For a holiday feast, Roast Turkey with Sausage Fennel Stuffing with Madeira Gravy is a great choice. This is an amazing recipe. The turkey is juicy and tender. The sausage fennel stuffing is sweet with flavors of anise. Top it with the Madeira gravy and you have a winning combination.

The Madeira gravy is the show-stopper. Madeira is a fortified white wine from the Portuguese island of Madeira. It is amazing in gravy and a wonderful aperitif as well. Make sure you have some bread to sop up the extra gravy. It’s so good you do not want it going to waste.

The secrets of making a juicy and tender turkey is to roast it in an oven bag and rubbing one stick of softened butter all over the turkey before roasting. The bag keeps the pan juices around the turkey. There is no need to baste the turkey. The juices steam around the bird keeping it moist. Roasting in an oven bag also cuts the cook time by at least one-hour.

The prep time for the turkey, stuffing and gravy is one hour. The turkey was fourteen pounds. The cook time is just under three hours. This recipe came from the November 1995 issue of Gourmet magazine. The recipe serves eight. The cost per serving is $3.95. Total cost is $31.62.

I paired this course with 2007 Clos du Val Carneros Pinot Noir. The soft tannins and the moderate acidity of the Pinot Noir are a nice complement the turkey and stuffing.

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