CHEF and barbecue expert Paul Yates is encouraging Christmas Day cooks to abandon the oven and dig out the barbecue to produce a succulent turkey for the table.

Apart from rekindling memories of summer days, cooking the turkey on a lidded barbecue such as a kettle barbecue or ceramic grill will create a tasty and moist meat, says Paul.

“This year forget your kitchen oven and dust off the barbecue instead. If you’ve got a ceramic or lidded barbecue you can create far better results than your convection oven will ever achieve.

“By using indirect heat, basically placing the meat next to the fire, rather than directly over it and shutting the lid, you can turn your barbie into an outdoor oven and slow cook a joint to create incredibly succulent meat.

“The new generation ceramic grills in particular can now create the ultimate roast. Inspired by a Japanese way of cooking in clay, ceramic barbecues are a unique design which ensures slow air circulation and accurate temperature control, preventing food from drying out and losing flavour.”

Here is Paul’s own favourite recipe for cooking turkey outdoors.

Serves: 8-10 people

Preparation Time: 40 mins

Cooking Time: 4 hours

Resting Time: 2 hours

Total Time: 6 hours 40 minutes

Bird preparation

Stuffing

Ingredients

• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

• 2 onions, peeled and quartered

• 1 lemon, halved

• 1 bulb garlic, halved horizontally

• 2 bay leaves

Method

Remove the giblets and season the inside of the cavity with salt and pepper. Now stuff the rest of the ingredients in the cavity, there's no particular order.

Flavoursome butter

Ingredients:

• 12oz or 375g butter, at room temperature

• Finely grated zest and juice of 1 lemon

• 6 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed

• 2 tablespoons chopped parsley leaves

Method

Throw the ingredients into a mixing bowl and get your hands in to mix it all together. (This is the messy bit). When thoroughly mixed, take half your butter and stuff it under the skin and massage it so that the butter spreads throughout.

Add some olive oil and bacon

Ingredients

• Olive oil

• Salt and pepper

• 10 rashers smoked streaky bacon

• The remainder of your lemon, parsley and garlic butter

Method

Drizzle some olive oil onto the skin of the turkey breast and season well. Now smear on the remainder of your butter and layer on the streaky bacon. You can now cover your turkey and refrigerate until you're ready to cook.

Cooking

Bring the charcoals to cooking heat in the barbecue and place a pan of hot water in the coals. This creates a water bath, which is one of the best ways to cook meat.

Place the turkey in the barbecue above the water bath and cook indirectly for four hours at 225°F or 110°C. Check the core temperature both in the breast and close to the bone in the leg with an instant read temperature probe, you're looking for an internal temperature of 170°F or 75°C.

When the time is up, transfer the bird to a carving board and rest for a further two hours before carving.

During this time you've ample time to make the gravy. I use the veg from inside the bird together with the bacon from the breast and fry up with the giblets until the giblets are browned.

Then I make a stock by adding water and simmering for an hour. The last stage is to put the contents of the stock pan through a sieve to produce a clear liquor.

Serve the gravy piping hot on hot plates and that way no one will be any the wiser that your Christmas barbecue turkey wasn't as hot as everything else on the plate....but it will be the most succulent ever tasted.