[Sca-cooks] More Thanksgiving stuff

[Michael Gunter]

I guess you can call this a primer for people wanting to make
a turkey dinner.
I wound up cooking Thanksgiving dinner last night. It was a
full meal that could probably feed 8 people comfortably.
I did the usual stuff. 14 lb turkey that I stuffed with onion,
celery, garlic, salt and pepper. (An apple would have been
nice.) Then rubbed garlic and butter under the skin over
the breast and rubbed olive oil over the rest of the bird. Then
put in a roasting bag at 350 degrees for 3 hours. It came out
perfect.
I also made some homemade cranberry sauce. Take a cup
and a half of sugar (the cranberries were kind of bitter so
I used more than the usual 1 cup), a cup of water and brought
them to the boil. Added 1 lb of fresh cranberries and returned
to a boil, then turned down the heat to a simmer and let cook
for 10 minutes. Put the results into a food processor and processed
until just lightly chunky. Refridgerate.
I cooked up some celery, garlic and onions until mostly soft and
set aside. Boiled three egg. I took the neck, heart and gizzard
and simmered it in chicken stock until they were cooked through.
Minced the gizzard and heart and took any loose meat from the
neck and waited for the turkey to finish.
Once the turkey came out I rescued as much pan juices as I could
and defatted them. Skimmed the giblet broth and remembered
to make a roux this time. I added the giblet meat, broth, chopped
eggs, some of the cooked celery mix to the roux and simmered
until it was the correct consistancy. Added salt and pepper to
taste. I also added some of the defatted drippings to the broth.
I took some stale cornbread I'd cooked last week, mixed in some
basic poultry seasonings and added this to a combination of drippings
and chicken stock which I'd added butter and brought to a boil.
Basically 2 cups of stock/broth and 6 tablespoons butter to six
cups of cornbread (or dressing mix). Before I added the cornbread
I put in the rest of the chopped egg and celery mixture to the
boiling broth. Added the cornbread and removed from the heat.
Folded everything together until the bread was moist and let sit.

Now add your favorite salad, mashed potatoes, yams, etc...and
you have dinner!

The turkey is very moist and has a lot of flavor, btw. No brining
involved. Although I do admit that I like a brined bird myself.

Just some notes.

Gunthar