Honey roasted turkey

Recipe

Place the salt along with 4 litres of water into a large pan and bring to the boil to dissolve the salt. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool 40C. Add the thyme, honey and remaining aromatics and once completely cooled, place in the fridge overnight. (This brine recipe should be doubled if the turkey is larger than 4kg.)

Strain the honey and citrus brine into a large container. Add the turkey and brine for 14 hours in the fridge. Remove and wash the turkey under cold, running water for 1 hour. Pat dry with kitchen paper.

In the meantime, make a glaze by combining 225g of the cranberry juice and the Cointreau in a pan and reducing to a syrup over medium heat. Remove the pan from the heat and add the honey and the remaining cranberry juice.

Preheat a Hub or Fusion BBQ and set the grill to medium/high heat.

Season the brined turkey with salt and carefully attach it onto the spit using the forks. Take care not to split the skin. Place the spit onto the BBQ on height setting 2 and cook for 30 minutes until the skin is golden. Monitor the heat (topping up and moving the coals as needed) to ensure a surface temperature of around 70C is maintained on the bird.

Brush with glaze every few minutes until the turkey begins to get sticky. Once a core temperature of 65C is reached when using a probe thermometer, lower the bird to the lowest setting to colour and finish the glaze.

Remove the bird from the spit once the core temperature reads 68C and rest for 30 minutes before carving. Reserving any juices to be used in a gravy along with half of any remaining sauce.