Our Woodfired Christmas Turkey
For all of you who want to try cooking your Christmas turkey in your wood fired oven, here’s what we did in our Bushman Wood Fired Oven. It takes less time than a conventional oven and as all with all cooking, having a plan makes everything easier!!
Our turkey waiting for the oven to heat up.
We started with a 4.5kg/10lb free range, bronze turkey – we mixed 250g of softened butter with some fresh chopped thyme leaves and salt and pepper and then put it underneath the turkey skin on the breast. The turkey was sat on a sturdy wire rack over one of our good solid roasting tins.
The turkey was basted with plenty of thyme flavoured butter and seasoned well
We put a halved lemon in the cavity along with a halved garlic bulb and a bunch of thyme sprigs and then covered it all well with wide and thick foil – just like we’d do with a chicken for roasting.
The turkey’s in its foil tent and in the cleared oven
Meanwhile the oven had heated up so that it was fully saturated with heat ready for the roast. The air temperature in our oven was 260C and the floor temperature 350C. Once the oven was heated up, the embers were taken out and the oven cleared.
Oven up to temperature
2 hours in and the temperature in the bird was already up into the 70s – best to use a meat thermometer for this and to probe the thigh. The foil was taken off after about 90 minutes cooking to brown up the skin. Our turkey cooked much more quickly in the woodfired oven than in a conventional one where it would sit for more like three hours so do make sure you keep a close eye on it.
Great colour on the turkey skin
Merry Christmas!