Halal Food London x Tom Hixson 

Tom Hixson are a fine meat procurer established in 1963 at Smithfield Market. They specialised in sourcing exceptional produce, and have recently expanded into the Halal market! This year, I will be cooking with their Halal Turkey Butterfly. This Turkey is exceptionally great as it it an easy-carve boneless butterfly breast with skin AKA no deboning the Turkey or having to remove the innards etc- Perfect for people like me who want the least amount of work possible! Something else I would like to point out is that the Turkey is Free Range and with High Welfare standards.

The Turkey weights 5.3kg (serving around 15+ people) and costs £54.95, but you can get £10 off all orders over £50 by using the discount code HFL10

For more info on Tom Hixson check out their instagram here, as well as their halal meat range here. In a few days I will also be cooking with some of their Argentinian Rump Steak so keep a look out for that!

Recipe suggestion

If you are really worried about the dryness of the Turkey & have the time, I would recommend brining the turkey before hand (basically soaking it in salty water for a day or so in a fridge). I didn’t do that to mine, and I wanted to test the quality of the Turkey itself. My Turkey ended up not being dry at all! Although I would consider marinading it for longer to help the flavours permeate.

I went for a honey sweet & spiced Turkey.

Pre-heat your oven to 160°C whilst you prepare the Turkey.

Ingredients:

• 100g slightly salted butter
• 3 tablespoons Maple syrup
• 3 tablespoons Honey
• 1 tablespoon Mustard
• 1 tspn Garlic powder
• 2 tspn Paprika (hot or smoked)
• Salt
• 1 tablespoon All purpose seasoning
• Pepper
• Chicken stock

Method:

Liberally butter all surfaces of the Turkey (with the butterfly you are able to get in between the sidebreasts too). After this mix all the other ingredients together. Rub this mixture on all surfaces of the Turkey. That is literally it- it’s so easy! And you can do any flavours you want on top of the Turkey too.

Next, make sure theres some butter and chicken stock (or water if you’re lazy) in the bottom of the Turkey pan.

Put your Turkey in your pre-heated oven for about an hour (keep an eye on the skin to check for burning- the honey makes it susceptible to burning easily which is what happened to part of my Turkey). Once the top is well browned after around an hour, cover the Turkey with foil.

Continue the rest of the cooking with the foil on. Turkey will need around 4 hours, and should be basted every 30mins or so. If you have a meat thermometer, the inside of the Turkey breast should be around 75°C, however I just made an incision inside the Turkey to check if it was cooked & it was after 4 hours.

To serve, if you have 15+ people to feed then plate it up whole and make some gravy, roast potatoes and Yorkshire pudding to go with it! As it was just me eating, I sliced it up and ate it with roast carrots.

I also tried a baguette filled with the turkey breast, melted cheese & cranberry sauce and it was surprisingly delicious!

Overall…

I was really happy using Tom Hixson as my Turkey supplier. I don’t actually celebrate Christmas but I have always wanted to try cooking a traditional Turkey, so getting my hands on a halal one was a treat.

P.S. in a few days I will be cooking with some Halal Argentinian Rump steak from Tom Hixson, and I also have a delicious mushroom sauce recipe which I will be posting alongside it!