Overnight Oven Stock and Turkey Leek Soup

It has always been m habit to make stock with the remains of my Thanksgiving turkey (I previously posted my stock recipe here). I freeze most of it, and usually give some away. A couple of days after Thanksgiving last year Michael Ruhlman posted two recipes. The first was his Turkey Stock: Oven Method and the other was a Turkey Leek Soup that could be made with the stock. I prepared both recipes, and address them separately, below.

n.o.e.'s notes, overnight turkey stock:

- You can find the stock and soup recipes here.

- There are several advantages to using this method for cooking stock. First, it is cooked on very low heat for a very long slow cooking time. Ruhlman says 8 to 16 hours in the oven. That gives a lot of flexibility and does not keep you tied to the stove, to wakefulness, or, indeed even to your house while the stock cooks. The temperature is low enough that you can sleep or run errands without the fear that the house will burn down in your absence.

- Perhaps my favorite part of this recipe is that it begins with bones plus water, that is all. Eventually, after the pot has a long stint in a slow oven, at your convenience you add some aromatic vegetables and seasonings. Then you can return the stove to the oven for several more hours, or you can finish it more quickly in the conventional manner on top of the stove. This suits me because for some reason I'm always very pressed for time when I'm trying to make stock, and find it difficult to find the time to chop and peel the vegetables at the beginning of the process of stock-cooking.

- I always add all of the optional flavoring ingredients to the stock.

- One tip: your oven might decide to turn itself off after a certain number of hours, so if you are heading out the door or going to sleep, I'd advise turning the oven off and re-starting it.

the verdict, stock:

Although I love my usual stock recipe once I made Ruhlman's stock with last Thanksgiving's turkey carcass I have not used any other method to make chicken or turkey stock in the intervening year. It is a far easier and more flexible way to cook stock, and the end result is as tasty as my previous recipe.

n.o.e.'s notes, turkey leek soup:

- As long as you have some leeks on hand, you can make this soup easily with leftover turkey meat and your wonderful fresh stock. You can also make it with stock you've stashed in your freezer, and an poultry scraps you might save, and leeks, of course.

- This soup was a snap to make, which was quite welcome after all of the cooking involved in Thanksgiving dinner.

the verdict, soup:

Leeks, the well-mannered, refined members of the onion family, lend a subtle note to this soup. It made a lovely light dinner served on Thanksgiving weekend with bread and salad on the side (and a little leftover pie to finish it off!)

Happy Thanksgiving to all who are celebrating today!

Turkey Curry with Condiments

Even though I'm getting quite used to coconut in my sweets, curry is a coconut-free zone. I'll take an Indian curry over a Thai curry any day. This is my favorite recipe for curry, from Michael Field's Culinary Classics and Improvisations; (subtitle: "creative leftovers made from main-course masterpieces") If you ever come across a copy of this 1967 cookbook, buy it! Field was a classically-trained French cook, and his recipes are detailed, creative, culturally wide-ranging, a tiny bit involved, but always well worth the effort. When I have any kind of leftover meat or poultry, this is the first cookbook I consult.

I've been making this for many years, and it's a lovely curry.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- The recipe is below at the end of this post.

- Instead of curry powder, sometimes I use and equal amount of Patak's Curry Paste (it comes in hot or mild. I love the hot!). This time I used homemade curry powder - from a recipe in Thomas Keller's cookbook Ad Hoc at Home.

- Although the recipe's directions call for straining the sauce, I usually don't strain. I hate to throw away any of the good vegetables! This time the apple I added was quite firm - the type that holds its shape as it cooks rather than gets soft, so I used an immersion blender to smooth the sauce.



the recipe:

Turkey Curry with Condiments

from Michael Field's Culinary Classics and Improvisations; (creative leftovers made from main-course masterpieces)

2 T butter
1 c onion, finely chopped
1/2 c celery, finely chopped
1 small tart apple, peeled, cored, and finely chopped
1/2 tsp garlic, finely chopped
2 T flour
3 T curry powder (I've also used curry paste)
1 tsp tomato paste (I keep this in the freezer)
2 c turkey or chicken stock
1/2 c (or less) heavy cream (I've used yogurt, too)
1 tsp lime juice
salt
2-3 cups cold cooked turkey (or chicken) cut into 2 inch dice
boiled rice

Condiments:

currants or raisins soaked in cognac or sherry
coconut, fresh or canned, shredded
scallions, thinly sliced
bacon, crisp and crumbled
chutney
avocados, sliced and sprinkled with lemon or lime juice
almonds, toasted and slivered
hard-cooked eggs, sieved
Bombay duck, heated and crumbled (this is some sort of dried fish)
pappadums, deep-fried or pan fried in butter

1. In large frying pan, melt the butter. Stir in the chopped onions and celery and saute slowly. When the vegetables are soft but not brown, mix in the chopped apple and garlic and continue to cook until the apple is soft enough to be mashed with the back of a spoon. Remove the pan from the heat.

2. In a small bowl combine the flour and the fresh curry powder. Add this to the mixture in the frying pan, stir in the tomato paste, and mash it into as smooth a paste as possible. Stirring constantly, cook over low heat for about 3 minutes.

3. Now, little by little, pour in the 2 cups of turkey or chicken stock, beating slowly with a whisk, then add the cream.

4. Over moderate heat bring the sauce to a boil, still stirring. When it is quite thick and smooth, lower the heat to barely simmering and cook for about 20 minutes with the pan partially covered.

5. Then strain the sauce through a fine sieve into a small casserole, pressing down on the vegetables with the back of a large spoon to extract all their juices before throwing them away.

6. Stir in the lime juice and salt to taste; if at this point the sauce seems too thick, thin it with a little more cream or stock. Now you need only heat the cooked turkey in this, but be careful that the sauce doesn't boil or the turkey may toughen or shred.

7. Serve with plain boiled rice and any or all of the condiments.

Green Peppercorn Sage Gravy

I don't know about you, but every Thanksgiving, as I tuck into my favorite meal of the entire year, I find myself wondering why I cook turkey + gravy only in November (and sometimes at Christmas). "This year," I always say to myself, "I will make turkey more often." And although I usually fail pretty miserably in that resolution, this year I actually followed through. Which is pretty cool in many ways, but it means that I'm writing a post featuring turkey gravy after Easter!

Back in January, my farm box had some turkeys available for order - local, organic, free-pastured birds. I'd cooked one of these birds for Thanksgiving dinner, using Tyler Florence's recipe. It was the best turkey I've ever eaten, so I jumped on the chance for a repeat performance. The turkey that I picked up in January was 24 pounds! I again used Tyler's method to cook the turkey, and it was delicious, although it was a little comical to prepare such a huge turkey when there are just 2 of us in the house. We enjoyed a few turkey dinners that week, and then froze an entire turkey breast, 3 quarts of stock, turkey drippings (measured in 1/4 cup packets), and a passel of Ziploc bags filled with turkey meat, ranging from full slices down to little scraps.

Gotta love all that food in the freezer! I recently stumbled across Tyler Florence's recipe for Sage Green Peppercorn Gravy and decided to cook it, even though I didn't have some of the ingredients: turkey giblets or smoked turkey wings. So I improvised, using an assortment of turkey items from my freezer instead!

n.o.e.'s notes:

-I prepared a half recipe, making several changes to Tyler's recipe. My adapted version is at the end of this post.

- To compensate for the fact that I didn't have smoked turkey wings available, I added a smoky note in two ways:
1. I used some reserved bacon grease from fabulously-smoky Benton's bacon.
2. I also stirred some smoked salt into the nearly-finished gravy. I order the smoked salt (and the equally wonderful hot salt) from a little spice purveyor in central New York State.

- Since I had no giblets to chop and add to the gravy, I used small scraps of cooked turkey and some turkey drippings, both from the freezer.

the verdict:

I served the gravy with some of the leftover Tyler Florence turkey slices (yup, in my freezer.) The resulting dish was totally delicious! The gravy's flavor was complex and subtle; the smoky touches and the cognac added an understated sophistication. Luckily we had some Sister Schubert's rolls to catch all of the gravy goodness on our plates!

Now, tuck this recipe away for Thanksgiving - that's what I'm going to do!

the recipe:

Green Peppercorn Sage Gravy

adapted from a recipe by Tyler Florence.

1 T smoky bacon grease
1/2 T butter
1/2 onion, roughly chopped
1 garlic clove, smashed
3 small carrots, cut in chunks
1.5 celery stalks, cut in chunks
4 sprigs Italian parsley, divided and half roughly chopped
4 sprigs thyme, divided and half roughly chopped
2 bay leaves, divided and half roughly chopped
3 T cognac
1 T flour
2 c. chicken stock
1/4 cup defatted turkey drippings
1/4 c. water
1/4 tsp. smoked salt
salt and pepper
1/3 - 1/2 cup small or shredded cooked turkey scraps
1/2 T green peppercorns

Melt butter and bacon grease in a large skillet over medium heat. Saute the onion, garlic, carrots, and celery with 2 sprigs each parsley and thyme, 2 sage leaves, and 1 bay leaf until fragrant (about 5 minutes). Deglaze the pan with 2 T. cognac and cook for 2 minutes to evaporate the alcohol. Sprinkle in flour to tighten up the mixture and stir in the chicken broth a little at a time to avoid lumping. Simmer for about 15 minutes, until slightly thickened. With a slotted spoon or strainer, remove the pieces of vegetable from the broth.

In another pan, heat the turkey drippings. Add the remaining herbs. Season with salt and pepper and heat over medium heat. Add 1 T cognac and continue to cook until ingredients are hot and well combined and the cognac has evaporated.

Add the seasoned drippings and the turkey scraps to the broth mixture. Deglaze the dripping pan with 1/4 cup water, and add to the gravy. Simmer until the gravy is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Stir in peppercorns and serve with turkey.

I'm sending this post to Tyler Florence Fridays, a weekly blog event featuring the recipes of Tyler Florence. Check out the roundup to see what the Tyler-istas are cooking up!

{T-giving} Turkey, Dressing and Gravy: a Hit, a Miss and a Stalwart [also: TFF]

It may be the Christmas season everywhere else, but on this blog it's perennially Thanksgiving! Or at least it will be that way for a while longer.

This year, for the second year in a row, everything, from soup to nuts, came from my kitchen. The fact that just three of us were there to eat the feast simplified the menu only slightly - there are a good many things that are practically required for Thanksgiving, and others that are really nice to have. I was very thankful for the able assistance of my talented daughter A.L.E.!

In contrast to last year’s focus on our old favorites, this year we cooked almost everything from new recipes. After all was said and done, this was the best dinner I've ever put on our table, and now we have some new favorites! I’ve already posted the pumpkin soup, brown butter sage sweet potatoes, and two pies (chocolate pecan and Twofer). This post will be the centerpiece of the meal: turkey, stuffing, and gravy. Still to come: two more pies, green beans, cranberry sauce, and cider jelly.

Turkey

Most everyone would agree that Thanksgiving = Turkey. After all, the holiday's second name is "Turkey Day". (That doesn't mean that everyone likes or eats turkey. Vegetarians and vegans, for example can partake of a special tofu-rkey, which I'm told is a reasonably tasty alternative -and of course a million fabulous non-meat-based recipes. The cashier I spoke with in the supermarket on Thanksgiving Eve was going with a ham only. And we had friends who were cattle ranchers in Oklahoma who never ate "bird".)

I am nothing if I'm not traditional on this question. I really like turkey, and I have a list of Requirements For Thanksgiving Turkey. According to my standards, a turkey must:

1. Be large enough for lots of leftovers - slices for another dinner and/or turkey sandwiches, scraps for soups, casseroles, and tamales - and have sufficient bones for 2-3 quarts of stock. [This only applies if I cook the turkey, although most people will be happy to hand over the bones, I've found]

2. Be well-cooked, tender, and especially not dry (because that puts a pall over the meal).

3. Taste great covered in gravy

4. Be a good complement to dressing/stuffing
Essentially, turkey is a necessary vehicle for two of my three favorite Thanksgiving foods: gravy and dressing (the third is pumpkin pie.) And an ideal source of several future meals.

Over the years we've prepared or consumed turkey in a variety of cooking methods. The bird is usually a fresh one, and we've had it: smoked, brined with Alton Brown's brine and smoked, brined with Alton Brown's brine and roasted, brined with a simple salt brine and smoked, brined with a simple salt brine and roasted, herbed and roasted, pre-basted. And, thankfully, the turkey has usually lived up to its obligations.

Since I've been on a sage kick lately, Tyler Florence's Oven Roasted Turkey with Sage Butter spoke to me. What did it say? "Cook me!" Who was I to argue with an insistent recipe?

cook's notes:

- Our turkey came from the farm box folks, who have a wonderful organic poultry supplier. The bird weighed in at 14.5 pounds; just enough for the three of us(!)

- I decided to make half the sage butter. I couldn't imagine putting 2 sticks' worth of butter under the skin of the turkey, especially since. . .

- . . . I wasn't sure exactly how to put the butter under the skin. I ended up buttering the turkey breast part only. (Was I supposed to put butter under the other skin? That would have been difficult.) I slid a sharp knife between the skin and the breast, and gently pulled skin loose with my fingers. Then I smooshed the butter all over the top of the turkey, under the skin. However, I think I should have left the skin attached at the breastbone, as the skin pulled back as the turkey cooked, and the breast meat was partly uncovered by any skin. After a while I figured that I could fashion a bard for that part of the turkey breast out of cheesecloth soaked in olive oil. It didn't hit me later that I could have barded the turkey breast with Benton's bacon!

the verdict:

I must say that this turkey stole the show, and relegated all of the side dishes to, well, the side. In fact, all three of us agreed that the turkey was the single best thing on the Thanksgiving menu (I've never even thought that was possible). The white meat was not dry and the dark meat was buttery soft. The simple flavors of butter, olive oil, salt, pepper, and sage combined magically.

No longer will I think of turkey as the necessary-but-not-exciting part of Thanksgiving. It has returned to front and center. This was, bar none, the best turkey I've ever eaten. I'm sure a huge part of it was that it was that fresh organic turkey straight from the farm. With due credit to Tyler Florence, for the perfect preparation.

The best part: Even the leftovers were tender and delicious.

This is my submission to a new group, Tyler Florence Fridays. Every Friday, you can go here to see a roundup of the Tyler Florence recipes that group members have individually chosen and cooked.

Dressing

I grew up calling it stuffing, and it was, indeed, stuffed in our bird every year. Now that I’ve lived in the South for over half my life, I’ve taken to calling it dressing, and cooking it outside the turkey, in casserole dishes. At any rate, I usually go with a bread cube type rather than a cornbread type.

I love my usual dressing, which is the Onion Dressing from the 1974 Joy of Cooking. But A.L.E. is not a fan of onions, so I thought I'd try something different. In addition to lots of onions, the Joy of Cooking dressing has a good dose of butter, stock, and eggs. I've lightened it up over the years, and it's always tasted great. But I was excited to try something new. I wanted a recipe that uses fresh sage, and bread cubes. I'd taken the cheater's way out and bought a bag of mixed dry bread cubes from the bakery department at Whole Foods. This dressing recipe from Saveur looked like it would fit the bill.

cook's notes:

- I neglected to read the part where the recipe specifies fresh bread crumbs.

- I like cubes of bread in my dressing, so I only made some into fine bread crumbs.

- There was not nearly enough stock, since my crumbs were dry not fresh. I just added stock until it was moist enough to put inside the turkey. For the leftover dressing, I added more stock and turned it into an oiled baking dish.

- I added some paprika and ground savory.

The verdict:

This was too dry and bland for me. It may have been completely different if I had used fresh bread crumbs rather than dried. I think it needed a few eggs, if not more butter and even more stock than I added.

I'll go back to my usual recipe or keep looking!

Gravy

This is my mother's gravy recipe, and I wouldn't think of messing with perfection! You can use this recipe with the drippings for any roast meat or poultry.

Drippings Gravy

3 T. drippings
2 c. stock or broth
3 T. flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp thyme
1/4 tsp dry sage
1/4 c. water

1. Remove the roast from the pan and keep warm. Pour the drippings from the roasting pan into a measuring cup. Let the fat rise to the top, and spoon it off. (Depending on the quantity of drippings you have, you can double or even triple this recipe for turkey gravy. For a roast chicken, pork roast, or roast beef, a single recipe is usually appropriate.)

2. Deglaze the roasting pan with the stock.

3. In small glass jar (like a jelly jar or mustard jar) combine all dry ingredients. Add the water and shake vigorously until there are no lumps. Pour slowly into the pan, stirring with whisk.

4. Cook gravy, stirring, until thickened.

Tamales!

The dogs and I are the only ones in town this week, so my dinners haven't been more ambitious than a salad + grilled cheese. Nothing interesting there! So I will post something from earlier in the summer - a family favorite that's a bit more elaborate. The effort is totally worth it!

Whenever my daughter A.L.E. (she's the one in the blog banner, above) is in town, we make a point to cook tamales. Last time we had daughter J.D.E. and her friend G. cooking along with us!

Most of the ingredients are available at nearby supermarkets, but the good folk at MexGrocer.com will set you up with everything you need - including the steamer - and deliver it all right to your door. (You can even order a tamale kit.) They also have a great recipe for Chicken Tamales (basic dough and a delicious salsa verde chicken filling) that uses oil rather than the traditional lard.

This chicken filling is the one we make most often, but the basic tamale dough can be combined with lots of other fillings. We've even used our Thanksgiving turkey leftovers to make fabulous turkey tamales (recipe at the end of this post).


It takes a little while to get the hang of wrapping the tamales, but a quick internet search (thanks, Google!) will lead you to detailed instructions, like these, or these (with step by step pictures). We've tied our tamales with kitchen twine, but I prefer to make little ties out of strips of the corn husks.

You don't need a special tamale steamer (although I love mine) - any steamer/rack will work. If you end up with extra husks, you can spread them on a tray to dry out, then store them, and re-soften them the next time. The tamales freeze beautifully and can be re-steamed to heat (or you can pop them in the microwave).


Beef or Turkey Filling for Tamales
(recipe from a MexGrocer.com email - can't find a link online)

1 large package corn husks - about 24
4 lb Chuck Roast (or substitute with cooked turkey leftovers)
4 cups water (if cooking the beef, if using turkey leftovers, have some stock or broth available)
10 dried red Poblano chile peppers
1/4 cup ground cumin
1/4 cup pepper
4 cloves garlic, peeled
¼ cup salt (this was way too much salt for the turkey)

1. Early in the morning, place the roast and water into a large pot or crockpot and slow cook four to six hours, or until it shreds easily with a fork. Remove the meat from pot. Place in large bowl, add salt and shred, reserving broth for the masa and the filling.

2. Remove the seeds (using gloves so you don't burn your eyes!) and stems from chiles. Boil in a pan with one cup water for about five minutes. Transfer chiles to food processor and add cumin, pepper, garlic and enough of the chile broth to make a paste when all spices are blended together.

3. Add spice paste to shredded beef or turkey and mix thoroughly. Add as much of the remaining broth as necessary to make a delicately moist, but not watery filling.

Enjoy!