Quite a surfeit of turkey
Dec. 25th, 2017 09:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brooksmosesWe had a fairly large Christmas feast this evening -- it was going to be ten people (counting the two kids), but ended up with eleven at the last minute. And so I thought, "Aha! This would be a good time to use the turkey that I put in the deep freezer last Thanksgiving."
Last Thanksgiving, we had some last-minute uncertainty about whether we were having a large dinner or a small one, and there were other details and reasons that I don't entirely remember, but I think what happened is that I was doing last-day shopping and there were two turkeys left at the butcher shop and I took the larger one because the other person looking at them preferred the smaller one, and then I decided it was too large for the quantity of people we had then, and put it in the deep freezer and went to a different store to buy a smaller one, or something like that. As I say, the details are hazy. But the result is that there was a 26.8-pound turkey in our deep freezer, waiting for an appropriate opportunity.
I expected that there would be some leftovers. This turned out to be an understatement.
First, cooking a 26-pound turkey whole is a silly thing to do (in my opinion, anyway), as it will take forever. I took off the legs (with thighs) and wings to cook separately, and put the wings aside for later. The legs ended up done in plenty of time for dinner, but the breast was still 15 or 20 minutes from being done, so we decided to just go ahead and eat with what was ready and then I could carve the breast meat for second helpings when it came out. And then carving just one of the turkey legs filled up the small serving platter. So I left the other leg uncarved as well.
With all the side dishes, that one leg turned out to be all we actually needed....
Meanwhile, I'd taken the neck, the back, the tail, and a few miscellaneous bits from the previous dissection into a stockpot to simmer into stock and a bit of shredded meat for turkey-and-dumplings later.
So, final post-dinner tally of what remains: A whole turkey breast and a leg, cooked and uncarved; two wings, uncooked; a pint of pan drippings; almost a gallon of broth; a quart of shredded boiled meat, and probably a quart or two of bone broth in the morning when the remains from straining the broth and pulling the meat off the bones finish their second boiling.
And thus the cycle of turkey continues -- one of the containers of broth that gets frozen will become the gravy for the next turkey dinner I cook.
I may not buy a similarly large turkey in the future. But at least if I do, my expectations are now suitably calibrated. And I now feel like we have a cultural-narrative-ly appropriate quantity of leftovers -- and it is pleasing to have gotten this much goodness out of making broth and such alongside the main cooking.
Last Thanksgiving, we had some last-minute uncertainty about whether we were having a large dinner or a small one, and there were other details and reasons that I don't entirely remember, but I think what happened is that I was doing last-day shopping and there were two turkeys left at the butcher shop and I took the larger one because the other person looking at them preferred the smaller one, and then I decided it was too large for the quantity of people we had then, and put it in the deep freezer and went to a different store to buy a smaller one, or something like that. As I say, the details are hazy. But the result is that there was a 26.8-pound turkey in our deep freezer, waiting for an appropriate opportunity.
I expected that there would be some leftovers. This turned out to be an understatement.
First, cooking a 26-pound turkey whole is a silly thing to do (in my opinion, anyway), as it will take forever. I took off the legs (with thighs) and wings to cook separately, and put the wings aside for later. The legs ended up done in plenty of time for dinner, but the breast was still 15 or 20 minutes from being done, so we decided to just go ahead and eat with what was ready and then I could carve the breast meat for second helpings when it came out. And then carving just one of the turkey legs filled up the small serving platter. So I left the other leg uncarved as well.
With all the side dishes, that one leg turned out to be all we actually needed....
Meanwhile, I'd taken the neck, the back, the tail, and a few miscellaneous bits from the previous dissection into a stockpot to simmer into stock and a bit of shredded meat for turkey-and-dumplings later.
So, final post-dinner tally of what remains: A whole turkey breast and a leg, cooked and uncarved; two wings, uncooked; a pint of pan drippings; almost a gallon of broth; a quart of shredded boiled meat, and probably a quart or two of bone broth in the morning when the remains from straining the broth and pulling the meat off the bones finish their second boiling.
And thus the cycle of turkey continues -- one of the containers of broth that gets frozen will become the gravy for the next turkey dinner I cook.
I may not buy a similarly large turkey in the future. But at least if I do, my expectations are now suitably calibrated. And I now feel like we have a cultural-narrative-ly appropriate quantity of leftovers -- and it is pleasing to have gotten this much goodness out of making broth and such alongside the main cooking.
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no subject
Date: 2017-12-26 06:53 pm (UTC)I don't eat meat any more, but still get caught up in both the turkey drama -- there's always something; this time there was some hard cider in the brine that wasn't rinsed off thoroughly, and the skin started to turn very dark well before the meat was done -- and of course in the whole leftovers dynamic. In some ways, having the right leftovers is as important in my family as having the right dinner. At Thanksgiving, I complained to David, who is in charge of the stuffing, that there wasn't enough vegan stuffing left over. He was mildly astonished because he'd made about half as much vegan as regular and there are only two vegans eating the stuffing, one of whom doesn't come to dinner and only eats leftovers. But I like to eat it for breakfast.
Anyway, I appreciate your account and will pass it on to my turkey-roasting family.
P.
no subject
Date: 2017-12-27 02:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-27 02:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-27 05:52 am (UTC)Our default stuffing has chestnuts in it (this year they looked all fat and shiny and lovely but most of them were full of gray-green mold, yikes). Mine gets vegetable broth rather than chicken broth, and margarine rather than butter. It's mostly defined by large amounts of summer savory, black pepper, sage, onion, and celery, just like the regular stuffing. My mother-in-law had to resort to pine nuts or pecans once or twice, but I don't think we've ever before been able to find chestnuts, roasted them, and then discovered that they were just bad all through.
P.
no subject
Date: 2017-12-27 09:54 pm (UTC)And a very merry belated Christmas and happy holidays to you and (all of) yours!
no subject
Date: 2017-12-29 02:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-26 06:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-26 08:09 am (UTC)On the other hand, leftover goose legs seem like nothing to complain about having either!