[Sca-cooks] Report on Thanksgiving experiments...OP

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Nov 25, 2005, at 2:29 AM, Nick Sasso wrote:

> I'd suspect that many, many households do not use the homemade  
> chicken stock
> and mirepoix for the gravy.

I confess I normally don't, myself, but the mirepoix I used for  
roasting the turkey instead of Alton Brown's cooked apple/onion/ 
cinnamon thing, so it had seriously flavored the pan drippings,  
between it and the brine. I didn't actually add it to the gravy. I  
also frequently use canned chicken stock, but just happened to have a  
couple of quarts of homemade sitting there in the freezer. By the  
time it's thickened and the pan juices added, the end product doesn't  
scream of canned.

> The pan drippings and a broth/stock from the
> giblets thickened with some sort of roux or cornstarch slurry may  
> be more
> the norm.

I talked to my sister-in-law about it -- she's the daughter of an old- 
style, '40's and '50's Birmingham, Alabama hostess, the kind of lady  
who, if you weren't invited to her party, your social year was  
ruined ;-) -- and we each exchanged views from our respective Alien  
Planets. She spoke of using an iron skillet (I believe the rationale  
was that lumps would be easier to search and destroy in a lower  
liquid level), and of sometimes pre-roasting flour to brown it, then  
making a slurry. I told her about other Southern cooks I'd spoken to  
over the years who added flour directly to the gravy, which always  
makes me cringe. She'd never heard of this, nor of Wondra or any pre- 
gelatinized "cooking" flour. I told her that real estate costs are  
high and my kitchen, small, and I can't afford to have anything in it  
that really serves only one purpose, but that I gather a lot of  
people do use Wondra for gravies.

My Mom was always a member of the "canned chicken stock and  
cornstarch slurry" school. She also would always thicken said mixture  
to a good consistency, and then was always surprised that adding a  
large turkey's worth of pan drippings would thin it down a lot. In  
general she was/is an excellent cook, but big-family dynamics aren't  
always very supportive of attempts at fine cookery. I've earned a  
living as a professional pastry chef, and I still can't duplicate her  
pie crusts. Everyone else says mine are great, but I know the truth ;-).

> I'm sure the brined turkey drippings were far superior to plain,
> unflavored, especially with the mirepoix.
>
> The 'gravy' we had at our meal this year was somewhat different  
> than any
> I've had.  The preparation involved evidently 50% too much  
> cornstarch in the
> slurry, and we got a very rich, flavorful turkey jelly that tasted  
> good on
> the potatoes, but sat up and wiggled at us.  No one wanted to  
> correct it
> with warm water and a whisk, so we have gummi gravy :o)

Somebody loked (th)at yt be stondynge, huh? Yes, a good balloon whisk  
heals a multitude of ills.

I'm thinking that perhaps there is a mystery to it for many casual  
cooks, just as there is often is some intimidation factor for some  
people in cooking decent rice. It _seems_ simple enough, but... . My  
suspicion is that for some, the very first quality criterion you look  
for, the thing that separates good gravy from bad, is the absence of  
lumps.

>
> The saga of the sugarless cheesecake will also now be heralded for  
> many
> holidays to come.  Creamy and tangy . . . and totally devoid of any
> sweetener.  Just takes one bite to know the deal . . . and the  
> guests were
> too polite to tell my dad it was wrong until he took a bite himself  
> and
> started laughing about his error.

Oops! For some reason I'm put in mind of a torteau au fromage recipe  
I once found in an edition of the Larousse Gastronomique; the cheese  
called for is fresh chevre, the pan is lined with an eggy tart dough,  
and as I recall, most of the bulk of the filling is just the cheese,  
eggs (separated, with the stiffly-beaten whites folded in at the  
end), and sugar. What's astonishing about it is the resulting dome of  
shiny, dark-chocolate-colored, caramelized-lactose surface, and the  
easy-to-confuse-with-lemon flavor.

Adamantius


"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la  
brioche!" / "If there's no bread to be had, one has to say, let them  
eat cake!"
     -- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques Rousseau,  
"Confessions", 1782

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
     -- Susan Sheybani, assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry  
Holt, 07/29/04