The Christmas Bird

So, this was this years Christmas lunch, and every bit as tasty as it looks :-) It started off being soaked in a bucket with honey, sugar and spices for two days as shown in the photo below. Then I just drained it off, shoved some sausage meat in its butt, slathered over some butter, covered it in foil and popped it in the oven. It was so easy and so, so worth it, the breast was moist and succulent and just a hint of the flavourings in the meat.

The recipe is an adaptation of this one, as I couldn't track down either Maple syrup or allspice berries, so I just left them out.

Ingredients

For the Turkey

• 4-5kg Turkey
• 6 litres water
• 125g packet of table Salt
• 3 tbsp black peppercorns
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 tbsp caraway seeds
• 4 Cloves
• 2 tbsp allspice berries
• 4 Star anise
• 2 tbsp white Mustard seeds
• 200g caster sugar
• 2 Onions, quartered
• 1 x 6 cm piece of Ginger, cut into 6 slices
• 1 Orange, quartered
• 4 tbsp maple syrup
• 4 tbsp clear Honey

For the basting glaze

• 75g Butter
• 3 tbsp maple syrup