• 1 small / med turkey 4-5kg
• 20 rashers streaky bacon
• 1kg sausage meat
• 1 onion finely chopped
• 100g dry apricots (chopped)
• 100g dry cranberries (chopped)
• 4g allspice
• Thyme leaves

Sweat the onion gently in a pan with some oil, ensuring it doesn’t brown. Add the allspice and cook for 1 minute. Leave to cool.

In a separate bowl, mix the sausage meat, apricots, cranberries & picked thyme

Add the cooled onion mix to the sausage meat and mix well. Leave to one side until ready to use.

Firstly you will need to butcher the turkey to prepare for cooking. Remove the legs, then take off the wings and take both the back-bone and wishbone out.

If you aren’t confident, you can ask your butcher to section the meat for you.

Place the turkey pieces, apart from the legs, in pan of cold water, add a pinch of salt and plenty of fresh thyme. Heat the pan and bring to the boil. Once it’s reached boiling point, take off the heat and let the turkey pieces cool in the water. Whilst they are cooling, you can prepare the stuffing-filled leg meat.

Cut down the bone either side of both separated leg bones and carefully remove the bone from the leg meat. Take the bone out from the underside so that you don’t cut through the skin.  Open out the leg meat, removing the tendons. Remove the skin on both leg meat pieces, keeping the meat in one piece. You can add the leg bones to the pan with the turkey crown, so that it adds flavour, as it cools.

Lay out some clingfilm out on the table and line 10 streaky bacon side by side to the length of one turkey leg, ensuring the rashers do not overlap the clingfilm. Place the leg meat on top of the bacon. Repeat for the second leg.

Place ½ of the stuffing mix in the centre of the flattened turkey leg.  Pick up the edges of the bacon rashers with the clingfilm and roll the bacon around the leg and stuffing to create a sausage-like shape, ensuring the bacon overlaps. This will help keep the stuffing inside the leg meat. Tie the clingfilm at both sides. Repeat with the other leg, then place both prepared pieces in the fridge to firm up before cooking.

Place the 2 turkey legs in another pan of cold water, making sure they are covered by the water. Bring up to boiling point then turn off the heat

Leave the legs in the water for 1 hour, then place the legs in the fridge until Christmas morning

Take out the turkey crown from the other pan and place on a roasting tray ready for when you’ll cook your Christmas lunch.

Preheat the oven to 160°C.

Remove the cling film from the turkey legs and place next to the crown on the roasting tray. Drizzle with some oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast in the oven for 1 hour and 20 minutes or until the juices run clear.

Let the meat rest before you carve the crown and slice the stuffing-filled legs to serve.