I love cooking for a Thanksgiving and Christmas (I’m not a big fan of the holidays otherwise). It’s an opportunity to strut your stuff in the kitchen and try new things. If you are fairly practiced or imaginative you can conceivably feed yourself for weeks from a single spread. One of the simplest ways of doing this is by making a good rich broth. I love any opportunity to cook a whole bird for this reason.

Chicken and turkey both have their limitations. Chicken will usually produce a versatile but somewhat bland broth. Unless it is thoroughly reduced you will likely need to use lots of vegetables, salt, and spices to produce a nice strong flavor. Turkey on the other hand has a gamier quality and will create a much more distinctive flavor, which can often be distracting from other flavors in soups and stews. This can also require a lots of vegetables and spices (but less salt) in order to temper the strong turkey flavor.

This year I had the opportunity to make a whole duck (that may be an entry onto itself at some point), and let me tell you, it makes wonderful broth. Duck is all dark meat, and dark meat is my favorite because that’s where the flavor is. Duck is richer that the flavor of dark meat chicken, but not as gamy as that of turkey, so it really is the best of both worlds. The added bonus is that duck meat has a subtle sweetness to it so you have amazing layers of flavor with it.

Making broth is a pretty straightforward thing, but there are a few tips that can yield improved result.
Only used enough water to cover the carcass. For a clear broth filter through a coffee filter to remove any particulate. Red onions will give broth a deeper color, etc.

Classic Risotto

1 small onion, diced
1 package (8oz to 10 oz) mushrooms
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp butter
¼ cup + white wine or sherry
2 cups Arborio or Carnaroli rice
5 to 6 cups of chicken or turkey broth
leftover bird meat
grated parmesan/romano, or crumbled gorgonzola
truffle oil (optional)

Heat oil and butter together on low until butter is melted. Add diced and sliced mushrooms (white are fine but portabella or porcini are better). Cook until onions are translucent and mushrooms are dark. Add rice, stir into the mixture until all the rice is shiny. Cook until rice begins to stick which should happen very quickly. Add wine/sherry. Keep extra on hand if you decide you want more. Add only enough broth to cover the rice, stir. Let it cook down, then add more broth. Repeat until rice is fully cooked. Add chicken allow to reach temperature. Litter the rice with parmesan, drizzle with truffle oil, and serve.

This is recipe that lends itself well to variation. Try with spinach instead of mushrooms, sundried tomatoes, chopped pine nuts, fresh basil, or fresh garlic when serving.

This was my first ever attempt at smoking a turkey, and it came out so good that I thought I would post it here. Its a pretty pretty simple recipe. All you need is patience and a smoker large enough to hold a 14 pound bird.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 sticks of butter
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup sesame oil
1 T ground cumin
1 T ground ginger
1 T black pepper
1 T seasoned salt
1 t ground cayenne
3 cloves garlic, crushed
2 apples, peel on, cut into small chunks
2 orange, peel on, cut into small chunks
1 can diced pinapple
6 strips of bacon
Rib Stars chicken rub

Start by cooking the bacon to the point where its almost done. It should still be nice and flimsy and not have too much fat rendered out of it. Once thats ready, combine the soy sauce, sesame oil, cumin, giner, salt, pepper, cayenne, garlic, bacon, 1 stick of butter, and the juice from the pineapple can in a 2 qt sauce pan. This mixture will serve as our injection later. Place over low heat and leave it, coming back to stir occasionally, while you prepare the bird.

To prepare the turkey, melt the remaining 1/2 stick of butter in something easy to pour from. When completely melted, gently pour it over the skin of the turkey. Use your hands to make sure you coat the entire surface (I like to wear latex gloves for this part). You want to make sure you get melted butter in every nook and cranny. Once you have coated the turkey thoroughly, sprinkle on a generous coating of the Rib Stars chicken rub. You can use your hands to spread it around a bit if you want, but keep in mind the butter will make it clump and turn into more of a paste. Once you have coated the outside, its time to take care of the inside. Stuff the turkey with the apple, orange, and pineapple chunks. Try to get as much fruit as you can inside the turkey. Alrighty, time to inject.

The key to injecting is to remember that there is no such thing as ‘too much’. You want to get as much of the injection mixture as you can into the turkey. So, grab your injector, suck up some of the mixture from the pan, and start near the bottom of the bird. Make sure you get the legs and wings. For deeper parts like the breast, jam the needle in as far as it will go, then press the plunger and pull the needle out at the same time. To put more injection in the same general area, don’t make a new hole. Instead, enter through the previous injection site at a different angle. Fewer holes = less leakage. Also, don’t mess around with those cheap ass $2 plastic injectors. If you want to do this right, plunk down the cash and get yourself a good stainless steel injector, preferably with multiple needles.

Ok, so now we are ready to smoke. Get your smoker up to 225 degrees and place the bird inside. A 14 pund bird will take about 6 hours to fully cook. Don’t rely on that little red popup dealie to tell you when the turkey is ready. Instead, use a thermometer and check the temp every once in a while. Once the internal temp reaches 165, you are safe. One common mistake here is to use too much smoke. If you constantly apply smoke, you will end up with a turkey that tastes, well, like smoke. Nobody wants that. To properly smoke a turkey (or anything for that matter), you need only apply smoke 3 to 4 times over the course of cooking with your favorite hardwood. Add small amounts of wood so that each ‘smoke session’ lasts about 30 minutes or so. If you are using a offset smoker, you may want to rotate the bird about halfway through the cooking to make sure the smoke coats it evenly.

And thats it! Once its fully cooked, remove form the smoker, let rest for 20 minutes, then carve it up and devour.

Enjoy :)
-E

Tags: BBQ, smoked, smoking, thanksgiving, Turkey