Thursday, December 6, 2012
Lets talk turkey
Alright, so who did what? I brined mine, and it was awesome. It was good enough to win over my most skeptic, biggest critic, Ben. He thought I was foolish to cook a bird at 500 degrees for half and hour, and then put on the "turkey triangle," and triangular piece of tin foil which protects the breast meat. So 48 hours after starting the brine making process, it was time to test the theory, it worked. I cooked for 6 people, one of which was a professional chef and former fine-dining restaurant owner, and all agreed it was the best bird they'd had...ever...After all that, it still seems pretty white and northern, so I'm excited to hear about what the rest of you did, since your other halves are of somewhat southern descent.
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Well, I will check in with borrrring... Mom, Jo, and I made TG dinner and took it over to K&G's. Because there are so few of us, no big eaters, and some vegetarians, we looked for the smallest turkey we could find (11 lb) and just popped it in the oven until it was over done like usual - no brine, no fryer, no beer can, no nuthin'. And it was OK in a traditional, standard TG dinner sort of way. I made a really good gravy and reasonably good mashed potatoes (I'm still working to keep my BMI down, but that's a whole nuther discussion, as is the food stamp challenge, so I just couldn't bring myself to add the second stick of butter required for DBMP-in-the-world). We enjoyed some turkey-on-rye sandwiches and I splurged and went ahead with the light mayo on one side. We're getting good rye bread from the local bakery now so those were really good. The rest of the turkey went into the soup pot. Maybe this should be the subject of a full post with following comment thread - I love taking the leftover carcass and turning it into soup; it just makes me feel rich because there is so much good eating to be had from the scraps. I split the soup up to share with K&G; they got three dinner-for-two sized portions (twice with noodles, once with rice) and Mom and I had two large turkey and rice soups, each enough for dinner for two with leftovers for lunch the next day. So that's seven meals for two (older, low consumption individuals, of course) out of the leavings, which I think is really cool. Plus, turkey rice soup with too much rice is one of my favorites and it always puts me in a Christmas mood since it always follows TG. Plus, it was a really killer soup this time.
ReplyDeleteWe did turkeys for something like 14 adults and 10 kids, so we had two 14 lbs-ers in an attempt to get some leftovers. Aleks brined them and then grilled them. Absolutely delish! I had bought some turkeys legs earlier in the week to cook into turkey stock to make the gravy. I don't know that I'll both next time. It was good, but not amazing. Lots of people went back for seconds on the turkey, though few hit up my gravy. It was good we had the second turkey - the first one was completely gone, and people were still going back for seconds - but we still had a lot of turkey left over. I enjoyed a wonderful turkey sandwich on homemade bread with mayo and avocado the next day. We did TG leftovers with Molly, Catfish, and Catfish's brother several times over the weekend. I think on Sunday I took some of the leftover gravy and mixed it with some of the leftover meat to put on top of biscuits for breakfast, but after that I gave up. We currently have a bunch of turkey gravy and meat sitting in our freezer waiting for breakfast some morning, and a few pounds of plain meat as well. Aleks boiled the carcass, too, so we have frozen turkey stock still. Maybe we didn't need quite 28 pounds, but I was happy to have leftovers.
ReplyDeleteOh, and I should say that I have zero understanding of how the rest of Thanksgiving dinner gets made if you have to oven-cook the turkey. Seriously. I don't get how people do it. I'm always happy to have Aleks grill.
ReplyDeleteIn fairness to me I said I had heard that brining was the way to go, and it was. I just thought the turkey triangle was a little goofy. Definitely worked out though. On a side note my boss doesn't believe in salmonella and made me eat raw chicken the other day. Not too bad and I'm still not dead.
ReplyDeleteI just cant fathom how one would grill a whole turkey, let alone two. I think we should throw tradition to the wind and half a "half thanksgiving" or perhaps a "practice thanksgiving." Reckon that would put us sometime around May and Dads B-Day if we stuck to the traditional 6 month idea. Anybody??? Sounds like Maggie has the turkey covered...What is the weather like in SD in May, cause I know I've been jonesing to make it to Joshua Tree.
ReplyDeleteThoughts???
Andy
Assuming "SD" means "San Diego" and not "South Dakota", you know the weather there is always perfect. I'd be happy to contribute my BD and could probably think of something else good to make between now and then, not to mention the mashers. I've always kinda wanted to see the Dr. Seuss trees too.
ReplyDeleteOh, damn, I missed this. YESSSS!!! Let's do it.
ReplyDelete