Portuguese Christmas Roast Turkey with Oven Rice (Peru Assado no Forno)
Maria de Lourdes Modesto's Christmas turkey: soaked overnight in salted water with lemon, stuffed with bread, eggs and cured ham, roasted without a drop of basting, and served with oven rice that soaks up the drippings.
In Portugal, Christmas Eve belongs to salt cod. The big Christmas Eve dinner, the Consoada, centers on bacalhau, and roast meat waits for Christmas Day lunch, where a stuffed turkey, peru recheado, is the more affordable choice next to roast kid goat (Portugal.com:).
This version comes from Maria de Lourdes Modesto's "Cozinha Tradicional Portuguesa"; Porto's food-tour company Taste Porto calls her the queen of Portuguese cuisine. Her method is plain and strict: soak the bird overnight in salted water with lemon, stuff it with bread, eggs and streaky cured ham, and never baste it. In a wood-fired oven, she sets the turkey on a rack directly over the pot of rice so the drippings fall straight in; in a home oven, the drippings are poured over the rice at the end.
Why it works the kitchen science
Salt, lemon and no basting
The overnight brine seasons the meat all the way through and helps it hold its juices, and leaving the dry skin alone, with no fat or basting, lets it brown and stay crisp.
The rice is the gravy
The turkey's broth cooks the rice, and the skimmed drippings finish it, so all the flavor that would go into an American gravy goes into the rice instead.
Step by step
- Step 1
The day before: cut off the wings at the shoulder joint and remove the neck; refrigerate them with the giblets. Stir the salt into the cold water in a container big enough for the bird (or a brining bag in a cooler), add the lemons and the turkey, and keep it in the refrigerator, or below 40°F with ice, for 8 to 12 hours.
- Step 2
For the broth, put the wings, neck and giblets in a pot with 8 cups water and 1 tsp salt, bring to a boil, then simmer gently 1 1/2 hours, partly covered. Strain and measure 3 3/4 cups (refrigerate it if you make it the day before).
- Step 3
Heat the oven to 350°F. Lift the turkey out of the brine, pat it very dry inside and out, and set it on a rack in a roasting pan. Do not rub it with fat. Mix the bread, eggs, ham, butter and pepper with your hands, pack the stuffing loosely into the neck cavity and close the skin flap with a skewer or a few stitches. Bake any extra stuffing in a small buttered dish.
- Step 4
Roast the turkey without basting, about 2 1/2 to 3 hours, starting to check at 2 hours, until a thermometer reads 165°F in the thickest part of the breast, the innermost thigh and the center of the stuffing.
- Step 5
About 45 minutes before the turkey is done, make the rice: heat the olive oil in a large pot over medium heat, cook the onion 5 minutes until soft, stir in the rice for 1 minute, add the hot broth and bring to a boil. Boil 5 minutes, season, and pour into an oiled 9 by 13 inch baking dish (clay if you have one).
- Step 6
Move the turkey to a board and rest it 30 minutes. Skim the fat from the roasting pan, pour about 1 cup of the pan juices evenly over the rice, and bake the rice uncovered at 350°F for 20 to 25 minutes, until tender with a light crust on top.
- Step 7
Carve the turkey, spoon out the stuffing and serve with the rice.
Portuguese Christmas Roast Turkey with Oven Rice (Peru Assado no Forno)
Serves 10 · one 10 lb turkey plus a 9 by 13 inch dish of oven rice · 4 hr 15 min total
Turkey and soak
- 1 turkey (about 10 lb), thawed, not kosher or self-basting
- 2 gallons cold water
- 1/2 cup table salt (or 3/4 cup Diamond Crystal kosher salt)
- 2 lemons, sliced
Stuffing
- 1/2 lb (250 g) day-old crusty wheat bread, torn into small pieces (about 5 cups)
- 3 large eggs
- 3 1/2 oz (100 g) presunto or other streaky dry-cured ham, chopped
- 1 tbsp butter or lard, softened
- 1/4 tsp black pepper
Oven rice
- The turkey's wings, neck, giblets (heart, gizzard, liver) and feet if you have them
- 8 cups water and 1 tsp salt, for the broth
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- 1 onion, chopped
- 2 1/2 cups (500 g) medium-grain rice, such as carolino
- 3 3/4 cups turkey broth (from above)
- Salt and pepper
Method
- The day before: cut off the wings at the shoulder joint and remove the neck; refrigerate them with the giblets. Stir the salt into the cold water in a container big enough for the bird (or a brining bag in a cooler), add the lemons and the turkey, and keep it in the refrigerator, or below 40°F with ice, for 8 to 12 hours.
- For the broth, put the wings, neck and giblets in a pot with 8 cups water and 1 tsp salt, bring to a boil, then simmer gently 1 1/2 hours, partly covered. Strain and measure 3 3/4 cups (refrigerate it if you make it the day before).
- Heat the oven to 350°F. Lift the turkey out of the brine, pat it very dry inside and out, and set it on a rack in a roasting pan. Do not rub it with fat. Mix the bread, eggs, ham, butter and pepper with your hands, pack the stuffing loosely into the neck cavity and close the skin flap with a skewer or a few stitches. Bake any extra stuffing in a small buttered dish.
- Roast the turkey without basting, about 2 1/2 to 3 hours, starting to check at 2 hours, until a thermometer reads 165°F in the thickest part of the breast, the innermost thigh and the center of the stuffing.
- About 45 minutes before the turkey is done, make the rice: heat the olive oil in a large pot over medium heat, cook the onion 5 minutes until soft, stir in the rice for 1 minute, add the hot broth and bring to a boil. Boil 5 minutes, season, and pour into an oiled 9 by 13 inch baking dish (clay if you have one).
- Move the turkey to a board and rest it 30 minutes. Skim the fat from the roasting pan, pour about 1 cup of the pan juices evenly over the rice, and bake the rice uncovered at 350°F for 20 to 25 minutes, until tender with a light crust on top.
- Carve the turkey, spoon out the stuffing and serve with the rice.
Adapted from "Peru Assado no Forno" in Maria de Lourdes Modesto's "Cozinha Tradicional Portuguesa," as published by Taste Porto (November 24, 2025). Modesto gives no turkey weight, oven temperature or internal temperature; the 10 lb bird, 350°F and the timings are ours, checked against the USDA FSIS stuffed-turkey timetable (see Food safety baseline). Her soak uses 1 kg of salt in "a large bowl" of water and she then rubs the bird with more salt; we use a measured brine instead, at half the strength America's Test Kitchen uses for a 3 to 6 hour turkey breast brine (1/2 cup table salt per 4 quarts:), and skip the second salting. She cooks 1 kg of rice for 10; we halve it to fit one 9 by 13 inch dish. Her stuffing amounts (250 g bread, 3 eggs, 100 g presunto, 1 tbsp butter or lard) are kept. Taste Porto. Ingredient list follows the source; the method is in our own words.
Tips
- Do not brine a kosher, self-basting or "enhanced" turkey; it is already salted (America's Test Kitchen says the same for its brined turkeys).
- The stuffing contains raw egg, so it must reach 165°F in the center. If the turkey is done first, scoop the stuffing into a dish and bake it until it gets there.
- No presunto? Prosciutto or thick-cut country ham works.
The rules people argue about
What the sources agree on, what they don't, and what is just a good story.
- Never baste a turkey. Disputed: Modesto's rule is never to baste with liquid or fat; the pavochón recipe below (our Puerto Rican Pavochón recipe) bastes every 15 to 20 minutes; America's Test Kitchen tested basting and found it did not moisten the breast.
- Turkey is Portugal's Christmas Eve dinner. Folklore: Christmas Eve's Consoada is salt cod; turkey belongs to Christmas Day lunch (Portugal.com).
- Stuff the bird. Documented as Modesto's method; USDA FSIS recommends cooking stuffing separately, and if you stuff, fill loosely just before roasting and reach 165°F in the center (UGA Extension:).
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