Confession: ever since I started hosting Christmas, I refuse to cook turkey. I can’t do it. It dries out, it loses all potential flavour and it honestly just disappoints me and probably my guests every time.

Now, I am a Good Northern Girl so of course my entire plate gets doused in gravy, but I just can’t justify the time it takes to prepare and cook turkey against how it actually tastes at the end.

Exhausting!

However, dare I say it, Gordon Ramsay’s secret to keeping turkey moist and flavourful has made me ambitious again. Maybe we can have turkey this year AND it’ll be delicious even before I’ve poured gravy over it?!

How to stop turkey from drying out

In his roast turkey recipe, Gordon suggests making a herby butter with these ingredients:

• 375g butter, at room temperature
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• finely grated zest and juice of 2 small lemons
• 3 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
• small bunch of flat leaf parsley, leaves only, chopped

I’m already drooling.

Now, where the magic happens is the application of this butter.

Gordon advises: “With your hands, loosen the skin on the breast from both ends of the bird so that you will be able to stuff the flavoured butter underneath it, making sure you keep the skin intact.

“Repeat with the skin on the legs – from the lower side of the breast feel your way under the skin and out towards the leg, loosening the gap.”

Then, he said: “Stuff half the butter mix into the opened spaces under the skin. From the outside of the skin, gently massage the butter around the breasts so that the meat is evenly covered.”

Gordon also recommends basting the turkey throughout the cooking process, too.

Crispy, herby, juicy turkey coming RIGHT UP.