Tacchino Natalizio alla Neretese

• 12 ounces walnuts, roasted
• 6 to 8 fat cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
• Extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 10- to 12-pound turkey, cleaned, rinsed, and dried
• Fine sea salt
• Freshly cracked pepper
• Large branches of rosemary
• 1 large bay leaf
• Zest of 2 lemons, removed in large pieces with a vegetable peeler
• 3 cups dry white wine
• 2 tablespoons plus 1/4 cup nocino or other walnut or hazelnut liqueur

1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.
2. In the work bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade, pulse the walnuts with the garlic.
3. When the walnuts are processed to a fairly fine texture, drop in tears of oil through the feed tubeonly enough to form a thick paste of the nuts, less than 2 tablespoons worth.
4. Loosen the breast skin of the turkey by gently slipping your fingers between it and the flesh.
5. Carefully spread the walnut paste thickly over the flesh and under the skin of the breast, as evenly as possible.
6. Sprinkle sea salt and freshly cracked pepper in the birds cavity and over its skin, and stuff it with several whole branches of rosemary, the bay leaf, and the lemon zest.
7. Massage the bird generously with olive oil, trussing it then, if you wish.
8. Place the turkey on a rack in a large roasting pan into which you have poured 1 cup of the wine.
9. Roast it on a rack in the hot oven for 1 hour, basting with the accumulating juices and an additional cup of the wine mixed with the 1/4 cup of walnut liqueur.
10. Reduce the ovens heat to 325 degrees and roast the turkey for an additional 1 1/2 to 2 hours or until a thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the breast registers 165 degrees.
11. Baste faithfully every quarter of an hour.
12. Transfer the bird to a holding plate, and remove the aromatics in the cavity.
13. Over a lively flame, heat the accumulated juices in the roasting pan, stirring, scraping at the residue, and adding the remaining cup of wine and the remaining 2 tablespoons of walnut liqueur.
14. Reduce the pan juices for 4 or 5 minutes.
15. Carve the turkey and present it with the warmed pan juices, great chunks of charred, roasted polenta, and poached Savoy cabbage that has been sauteed in olive oil and spiced with olio santo (page 155).

walnuts, garlic, extravirgin olive oil, turkey, salt, freshly cracked pepper, branches of rosemary, bay leaf, lemons, white wine, hazelnut liqueur

Taken from www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/tacchino-natalizio-alla-neretese-391131 (may not work)