Christmas turkey

Silvan Durrer, executive chef of the restaurant Jack’s Brasserie within the Hotel Schweizerhof Bern, crowned with two Gault&Millau toques, revealed his recipe for the traditional Christmas roast.

Ingredients

1 turkey (3-4 kg)

Peanut oil

Brine

5 l water

5 dl white wine

400 g salt

6 bay leaves

10 g coriander seed

3 g juniper

15 g black pepper seeds

5 g fennel seeds

10 g mustard seed

4 shallots

6 cloves of garlic

10 g fresh thyme

Stuffing

300 g white toast bread

100 g butter

300 g chestnuts

150 g celery leaves

4 shallots, chopped

10 g parsley, chopped

2 dl chicken broth

2 eggs

Preparation

1. For the marinade, bring 1 L of salted water to a boil, turn off the stove and add the remaining ingredients, including the remaining 4 L of water.

2.  Rinse the inside and outside of the turkey with cold water. Then, take a large bucket, put a bag inside, place the whole turkey in it and pour the marinade into the bag over the turkey. Close the bag hermetically and let stand in the cold for 24 hours.

3. The next day, remove the turkey from the marinade and leave to dry.

4. Cut the bread into 1 cm pieces. Melt the butter in a frying pan and sauté the chopped shallots. Add the chestnuts and steam briefly. Crush them lightly and remove from the pan and add the remaining ingredients (celery, parsley, broth and eggs). Knead well with your hands. The stuffing can also be cooked separately in a gratin baking dish at 180°C for about 30 minutes.

5. Preheat oven to 180°C. Before putting the turkey in the oven, stuff it, close it and smear the oil all over it. Cook at 180°C for 15 minutes, then lower the oven temperature to 160°C and cook at this temperature until the end of cooking. Baste the turkey with cooking juice approximately every 20 minutes.

6. If your oven has the exhaust air outlet, close it and open only during the last 15 minutes of cooking. The cooking time depends on the size of the turkey, which is approximately 45 minutes per kilo.