Belated Christmas Turkey - Brined with Knorr Stock Cubes

I hope you all had a great Christmas! Enjoying post-Christmas sales?! Mine was rather quiet, just my sister and I cause the wild boar was away for locum work over Christmas. It was a last minute thing. He had to catch the late night train on Thursday to Exeter which was 3 hrs away and he came back only yesterday. Sad, I know. Have been singing silent night(s) to myself for the past few days...Anyway, our Christmas dinner was postponed to tonight. I prepared another traditional Christmas dinner this year - roast turkey, rich stuffing, brussel sprouts, cranberry sauce and turkey gravy...and we just had Christmas pudding..aaahhh...so stuffed.

I decided to use Knorr chicken stock cubes instead of salt for the brine this year as I have A LOT, many boxes, unlimited supply. I currently have about 50 cubes or more in the pantry, I lost count. Don't give me that look, I'm not an "instant" addict and no, Knorr is not my sponsor. They are all from my mum-in-law. Everytime she visits, she'd bring a few boxes. I don't really use them, so they just accumulate. It actually added a really nice flavour. The turkey was really moist, juicy and tasty.

Ingredients:

• 4kg turkey
• About 50g unsalted butter (for rubbing all over turkey) - softened
• 1 carrot - large chunks
• 2 celery sticks - chopped
• 1 onion - large slices
• Corn starch slurry (corn starch + water)
• A few sage leaves
• Rosemary leaves from 1 stalk
  
• Salt
• Freshly ground black pepper

Turkey brine:

• 500ml + 4.5L water (or enough to cover whole turkey)
• 1/3 cup light brown sugar
• 10 cubes Knorr chicken stock cubes (2 cubes per litre water)
• 1 tbs black peppercorn
• 2 pieces stem ginger - coarsely chopped
• 1 cinnamon stick

Directions:
2 days before or the day before (early):

• Place 500ml (2 cups) water, sugar, stock cubes, black peppercorn, stem ginger and cinnamon stick in a pot.
• Bring to boil then simmer for about 10 mins.
• Leave to cool then refrigerate.

The day before:

• Add refrigerated brine to a large container, turkey and add the rest of the water (enough to cover turkey).
• Leave this refrigerated overnight. I left mine for about 36 hrs.

On the day:

• Before roasting, preheat oven to 250°C.
• Discard brine, rinse turkey thoroughly and pat very dry.
• Place on roasting rack.
• Stuff turkey with stuffings.
• Rub unsalted butter all over turkey.

Rub a piece of butter in between your palms to soften/ melt butter.

• Place carrots, celery and onions on roasting tray.
• Place turkey on roasting rack, tuck the wings in to prevent burning.

• Cover bird with aluminium foil.
• Roast at lowest level at 250°C for 20 mins. I added about 1 cup of water into roasting tray to prevent vegetables from burning.
• Lower heat to 180°C and continue roasting for a further 3 hrs (about 20 mins per 500g, weigh with stuffings). Remove foil for the last hour of roasting to brown the bird.
• Remove bird from oven, loosely cover with foil and leave for about 20 mins before carving.

For turkey gravy:

• Place roasting tray on the hob, add 1 cup of water and bring to the boil. Remember to scrape off the tasty brown bits.

• Strain this into a saucepan.
• Add sage and rosemary leaves, simmer for a few mins.
• Thicken with corn starch slurry.
• Add salt and black pepper to taste.