Turkey is kind of boring.
There, I said it. It can be bland, and dries out easily. The different parts of the bird cook at different rates, and reach perfect doneness at different times. Lacking an industrial deep fryer (which I have been assured gives a wonderfully succulent result) itโs hard to make the meat a delicacy without an assist from gravy, stuffing, and cranberry sauce. Turkeys are also big, which means they often leave us with a monotonous monolith occupying most of the fridge for a week or so after Thanksgiving is over until itโs finally exhausted as sandwiches and soup.
Weโre lucky because the original Thanksgiving meal was made in the Northeast; most of the traditional ingredients are easily sourced locally. But preparing the meal can still be a chore, and timing everything to be ready at once is not easy. Too often the result is a day or three of stress culminating in a food coma. With some minor tinkering, the menu can instead relax the host, excite adventurous eaters, and still please devout traditionalists. The secret? Break down the bird and cook the parts separately. Everything gets done perfectly, and itโs far more efficient: much of the work can be done a week or more beforehand and any leftovers will be much more manageable. By confiting the legs, brining and smoking the breasts, and making stock from the carcass, we can make an easier and tastier holiday dinnerโand weโll have some excellent stock in the freezer for future use.
The first step is to divide the bird into the three parts to be treated differently. (If youโre unsure of your butchering skills, ask whomever you buy the bird from to do it for you.) Remove the legs at the hip joint, and cut the breasts out, removing as much of the meat as possible; start at the breastbone and work the knife down the outside of the ribcage, pulling gently on the meat as you go. Any meat that remains will make your stock taste extra-good, so donโt worry too much. Cut the wings off. Thatโs it. Instead of making turkey soup a week after the fact, make stock at the outset, using the raw carcass. Rather than regular old turkey stock, try making phoโa rich, complex Vietnamese soup (normally made with beef) flavored with anise, ginger, and clove. Turkey makes an excellentโif untraditionalโpho, and the pie spices really sing with other Thanksgiving ingredients. By using the raw carcass, the stock will have much more flavor and body than it would if made post-cooking.
TURKEY PHO
1 raw turkey carcass and wings (heritage breeds from local farmers are best)
Turkey neck, gizzard, organs
1 onion, halved
1 thumb of ginger, halved
4 star anise pods
12 cloves
1 cinnamon stick (about 4 inches long)
10 black peppercorns
Put onion and ginger halves cut-sides down in a pan and brown them well. (Donโt add any oil). Add spices and toast for a minute or two. Place the carcass and offal in a large stockpot and cover with cold water. Add aromatics and heat to a bare simmer; the surface of the liquid should ripple but not boil. Periodically skim any scum that appears, and let simmer for about three hours. Skim one last time, then pour stock through a strainer into containers and chill them in an ice bath. Store containers in the fridge or freezer.
For a first course, try simmering peeled, cubed winter squash (about 1 lb. per quart) in the pho until tender, then blending, straining, and salting it to taste. The spices in the broth make it taste a bit like a savory pumpkin pie. And be sure to use this stock to make your gravy; since there wonโt be much in the way of drippings from a whole roasted bird, use a bit of the confit fat to make a roux, then whisk in the pho. The stock can also be used for braising greens to further unite the flavors of the meal.
TURKEY LEG CONFIT
Confit is an old method of preservation; by slow-cooking meat in fat, it can then be stored in the cooking fat for a long time without spoiling. Itโs an easy technique, and it turns turkey legs into something sublime.
Two turkey legs
Duck fat (4 lbs. or more if needed; available from Hudson Valley Foie Gras)
4 fat cloves garlic, smashed
1 sprig rosemary
1 bunch thyme
2 teaspoons cracked black pepper
2 bay leaves
Rinse the legs and pat dry. Mince the herbs and garlic and mix them into the salt. If so moved, blend salt and herbs in a food processor first to more thoroughly distribute the flavors. Put the legs into a nonreactive container (a Pyrex baking dish works well) and rub all over with the salt, covering all surfaces of the meat. Cover the container and refrigerate for 12 hours.
Preheat the oven to 180ห F. Rinse off the cure and dry the legs well. Put them into a deep, nonreactive baking dish. Heat the duck fat until just liquid and pour over the legs to completely cover them. Place the covered vessel in the oven and cook for 10 hours. Carefully remove the legs from the fat and pour the fat through a strainer, taking care not to include any of the juices at the bottom. Those juices make a wonderful addition to gravy or stuffing, so donโt discard them. If serving within a day or two, store meat and fat separately, otherwise put the legs into a container that just holds them and pour the strained fat back over them to cover completely. Submerged in fat, they will keep for months in the fridge. The fat can be reused several times before it gets too salty, at which point it can be used as an ultra-luxe substitute for butter.
To serve, preheat the oven to 350ห F. Put the confited legs skin-side down in a deep skillet on medium heat and cook until the skin becomes super-crisp. A gentle weight, like the lid from a smaller pan, can help maximize the surface area of skin in contact with the pan. Once thoroughly crisp, drain excess fat and move the skillet to the oven until the legs are heated through. Shred the meat from the bone, and cut the crisp skin into as many pieces as there are people. Place some shredded meat on a disc of sweet potato and top with a piece of skin.
As for the breasts, brine them. They tend to dry out, and brine will keep them moist and impart lots of flavor. Make a five percent brine by dissolving 50 grams of salt per liter of water (or about 2 tablespoons per 2ยฝ cups) and then add some smashed garlic, cracked pepper, a few cracked juniper berries, herbs (thyme, rosemary, a couple of bay leaves) and put the meat in the brine, weighing it down so it stays submerged. Put it in the fridge for a day or two, then remove the meat and pat it dry. From here, the two best choices are smoking or roasting. For a nicer presentation and more even cooking, tie the two breasts like roasts. Smoke or roast them until they reach an internal temperature of 160ห F, then rest them for a few minutes before slicing. Either way you prepare them, they will be very happy on some cabbage braised with white wine and cider vinegar.
SWEET POTATO GRATIN
This is kind of halfway between a gratin and a confit, and results in meltingly tender discs of tuber that complement the richness of the turkey legs.
Sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into enough three-quarter inch rounds to
allow one per person
Heavy cream (or half-and-half)
5-spice powder
salt
black pepper
Preheat oven to 350ห F. Place the sweet potato rounds at the bottom of a baking dish that can hold them all in a single layer crowded together tightly. Pour cream over the rounds just to cover, and sprinkle them with a pinch each of 5-spice, salt, and pepper. Bake them until the cream has all but evaporated.
SUMAC-CRANBERRY REDUCTION
Sumac is an excellent local substitute for citrus, and is used widely in the Middle East as a spice. This sauce is a slightly more elegant take on cranberry sauce, and acts as a good foil for the rich food. Staghorn sumac is ubiquitous in this region, especially on roadsides and vacant lots; the fruit looks like fuzzy red torches about six inches long. Poison sumac looks completely different. Consult an expert or search the Internet for photos to help with identification.
3 sumac panicles
8 oz. bag cranberries
ยฝ cup local maple syrup or honey
Rinse the sumac and break the panicles apart, discarding the woody stems. Put the fruit into a blender 2/3 full of cold water (about 3 cups) and blend for 30-60 seconds. Pour mixture into a container and refrigerate overnight. The next day, strain the liquid into a saucepan on medium heat and add the cranberries. Simmer uncovered until the berries have all burst and the liquid begins to reduce, then strain the sauce into another pan, pushing gently on the solids to release more juice. Add syrup and/or honey. Continue to reduce until the sauce coats a spoon, adding more sweetener if desired, then keep warm until serving. Spoon sauce around the confit and sweet potato.
You know how the stuffing from inside the bird always tastes better than the extra thatโs baked in a pan? The reason, of course, is all of the fat and drippings that enrich the mixture in the cavity. The secret, then, given the lack of whole bird in this case, is to use the ph and some of the duck fat from the confit to compensate. Iโm not going to wade in to the Great Stuffing Debate (Sausage? Oysters? Chestnuts? Cornbread? Mushrooms? Itโs all good.) Just use the recipe you like best, but make sure to begin by sautรฉing your aromatics in some of the duck fat. Itโs salty, so remember to taste before adding salt. And use the ph in place of chicken or other broth. Baste the top with a little melted fat right before you put it in to bake, and it should come out rich, decadent, and deeply satisfying.
For desserts and other recipes not covered in this article, visit Peter Barrettโs cooking blog:ย
http://quisimangiabene.blogspot.com/
This article appears in November 2009.
