. And serve this crowd-pleasing festive leading with our stuffing balls.
- Prep: 30 mins
- Cook:1 hrs 30 mins
Plus chilling and resting - Easy
- Serves: 5
Ingredients
thyme and garlic turkey crown Method
Step: 1 For a great taste, do this step the day before you roast the turkey crown. Strip off most of the leaves thyme, reserving some sprigs, and mash with the garlic, lemon zest, and a little pinch of salt using a pestle and mortar. Put in a bowl half of the mixture, now add more salt, and continue mashing. Place the crown in a roasting tin and season with the mix, massaging it all over the skin and below the crown. Then cover and chill the crown for around 24 hrs at this stage. Work the butter into the leftover mix and chill this, too. If you don’t have much time, do this prep on the day you roast.
Step: 2 Take out the turkey crown and the flavoured butter from the fridge about one or two before roasting. Warm oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6. Spread butter all over the turkey skin and roast turkey for around 1 ½ hrs, basting every 30 mins or so till turns golden and cooked through, check with a digital cooking thermometer that should be read 70C when inserted in the thickest part of the breast. Let it rest for at least 20 minutes before sculpting.
Step: 3 To add to the gravy save juices from the tin, which you can make ahead (alternatively, make gravy in the tin). As a voluntary flourish, halve more lemons and scorch the cut sides in a hot pan till lightly seared. Serve the turkey crown encircled by fresh thyme sprigs, charred lemon halves, if you want, and stuffing balls, now serve.
