Turkey Recipie

[AFRO]

OK here is the deal with the turkey, I made it on ‘Thanksgivin day’ and it was slammin’

This idea works equally as good with a whole chicken.

 

First things first, GRAVY!!!

This is a simple and easy recipie for some dayum good gravy!

 

Ingredients:

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1 can of cream of chicken soup: or cr.-of-mushroom for a beef based dish..

1 package of onion soup mix

a can of mushrooms (like 8 or more oz) water/juice and all (save can for water later)

a little bit of E.V.O.O. (extra virgin olive oil)

1 stick of butter (preferably un-salted)

 

**optional items**

These items will add to the taste but are not essential.

Fresh onion about ¼ to ½ cup, chopped relatively small, or thinly sliced,

or if you want, use more… Also, if you can find shallots, a couple diced would work fine instead of, or in addition to, onion.. (Shallots are like little sweet red onions, only not as strong)

Fresh Garlic, or the “Jar-o-Garlic” I get the green one in olive oil, but otherwise a couple cloves chopped up will be fine. I am liberal with my garlic..

1 cup of white whine. (Ooh La Laa!)

1 can of chicken stock instead of two cups of water

1 can of Cr.ofMushroom too.

 

allow about 20min to prepare.

If you want, do it right after the bird is finished cooking, while it cools down.

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So the cooking part:

In a big pan or wide pot…

Heat the E.V.O.O. (med to med/high heat. You don’t want the heat too high; if the oil is smoking and turning brown yer pan its too hot..) and add the fresh onion –or shallot- and garlic if you have those items. Sitr and distribute around the pan.

*note*

You will start to smell the onion and it will begin to appear translucent and the texture will be much softer. cook the onion and/or garlic for about three-to-five minutes. or until it softens or becomes lightly browned… then pick up in the next paragraph w/the mushrooms and such.

If you choose not to do the fresh stuff, then just heat the oil and the onion soup mix, and the can(s) of mushrooms with the juice, simmer for a bit (2 min or so..) if you want to do the white wine add it now so it can cook off some of the alcohol.

Things should be smelling very good at this point.

Stir in the cream of chicken until smooth. Add a little more olive oil (like a tsp) as much of stick of butter as you like. Once melted, taste and add any additional Salt’n’Pepper to taste. (but you really don’t need much if any salt especially if you used regular salted butter) You may not need to add anything; its off the chain as is I’ll bet… add one-to-two cups of water or chicken stock if you like. Its up to you how thick you want it, but yeah one/two cups of liquid is recommended. (that does include the wine too, it’s a cup of liquid)

Viola!

If that don’t make ya mouth say “DAYUM!!”

I recommend that you use it with any chicken/turkey –poultry- based dish, or pork chops…

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If its too thin for your liking add a rue, its butter and flower.

Rue.

¼ stick of butter, ½ cup of flour or a touch more..

Heat butter in a pan until its melted, med heat. Add flour until you get a loose playdough like consistancy. Heat the gravy to boilng stirring frequently! reduce the heat and add rue gradually in small chunks, sitr frequently, and slow down after you have added half; Stir again and mind the heat on the gravy it should thicken, add rue ass necessary too thicken..

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Now for the turkey. Preheat oven to 350-360 degrees and get the trukey out…

I think I it took me about 20-30 min to prep it all.

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Okay.

The show I watched said to cook 20min per 1 lbs I think we put ours in at 2:00 and it was done by 4:00, fell off the bone..and with that gravy! I’m telling ya this is some awesome gravy! if you want boil the neck in some seasoned water and chop it up into bits and add it to the gravy

 

First lets do the compound butter:

I think moms turkey was 8 lbs

(So I say two sticks of butter, preferably un-salted, )

Ingrediants:

Butter 1-2 sticks (preferably at room temp)

Fresh Sage,

Rosemary &

Thyme. and

parsley <--- (optional )

(Cub foods has a small clear plastic container in the produce section called “Poultry Blend” or something like that.. its like $2.50 it has a bit of each of the first-three herbs in it.)

Some garlic -- again the jar of chopped -- and add like two/three tsp or a couple of chopped fresh cloves. Place these things in a bowl.

 

Strip down the rosemary and pick off the sage leafs from the stems, and the thyme too. The rosemary is easy to get off the stem, just run it against the grain with your fingers.. pick the sage down to the stem close to the leaf, if you have parsley pick the leafs like the sage near the base of the leaf, so you don’t have a lot of stem. Then do the thyme (this is a pian, ‘cus the thyme leafs are so small, but it is totally worth it. Work from the soft end toward the stick like end and strip them down.. Its small enough that you don’t really need to chop them so you can do them last and throw’em in on top of the chopped sage/rosemary) then chop it all down to as fine as you like it, (it dosent need to be dust) and separate it into two piles ¼ for the butter and the rest for the bird.

I kept the stems and threw them in the bottom of the bottom of the cooking dish…then once I seasoned the turkey I put him on top of the herb sticks.

 

In a bowl combine the garlic, room temp butter, and the ¼ herb-blend and throughly mix together w/a spatula:spoon w/e .. set aside.

 

Take the turkey and starting from the neck, carefully separate the skin around the breast from the meat, you don’t want to poke through the skin. Sometimes there are some tough spots, like white cartilage things.. I just worked slowly toward the legs and wings. I left a bit of the end bear the legs connected so it wouldn’t leak out.. Hopefully the skin isn’t broken in the crotch -for lack of a better term- like the lowest part of the breast is exposed… it will just work better if the skin is whole; so all the juices stay in the bird in it’s lower portions. Essentially you just want enough space to cram the compound butter between the skin and meat. Now take the wings and put them behind the neck like then bird is in a “sit-up” position. It will support the bird nicely. Cram the compound butter in the skin on the breast, all the way down by the legs and up the breast near the wings too. Cram it all in there and smooth it out.

After you have it all stuffed

Rub skin down with olive oil. Front and Back. If you have worchesthire (sp) sauce rub it on after the olive oil. Flip it on to the front so you can season the back of the turkey first and put it in the cooking dish on top of the stems. Then add..

 

-Seasoned salt. not much needed you don’t need red skin.

-Pepper

 

..and what ever else you like to spice up your turkey..

 

Take some of the herbs and sprinkle them about the back, just a pinch or two save the majority for the breast/front. -the oil should allow the seasonings to stick to the bird-Then I stuck it in the pan on top of the sticks left over from the herbs. Next, season the front in the same manner; Seasoned salt, pepper (the like..) and the rest of the chpooed herbs. ..some of the herbs may be sticky, but hey cooking aint the clean.. Add some water to the bottoom, I would say ¼ to ¾ cup. The turkey will drain some juice anyhow.. If your dish has a lid put it on and throw’er in the oven. If you don’t have a lid, then foil works just fine. Cook and when its done allow to set so you don’t get burnt, and so the juices lock in the bird for a bit. Like I said good time to do the gravy. also you can stir in a couple spoons of the liquid that ran off the bird and add it to flavor the gravy even more!

 

I’ll do my best to describe how I carved it up, but it mostly fell apart anyhow.

I cut the breasts out starting from the top-middle neck, where the wishbone is, cut along the bone/cartliage thingy toward the legs. Go back toward the wings along the ribs. Then round out around the shoulders, and back up to the whishbone. Then do the other side. I sliced the breasts into about quarter inch or so chunks. It looks awesome with the herbs cooked in the skin like that. Then I tore out the legs and dark-meat near the legs. The wings fell off and I gathered the white-meat from near there, made several piles and had a pretty nice presentation.

Add some fixings and get ready to have a stuffed belly.

Enjoy.