Turkey risotto | Turkey recipes | Jamie Oliver recipes (2024)

FAQs

What can I add to risotto to make it taste better? ›

Sautéed shallots, garlic, shiitake mushrooms, and thyme are used to build a robust and flavorful foundation on which arborio rice and hot stock are melded. With each stir of the spoon, the starches thicken, and the earthy essence of the mushrooms builds depth of flavor.

Preheat your oven to full whack, get the turkey in the roasting tray and cover with foil. As soon as it goes in the oven, immediately turn the heat down to 180ºC/350ºF/gas 4. As a rough guide, you want to cook the turkey for about 35 to 40 minutes per kilogram, so a 7kg turkey will want about 4 to 4½ hours in the oven.

If the turkey is over 4kg, calculate 20 mins per 1kg, plus 90 mins. If the bird is under 4kg, calculate 20 mins per 1kg, plus 70 mins. To test if it's done, make sure the juices run clear when you pierce the thigh where it meets the body. If not, put it back in the oven for another 20 mins, then test again.

Always use warm stock.

Warming the broth before adding it to the warm rice coaxes more starch out of each grain of rice and helps prevent it from overcooking. Cool broth takes longer to warm up in the risotto pan and may shock the grain into holding onto its starches while the rice itself continues to cook.

The technique of risotto is to slowly and gradually cook a starchy ingredient by adding liquid in small amounts and stirring. This technique's main purpose is to draw starch out of the main ingredient to give the dish a creamy texture.

Use Salted Water Instead of Broth in Risotto

It's an ingenious tip on many levels.

If you are able to get white wine vinegar then you can add a tablespoon of this to the rice and let it boil away before adding any stock and this will often give some of the flavour of wine, whilst reducing the alcohol content.

Roast the turkey in the hot oven for 10–15 minutes. Take the tray out of the oven, baste the bird with the pan juices and lay the bacon rashers over the breast to keep it moist. Baste again. Lower the setting to 180°C/Gas 4 and cook for about 2 1⁄2 hours (calculating at 30 minutes per kg), basting occasionally.

Should I put butter under the skin of my turkey? ›

Impart rich flavor and add moisture to your Thanksgiving turkey by adding a layer of butter under the skin before roasting.

Oven-Roasted Turkey

We recommend starting the turkey in a 425 degree oven for 30-45 minutes before tenting the pan with foil and lowering the temperature to 350 degrees until a meat thermometer reads 165 degrees when inserted into the thickest part of the bird.

The simple secret to a truly juicy roast turkey is to season the turkey with a rub a couple of days before roasting. This is called dry brining and it makes the flesh beautifully moist, and you can even do it while the turkey is still FROZEN!

To achieve a perfectly golden, juicy turkey, let the bird spend time both covered and uncovered in the oven. We recommend covering your bird for most of the cooking time to prevent it from drying out; then, during the last 30 minutes or so of cooking, remove the cover so the skin crisps in the hot oven.

You could fry some garlic in a little olive oil in a separate pan and add it in. Some fried pancetta would perk it up a lot too (I always have some ready chopped pancetta in the fridge for perking things up). Fried garlic and pancetta, then parmesan.

Give extra flavour to your vegetable or fish stock by adding prawn shells or fish bones and bring to the boil. Strain and return to the pan to keep warm before ladling over your rice. Stir cooked king prawns, clams and mussels through your risotto.

Use high-quality butter and olive oil

Butter and olive oil have their own distinctive flavors, but when blended together, they help to elevate the level of luxurious creaminess in risotto. Because they both add lots of flavor, it is important to use good-quality butter and olive oil in your risotto.

How do you make risotto less bland? By using the right ingredients. If you make risotto with parboiled rice, water, skip the onion and the wine, use water to cook it and stinge on the butter and cheese you will get an insipid dish. Risotto is tasty when you use the best and tastiest ingredients.