Gobble, gobble, gobble!

(In an effort to provide full disclosure, this is not my bird. It's an epicurious.com picture)

It's that time of year, when everyone unites with loved ones to share a meal featuring that beloved bird, the turkey, which otherwise goes unnoticed for the rest of the year, with the exception of Christmas. And like anything else, there are as many different ways of preparing turkey and its fixin's as there are people, so the options really are endless.

I will admit that I won't be cooking this year. Instead, I'll be feasting on a supermarket turkey meal. Don't judge, just pray for me! And even though I won't be in the kitchen this year, I did want to pass on some pearls of wisdom about the main dish. So let's get back to the "if I were cooking" scenario...

Over the years, many a cookbook and holiday issued magazine have fine tuned certain techniques for creating a tastier bird. For one, you should try organic or even an heirloom variety if you can find it. Anyone who has ever tasted organic chicken will tell you how much more chicken-y it tastes compared to its drugged up cousin. Heirloom turkey are much like tomatoes or anything else heirloom, they are breeds that got left behind in the age of supermarket standardization. In a strange twist of fate, as the average American gets larger, they continually seek leaner (read: dry & flavorless) meats. (I guess that alone will keep them healthy, right???) As a result, farmers have been cross-breeding chicken & turkey to create ones with very large breasts (LA style), just to please all those lean white meat lovers. Heirloom breeds will provide more variety in terms of white to dark meat ratios and flavors.

Whichever bird you get, I highly recommend brining your turkey. For those of you who aren't familiar with the technique, it is a salt-sugar-spice-water solution into which you soak your meat (this works well for our very lean American pork too). It really does add moisture and flavor.

Since chicken and turkey are so darn similar, I think we can apply many of our tried-and-true chicken techniques to turkey as well. I have never basted a roasted chicken, so why bother with turkey? If you think about it, the liquid will just roll right off the skin and into the pan. Not to mention the oven temperature will drop from all that time you spent basting with the oven door open. And isn't part of the objective to obtain crispy skin? Water or juice will just make it soggy. A little fat (butter or oil) massaged into the skin, on the other hand, will expedite the cripsing process. If you really want to flavor the meat, you should stuff seasonings under the skin, so it lubricates and seasons the meat as it melts and cooks. A nice herbed butter is perfect for this task! I do this all the time for my roasted chicken.

And lastly, the stuffing...where to begin??? I know many of you are traditionalist who like to stuff the turkey, only to remove it again once it is cooked because your mother did it that way and so did her mother, and so forth. But to me it's like setting the table with dishes, only to collect all the dishes again, so you can plate the food in the kitchen. It just doesn't make sense. But more importantly, once your stuffing has touched the raw bird, it potentially has salmonella and other bird cooties, and now needs to be cooked to a high enough temp to kill all contaminants. To get the inside of the turkey hot enough, you can image how much hotter the meat part of the turkey will need to be. To make sure we're all on the same page, the hotter the meat, the more cooked it is. The more cooked it is, the dryer and tougher it becomes. Any questions? So, the moral of the story is to cook your stuffing seperately, so it will produce a moister bird. Feel free to use the turkey neck and giblets in your stuffing, though, to give it more flavor. If you are really ambitious, a homemade turkey stock would help too.

I'm sorry I don't have oodles of pictures or recipes for you this time. I do think I have prepared you well to make a delicious main dish. I recommend keeping the menu simple. I know I usually don't, but I'm a trained professional, and you shouldn't try what I do at home. :-) All you need is some dip and nuts for people to nibble on when they arrive. Keep side dishes to a minimum, as too many won't even fit neatly on the plate anyways. You really only need stuffing (I like sausage in mine), a potato (mashed), a veggie (green bean), a sweet potato (if you must), gravy and cranberry sauce. Find a good bakery or ask someone to bring dessert. This is an occassion to create a memorable holiday, not necessarily a four-star restaurant quality meal. And if you're lucky, you'll get to enjoy it as well.

Below is the summarized recipe Alton Brown did for Bon Appetit a few years ago. Although I find Alton hard to watch on tv because he's a little too hokey for my taste, I do think his lessons and methods are quite good. Read it now, so you can procure all the necessary tools and items in time for the big feast.

Brined Roasted Turkey
Bon Appetit Nov. 2003
Serves 12

18 lb. Frozen Turkey

For the Brine:
Hot Tap Water
2/3 cup Sugar
1 lb. Salt

8 lb. Ice

16 cups (128 oz) Veggie Broth

For the Bird:
Fresh Herbs

1 Onion, roughly chopped

2 Celery Stalks, roughly chopped
2 Large Carrots, roughly chopped

½ stick of Butter

Quick - Thawing the Turkey: Place the wrapped bird in a 5-gallon cooler with a drain spout. Place the cooler in the bathtub and cover the turkey with cold water. Drain and replace the water every 2-3 hours until it has thawed (8-10 hrs).

Slow – Thawing the Turkey: Place the bird in a cooler with about an inch of ice in the bottom. Park it in a cool place, and the bird will be workable in about four days. Add more ice if the cooler’s temp >40 degrees.

To Brine: In a clean cooler, pour in the hot tap water, the sugar and salt. Stir to dissolve. Then stir in the ice and broth. Place the cleaned turkey in the brine. If the turkey floats, fill 1-gallon resealable plastic bags with water and place it on top. Set in a cool place for 8-12 hours, turning over once if possible. *Be sure to keep brine below 40 degrees, by adding ice packs if necessary.

Cooking the Bird: Remove one rack, and place the other on the second to lowest position. Preheat oven to 500 degrees. Remove turkey from the brine, rinse and pat dry. Loosely pack the turkey cavity with the above herbs and veggies. Place turkey breast side up on a V-shaped raosting rack in a roasting pan.

Cut a piece of foil that when folded in half is big enough to cover the turkey’s breast. Lay this onto the breast, shiny side up, and mold it into the breastplate. Remove it, lube the underside with non-stick vegetable oil spray, and set aside. Rub the butter into the turkey.

Put turkey in the oven for 30 minutes, or until nicely browned. Remove the bird and apply the foil breast plate. Insert the thermometer’s probe directly through the foil and into the deepest part of the breast. Reduce oven temp to 350 degrees. Return turkey to the oven, and set thermometer probe to go off at 161 degrees (about 2 – 2½ hours).

Remove turkey from oven, and let rest, covered, for about ½ hour.

Apple-icious!

I took my love for fresh produce and the farmer's market a step further...by going direct to the farm. I've been wanting to go for years, but never quite got my act together. This fall, thanks to the encouragement of my friend Amy, I finally joined the masses (of city folk) and headed out to the country to pick apples. The irony of this is that I have a fruitful apple tree in my back yard, and have only recently tried picking and eating one in the 4 years I've had it. Instead I happily drive an hour and a half to pick and pay for someone else's fruit. (This is the story of my life.)

Luckily, we got there early enough to avoid the crowds. However, by 11am, the large families (read: with lots of screaming children) arrived as if on cue, and ruined the quaint "country" experience. No only do you need to go early enough in the day to avoid the swarms of people, but you need to also go early enough in the season, before the trees get picked bare. I learned this from my seasoned apple picker friends (some of the same girls from tomato day) who had gone last year but couldn't actually pick.

Our first stop was a small apple farm on the far end of Apple Valley. After a quick taste of all the available apple varieties, we armed ourselves with our specially marked bags and began picking. The picking went fast, since each of us only have families of 1 or 2 people and we can only eat so many apples. Back at the cabin, we went to pay for our crop and was lured into trying a Johnny cake and some cider to wash it down. The Johnny cake turned out to be a dry corn muffin. I'm still not convinced that was a real Johnny cake. When ordering the cider, we were asked, fresh pressed? Since we wanted the full apple country experience, we said, "Of course!" Little did we realize that we each were ordering a GALLON(!) of fresh pressed cider that we would have to press ourselves. And to think, we just wanted to try a cup. We only later found out they only sold fresh/self pressed cider by the gallon.

Did I mention that it takes 5 gallons of apples to make just 1 gallon of juice? Yeah, this was way more work than we thought we signed up for.

First, I selected from the crates of apples already picked for us.

Naturally, we had to wash all our apples first..


Then came the crushing part. Here, I'm pushing the apples down the feeder tube with a crowbar. Yeah, it's a muscle job!

Lastly, we pressed the crushed apple pulp, which extracted quite a bit of juice.

Three people were needed to operate the apple crusher contraption. One to toss apples into the feed tube, one to further push the apples down into the feed tube (my job, as photographed above), and a third person to hand crank the wheel that would actually press/crush the apples. The amount of juice produced from the first pressing was unimpressive to say the least. I was so surprised to see the bulk of the juice come out of the (second) pressing of the solids. Since we had oveflow, we got to taste a cup of the fresh cider, and it was delicious! Although, I'd probably say that about anything I spent so much time and effort making.

I do have to make one thing clear. Many of you, like me, are probably wondering, "what IS the difference between apple juice and cider?" Essentially, apple cider is what we created, an unfiltered unadulterated nectar from pressed apples, that never gets pasturized. Kind of like extra virgin olive oil. Then juice is when sugar or additives are mixed-in to the above cider and then pasturized, to extend shelf life and consumption safety. This is why cider is common during apple season (fall/early winter) when it is freshly made, and much harder to find any other time of year.

We girls had a lovely day of stocking up on apple butter, eating bbq & apple pie (of course!) for lunch. What were we going to do with all those apples, though? The idea of an apple baking day came up, but how many apple crips, cakes & pies can one eat in a week before they go bad? Me being me, I had the idea of doing an apple tasting dinner. A multicourse meal, including hors d'oeuvres, with apples present in each dish in some form. It probably sounds harder than it actually is, and just requires a little bit of creativity. That really is my idea of a good time.

We each picked a course, and got a week to plan and prepare the dish for dinner. The menu was as follows: (Sorry, I didn't get a picture or recipe of each dish, since I can be rather forgetful, but some things are best left to the imagination, right?)

Potato Pancakes with Apple Compote (by Josey - recipe below)

Cherry Tomatoes Stuffed with Chicken Apple Salad (made by Jenni)

Apple Salad with Parmesan and Prosciutto (made by Jenni)

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Pate de Campagne (by me) with Apple and Mixed Green Salad and Apple Cider Vinaigrette (made by Jenni)

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Butternut Squash Soup with Apples and Curry (made by Margot)

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Braised Pork Shoulder with Mustard Spaetzle (made by me)

and Sweet Potato & Apple Gratin with Almonds (made by Kirsten)

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Apple Crisp with Vanilla Ice Cream (made by Amy)

Everything turned out delicious, and it was such a lovely evening. I was so proud of everyone for their creativity, time and effort. Now I just need to plan for the next picking season.


Celeriac Potato Pancakes with Apple Onion Compote

This recipe came from Martha Stewart's Hors d'Oeuvres Cookbook
Makes 2 dozen

¼ of a small celeriac (celery root), grated on the large holes of a box grater to yield 1 cup
1 small yellow onion, grated on the fine holes of a box grater to yield 1/3 cup
1 medium baking potato, grated on the large holes of a box grater to yield 1 ½ cups
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon kosher salt
¼ teaspoon white pepper
Extra virgin olive oil, for frying
1 recipe Apple-Onion Compote (to follow)

In a medium bowl, combine the celeriac, onion, potato, flour, salt and pepper. Heat a medium skillet of moderate heat. Add enough extra virgin olive oil to lightly coat the bottom. Once the pan and oil are hot, use a tablespoon to drop spoonfuls of potato mixture into the pan. Be careful not to crowd the pan. Flatten the tops of the mounds with a spatula. When the bottoms have browned, flip over, and brown the other side. When ready, remove from pan and onto paper towel lined plate. Sprinkle with a little salt while still warm. Continue cooking remaining potato mixture in batches until complete. Continue to add oil as the pan dries out.

Serve warm, topped with warm apple onion compote (recipe below).


Apple Onion Compote
Makes ¾ cup

1 small Granny Smith apple, peel on
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
½ tablespoon canola oil
1 small red onion, very thinly sliced
2 tablespoons sugar
¼ cup calvados

Dice the apple into ¼” pieces and toss with the lemon juice in a small bowl. Set aside

Heat the butter and the oil in a medium skillet over medium heat. Add the onions and cook, stirring, until the onions soften, about 4 minutes. Add the sugar and reduce the heat to medium-low. Let the onions cook, stirring occasionally, until they darken slightly and become soft, about 10 minutes. Increase the heat to medium-high and add the apples. Cook for about 1 minute, stirring once. Add the Calvados, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Cook until most of the liquid has evaporated from the pan, about 30 seconds.

Can be made 1 day ahead and refrigerated. To warm combine with 1 tablespoon of water in a small saucepan over low heat.