Boxing Day Turkey Ballotine....Dinde Farcie En Saucisse

First time ever for me to bone a chicken was on December 7th 2011. Two days ago I repeated the affair with a 10 pound turkey and it came out beautifully, of course with the step by step explanation of Chef's Chef of Chefs Jacques Pépin as suggested by Chef John in one of his posts (Deboning A Turkey By Proxy) in Food Wishes.com.  If it weren't for Chef John I wouldn't have known about Jacques Pépin even though I had his book of practice since twelve years. So for Boxing Day I decided to make a Turkey Ballotine with our family's stuffing which....
In order not to bore you I am going to have a series of photographs I have taken which shows a bit the stages. For more details check with Chef John's post. The important point here is the spicing, and the cooking which I came up with. Just for your information our turkey weighed 4.6 kg or 10,12 lbs.
Recipe For Stuffing: 

This stuffing has been put together by Maria and myself after years of experimentation 
and finally we have reached this result:

-  2 spring onions (40 gr +/-)chopped.
-  1 leek (40 gr chopped)
-  50 gr parsley cleaned and chopped.
-  30 gr celery cleaned and chopped.
-  ½ cup raisins soaked in hot water with ¼ cup brandy.
-  ½ cup black currants also soaked in the same hot water with the raisins.
-  1 cup pine nuts (100 gr).
-  1 cup walnuts (100 gr) thickly broken with a mortar and pestle.
-  3 green apples peeled and cubed.
-  ½ cup dried apricots cubed chopped.
-  3 cups chestnuts ready to use from the supermarket cut in half.
-  ½ kg ground meat.
-  ¼ cup cracked wheat to absorb
             

After Roasting.

-  250 gr butter room temperature.
-  ¼ cup Samos Sweet White Wine.
Method:
-  Add ground meat and bacon to a large non-stick pan and brown all sides. Add salt, pepper, cinnamon and nutmeg, add cracked wheat add ¼ cup Samos White Sweet Wine, let alcohol evaporate and set aside.

Before Roasting.

-  In the same large pan melt butter, combine spring onions, leek, parsley, celery, and stir fry for 5 minutes and set aside.
-  Combine raisins, pine nuts, walnuts, apples, apricots, chestnuts in a bowl and mix well.
-  Finally mix ground meat mixture, spring onion, leek, parsley, celery, parsley and dried fruit and sauté on  high heat.
-  Take 5 cups worth from this stuffing mixture and pass through the food processor to puré to stuff the boned turkey.
 - Wet the rest of non processed stuffing with previously prepared turkey sauce and put into a casserole to bake by itself while the turkey is being roasted in the oven.
-  When turkey is boned and ready for filling, use the processed stuffing puré to fill.
-  Fold both sides of the boned turkey and tie with a string or sew sides together.
-  Add thick sea salt, pepper, and sage on the whole surface of the turkey.
-  Mix two Tbsp. smoked red sweet paprika with olive oil and baste all the turkey front and back.
-  Bearing in mind that the turkey has no bones, bake at 165 - 175 degrees C for 2 hours. Check with meat thermometer for temperature in the thigh to be  69 to 70 degrees C when finished.
Serve with béchamel spinach (béchamel was made using 50 gr butter, 50 gr flour, 250 ml fresh cream 35%, and balance milk to obtain desired thick béchamel, garlic sauté sliced mushrooms with tarragon, whole turkey stuffing, roasted baby potatoes,  turkey sauce, and last but not least, sliced boneless turkey where you have turkey on the outside and puré stuffing in the inside.
Enjoy !
Stelio