Roasted turkey with apricot-mustard glaze

To make the turkey brine, bring one litre of the water to boil over high heat in a large saucepan. Remove saucepan from heat and mix in salt, sugar, lemons, garlic, rosemary, peppercorns and coriander seeds, stirring until the sugar and salt dissolves. Pour the hot brine into a container large enough and deep enough to hold the turkey (about 16-18-litre capacity) and add the remaining 8 litres of cold water to cool the brine.

Place the turkey, breast side down, in the brine, making sure the entire turkey is submerged. Cover the container tightly and refrigerate overnight.

Preheat oven to 200C or 180C fan. To prepare the turkey, remove from the brine and discard brine. Rinse turkey with cold water, pat dry with paper towels and truss with butcher’s twine or kitchen string. Rub outside of the turkey with oil and season well with salt and pepper. Place the turkey on a roasting rack inside a large roasting pan. Cover the pan with foil and roast turkey for 25 mins.

Meanwhile, to make the apricot-mustard glaze, bring a large saucepan of water to the boil over high heat. Cut an ‘x’ through the skin on the bottom of each apricot. Add apricots to the boiling water and cook for one min. Drain and submerge apricots in ice water to cool completely. Peel, pit and chop apricots.

In a medium heavy-based saucepan, heat the oil over medium heat for one min. Add shallots and cardamom and cook for three mins, or until pale golden. Add apricots and cook for five mins, or until shallots soften. Add the wine and vinegar and simmer for eight mins, or until reduced by half. Add the honey and mustard powder and cook for two mins, or until blended. Strain the glaze through a fine-meshed sieve into a small bowl, pressing on the solids with the back of a spoon to extract as much liquid as possible. Discard the solids.

Reduce oven temperature to 150C or 130C fan. Remove foil and brush turkey generously with some of the glaze. Continue to roast the turkey, uncovered, for a further 1 1/2-2 hrs, brushing with glaze every 15 mins, or until a meat thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the thigh registers 74C. If your oven has a top heating element, the turkey will brown faster. If the turkey begins to brown too quickly, cover loosely with foil.

Remove the turkey from the oven and rest for one hr, lightly covered with foil, before carving. Carve turkey and arrange the slices on a platter. Serve with the remaining glaze to drizzle over the turkey slices.