Demystifying the Thanksgiving Turkey

Demystifying the Thanksgiving Turkey

(c) Dorine Houston 2008, all rights reserved 

November, but not a turkey in sight.  Chickens galore.  Ducks, geese, even quail and partridges.  Hogs, lambs, sides of beef.  But nary a turkey anywhere. 

Thanksgiving 1974 and no turkey to be had anywhere.  Huh? 

Well, the city in question was Madrid, Spain.  Many people I knew there in those days had never eaten turkey--or if they had, were far more familiar with partridge, quail, hare or boar.  Game may have been pretty expensive, but was at least generally available in the markets. 

I wanted to make my first entirely solo Thanksgiving dinner; I had years of experience helping my mother, but doing it entirely alone would be new--and I had invited a group of friends including Spanish, British and French. 

A turkey eventually showed up in a market in an area on the way to the US military base, so they were used to stocking the exotic stuff the base denizens wanted.  It was small, but it was a turkey.  The innards were not wrapped in paper; I had to cut them out myself.  And use tweezers to yank out the pin feathers.  The feast was successful; everybody declared it entirely delicious. 

Two years later I was a bride, at home in Philadelphia and making the feast just for my shiny new husband and me, with access to all the comforts of the supermarkets in a large American city.  (He was as police officer assigned to duty that Thanksgiving, keeping us from visiting or inviting.) 

Thirty-one years after the dinner in Madrid, I was a newly minted widow visiting a small provincial capital in a remote region of Ukraine on Thanksgiving, and wanted to prepare a feast for some 15 friends there.  Everything had to be made from scratch, even the sausage to use in the stuffing.  (A Ukrainian market could offer all the ground pork I wanted, but not the kind of fresh sausage that would be recognized in an American turkey stuffing.)  Having checked in advance, I'd even carried the spices needed to make the sausage in my suitcase.  I'd been assured that the spices for the pumpkin pie were available, but hadn't been told they were only available whole. 

I peeled and cut up the pumpkin and simmered it with the whole spices in a tea ball to get the flavor!  (See a picture here: http://www.gather.com/viewImage.jsp?fileId=3096224743895709&nav=MyGather&memberId=51994)  The turkey I found in the market was smaller than I'd have liked, and had an oddly bumped back so it refuse to lie on the platter with its breasts and legs straight up.  But it was tasty.

In between, I made many a Thanksgiving feast in our Philadelphia condo, filling the place with guests from family to otherwise-lonely international visitors.  (Story here: http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?memberId=51994&articleId=281474977513240&nav=MyGather) 

Making the feast may require a serious commitment of time on your part, but it is most certainly not difficult.  Assuming you are not dealing with special circumstances in another country with different traditions and foods and access to ingredients, you can get everything you need at the nearest supermarket.  The turkey involves the bird itself, the stuffing, the gravy, and soup from the carcass. 

The turkey and pumpkin pie are central to the feast no matter where you live.  Don't ask me for help with the Southwest or California takes on the meal; I have no idea.  However, ask all you want about the East Coast feast with its delicious oyster dishes.  See my pumpkin pie dissertation here. 

There is nothing intimidating about a turkey, despite what the Butterball people seem to want you to think. 

Buy the turkey.  Fresh, never frozen turkeys are better, but if you have to buy a frozen one, remember to get it in time to give it up to four days to defrost in the refrigerator.  If you live in a cool climate, don't hesitate to set it outdoors to defrost--well wrapped, of course.  I have defrosted it on my balcony high above Philadelphia; in November, it is usually colder there than in the refrigerator.  And more spacious!  The balcony frequently served as extra refrigerator space for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Don't hesitate to use the outdoors as long as you are safe from food-robbing dogs and similar predators! 


The Stuffing

I've made stuffing by first baking the specially herbed bread myself, and it isn't hard at all.  However, if you decide to buy a bag of Pepperidge Farm stuffing to which to add your own celery, onion, butter and broth and whatever else suits you, do so.  Make the stuffing and set it aside.  You can even make it a day or two in advance and refrigerate (or balcony) it. 

If you need a recipe for stuffing, you probably need to make beginner's stuffing using a bag of dry bread crumbs or cubes.  Follow package directions and then:  

Get some fresh sage leaves.  Chop a handful and mix in. 

Add either a pound of fresh mushrooms, sliced or quartered, or a pound of sausage, crumbled and fried but only until the pink color disappears--not as crisply as some like to eat it, or a quart of shucked fresh oysters.  Use the oyster liquid instead of some of the broth called for.  Stir through thoroughly.   

Some people bake the stuffing in a casserole dish.  I do not understand.  This way, it is drier and less flavorful than stuffing inside the turkey.  (There is a reason why we call it stuffing!)  I have been known to simply bypass stuffing made outside the turkey.  It isn't worth the calories.  I love the kind that comes from inside the turkey!  The other day, the notorious Rachael Ray actually carried out the horrible threat of baking stuffing in muffin tins.  What a dried-out, hardened horror!  I don't think even the dog would eat that!  Some of us cut off and discard the part that got hard if we forgot to keep it well covered with foil and skin at the opening in the turkey! 

Do not fall for such nonsense!  Put the stuffing inside the turkey! 


The Turkey

Wash the turkey inside and out and pat dry.  Most people use paper towels and discard them.  Be frugal; use old dish cloths or towels that are ragged enough to merit discarding.  Or slightly newer ones and add them to your next hot wash load. 

Detail:  Look inside the turkey.  There is usually one large chunk of fat right near the tail.  Remove and discard.  Don't discard all the other fat, though, or you'll have something inedibly dry and tasteless.  Look in the spaces between the bones in there; you're likely to see clumps of congealed blood.  Run your fingers in there to remove all of them, then rinse the inside again in cold water and be sure the outside is patted dry. 

Calculate the cooking time needed based on weight (usually printed on the wrapper) and preheat the oven.  Stuff from the tail end.  Then turn around and stuff from the neck end.  Lift the skin at the neck end and rub the flesh with butter.  Run some more stuffing up under the skin.  Go back to the tail end, loosen the skin, and insert plenty of unsalted butter onto the flesh. 

Want to get fancy?  Warm the butter to room temperature.  Grate some lemon peel with a microplane, add freshly ground black pepper or smoked Spanish paprika or ground thyme and rosemary or any combination of whatever you want.  Beat thoroughly through the butter and spread under the skin.  Replace the skin and cover it with plenty more softened butter. 

Some people like to sprinkle the skin with paprika.  It adds lovely color.  However, if you do it right from the beginning, it gets burnt; it looks black and tastes scorched.  Wait until the last half hour of cooking time to sprinkle it on. 

Put the turkey in a covered roasting pan.  If using an open one, cover well with foil.  This is really important to prevent drying. 

Some chefs recommend basting the turkey frequently; others say if you put plenty of butter under the skin and keep it covered the first few hours, basting does no good and only increases the cooking time and potential for drying out.  I've found it better to keep the turkey covered and start right out with plenty of butter. 

Keep covered until the last half hour or so of roasting to keep moist.  You only need that end time to make the skin brown and crisp.  This is a good tie to baste, even if it is the only time you do so.  Sprinkle with paprika if you like after the last basting. 

Let rest 20 minutes before carving.  This is important to allow the juices to be reabsorbed by the flesh, keeping it moister and tastier. 

The Giblet Broth

You have taken the bag of giblets and the neck out of the turkey cavity.  Rinse them and put them in a 2-quart saucepan.  Add

1 bay leaf
1/4 tsp. dry whole thyme
1/4 tsp. dry whole rosemary
6 whole black peppercorns 
1/2 carrot 
1/2 onion with the skin 
1 leafy top from a celery branch
3" length of parsnip (optional) 
1 1/2 quarts water 
Optional:  replace some of the waer with dry wyite wine 

Rene Barbier is a very modestly priced dry white from Spain that I find excellent as a cooking ingredient.  It is satisfactory to drink, but not very expensive.  Do not get "cooking wine" from the condiments aisle in the supermarket!  Never cook with something unfit to drink! 

Simmer an hour and strain.  Use to make the gravy or the soup. 


The Gravy

After the turkey has rested 20 minutes, remove it to the platter if you are presenting it whole at table, or to the cutting board if you're one of the cowards who carves it in the kitchen.  Put the roasting pan back on the stove, covering 2 burners set to medium heat.  Do not remove any of the drippings!  You want all the gravy you can get!  I simply do not understand what possesses people to say "pour off all but 2 T."; there is no such thing as too much gravy.  And certainly no such thing as "too rich" gravy! 

Eyeball the volume of the drippings and use a little less all-purpose flour by volume.  If you're feeling insecure about its lumping, shake it through a tea strainer.  However, it won't go lumpy if there is only fat and dripping in the pan and you haven't added any liquid.  Whisk the flour into the fat and allow it to start browning.

Once the four has been completely absorbed by the fat, notice if the mixture is marbled with liquid fat instead of entirely smooth.  This means you don't have enough flour.  Just keep adding spoonsful of flour until it is smooth, whisking all the while.  Whisk while the flour starts turning brown.  Keep at it until you have a nice, rich color.

Now you can start whisking in the liquid of your choice.  Bring to a boil and cook to the thickness you want. 

I'm amazed by how many people make bland gravy by using plain water here.  Use the giblet broth you've made.  Don't discard the water you boiled the potatoes in; it enriches the gravy gloriously.  So does water used to cook peas.  (But not Brussels sprouts!  It will make the gravy bitter!)  Use some very dry white wine or very dry sherry if you like. 

Season to taste.  Anybody who thinks they need to add paprika for color has already made the mistake of not browning the flour enough. 

Do not allow to thicken as much as you want for the table.  As it sits in the gravy boat and cools, it thickens, and if it starts out really thick, you end up with a small pudding-like clump in the bottom of the gravy boat. 


Turkey Soup!

If your family has very bad habits, you may need to threaten dire consequences if anybody throws the turkey carcass in the garbage before you make soup.  This is a crime worthy of cruel and unusual punishment!  If somebody fails to listen and the carcass is gone, do not hesitate to carry out the fullest extent of your threats; otherwise, they will never learn.  And make sure your threats are suitably dire but something you can actually carry out.  (Threatening to withhold sex for three months punishes you beyond all reason as well as him, so cannot be carried out.  Neither can death threats.  A severe spanking can only be carried out on a person small enough not to hurt you back, and that person probably isn't doing that much kitchen clean-up.) 

Remove the remaining meat from the carcass.  Even the scrappy little bits off the back can go into a bowl to be turned into chicken salad.  Waste nothing. 

Use a stock pot or any really big pot that will hold enough water.  Put in the carcass, including all the skin nobody wants to eat (the parts that didn't get brown enough to be fought over).  Add: 

2 carrots
2 branches celery including leafy tops
1 yellow onion, not peeled, stuck with 2 cloves
2-3 cloves garlic
1/2-1 parsnip (s0me parsnips are huge) 
1 turnip (not a rutabaga, the yellow thing, but a turnip, which is white with a bit of purple)  
1 tsp. dry (not ground!) rosemary 
1 tsp. dry (not ground!) thyme 
8 whole black peppercorns
1 bay leaf 

Cover everything completely with water.  Simmer 2 hours, adding water back to cover bones as needed.  Add a cup or so of dry white wine if you like. 

Allow to cook down a bit.  Line a large, fine-mesh strainer with a triple layer of cheesecloth.  Strain the broth.  Press down hard on the solids with the back of a large wooden spoon to squeeze out all the goodness, then discard. 

There is no fat in carcass-only soup that no raw flesh went into, so you can use this right away, or refrigerate or freeze to use as needed. 


For a lovely hot soup lunch this weekend, dice up whatever fresh vegetables you like, especially carrots, parsnips, turnips, rutabagas, butternut squash and the like.  Keep the dice down to less than 1/2" since small bits are much more appetizing to most people.  Big hunks can be very off-putting and are often the source of dislike of soup.  Simmer in the broth until tender and add dice of leftover turkey just to warm through.  Serve with garlic bread. 

Put some of the broth in ice cube trays.  When solid, remove to a Ziploc bag to save in the freezer and use as needed.  Freeze some for soups in January and February.  Do not freeze in large containers; use containers the size of the amount you  expect to use at a time. 

This year, my health does not permit me to go to anybody's house or eat turkey, so I'll be spending plenty of time on Gather.  Feel free to ask questions even at the last minute; I'll do my best to help.