Oh. Hello, there. Long time, no write. Things haven’t been so great around here, pain-wise, so it’s been hard to spend much time in the kitchen (or doing much of anything worth writing about, really). I have an idea of how I may be able to start posting here again, which I’ll write about this week, but first I managed to put together a Thanksgiving feast for myself with minimal time in the kitchen.
My secret to making delicious food from my recliner lives in my laundry closet on top of my dryer:
That's right. It turns out that my chamber vacuum has made cooking sous vide even easier, and cooking sous vide is a gimpy girl's best friend since it does all of the work for you. (I'll explain that part in detail in a future post if the reasons aren't obvious...) This year I decided to do my turkey sous vide as a way to spare myself from spending too much time out of my chair/bed. I looked around for a fun brine on the interweb and was fascinated with a Michael Voltaggio recipe, but I wasn't sold on his spice blend, so I decided to combine his mix of citrus and brown sugar with the bay and thyme from Thomas Keller's chicken brine. I wrote down the two lists of brine ingredients to hang on my fridge with my favorite magnet (from a coworker) so I could combine as I saw fit...
Here's what I came up with (using the salt and herbs from Keller's with the citrus and sugar from Volt's, basically):
The grapefruits, lemons, limes, and oranges are juiced, then the rinds and juice are added to the brine after it has simmered for a minute. Everything is chilled before the turkey parts are added.
Speaking of turkey parts, one cool thing about doing your turkey this way is that you dismantle your turkey in advance. The split bone-in breasts and the legs go into the brine. The thighs and wings are reserved. (I vacuum-sealed them and the guts just for the sake of tidiness and freshness... Those are tubs of duck fat and turkey fat from the Bag of Inappropriate Fats that I keep in the freezer. I got them out to thaw for the next day.)
The parts in the brine need to soak in all that flavorful goodness overnight. For the thighs, the Volt recipe wants you to add thyme, sage, and garlic... but Thomas Keller doesn't like you to put herbs directly in contact with meat in a vacuum bag, so I did it up Keller-style in what he calls a sachet, which means wrapping them in plastic wrap with the ends cut off (one sachet per thigh)...
This way you get that flavor infusing through the bag, but not in direct contact with one spot on your meat...
So... Yeah. The next morning after rinsing off and drying brined parts, everything was packed into its own bag. Breasts and legs were packed with duck fat. Thighs were packed with slightly smokey turkey fat (see below) and the sachets from above, and wings were packed with lard, thyme sprigs, and craisins (just for fun). 
Hee hee. It's like a turkey, only deconstructed. The breast meat cooked for 3 hours at 145°F and was perfectly tender and juicy. The thigh meat went for 3 hours at 151°F and were also juicy and incredible. I went with 3 hours at 151°F on the legs, but next time will likely do them in more of a "braised" style like I did the wings, at 180°F for 14 hours, so the meat is falling of the bone and crazy-tender. The leg meat was all for my soup and was perfectly cooked in terms of doneness, but there's annoying connective tissue in there that I'd just as soon break down. I did the meat in batches (obviously, given the different temperatures), and it is immediately chilled in an ice bath when it comes out, then goes into the fridge until "go time." While the parts were brining, the rest of the bones could be roasted off in preparation for stock-making.
I actually had two turkeys, so I had lots of good bones for stock... and since I was under the weather and frequently retreating to bed to let my ankles recover from pain, where I happened to fall asleep while the bones were roasting... they got nice and dark and tasty. I saved the juices from the pan as well as the slightly smokey fat for making gravy as well as for use in some of the vacuum-sealed bags (as mentioned above).
Stock-making time! The bones go together with thigh bones (not roasted, but removed as a last-minute thought before vacuum-sealing), onions, parsley, celery, leek greens, carrots, and bay leaves...
I dumped this all into my favorite pot with three gallons of water and slowly brought it to a simmer over medium-high heat...
In several hours, I had some of the tastiest stock ever. Six quarts were pressure-canned. One quart went into gravy (much of which was frozen along with leftover stuffing), and the rest went to the fridge to be used in my turkey pozole, which I'll post about next. The side dishes were all pretty much the same as last year (only without my oven breaking...). I went simpler on mashed potatoes this year, though... just boiling some Yukon golds, running them through a food mill, and seasoning with Amish butter, sour cream, and sea salt. They were perfection. Why screw around with fancy ingredients when simple is so good? I made big batches in advance in short flurries of time so I could clean up my kitchen and spare my ankles, then when dinner time approached I just prepared a small ramekin of each side:
I brought a portion of thigh meat and a portion of breast meat (vacuum-sealed) up to 145°F for about 30 minutes when it was time to eat. I fried up some strips of skin to make a turkey version of cracklins' so as not to miss out on that part of the awesome bird... Oh, and cranberry sauce is straight from my freezer from last year...
I can't even tell you how juicy and delicious the meat was when it was cooked this way, and by doing the meal sous vide it was incredibly easy. It may sound like a lot of work, but it was in such small patches of time that I was able to stay off of my feet and out of the kitchen as much as I needed to. I even had time to throw together a Bourbon Pumpkin Cheesecake for dessert...
Next up, the whole point of Thanksgiving dinner: leftovers!
My secret to making delicious food from my recliner lives in my laundry closet on top of my dryer:
That's right. It turns out that my chamber vacuum has made cooking sous vide even easier, and cooking sous vide is a gimpy girl's best friend since it does all of the work for you. (I'll explain that part in detail in a future post if the reasons aren't obvious...) This year I decided to do my turkey sous vide as a way to spare myself from spending too much time out of my chair/bed. I looked around for a fun brine on the interweb and was fascinated with a Michael Voltaggio recipe, but I wasn't sold on his spice blend, so I decided to combine his mix of citrus and brown sugar with the bay and thyme from Thomas Keller's chicken brine. I wrote down the two lists of brine ingredients to hang on my fridge with my favorite magnet (from a coworker) so I could combine as I saw fit...
Here's what I came up with (using the salt and herbs from Keller's with the citrus and sugar from Volt's, basically):
The grapefruits, lemons, limes, and oranges are juiced, then the rinds and juice are added to the brine after it has simmered for a minute. Everything is chilled before the turkey parts are added.
Speaking of turkey parts, one cool thing about doing your turkey this way is that you dismantle your turkey in advance. The split bone-in breasts and the legs go into the brine. The thighs and wings are reserved. (I vacuum-sealed them and the guts just for the sake of tidiness and freshness... Those are tubs of duck fat and turkey fat from the Bag of Inappropriate Fats that I keep in the freezer. I got them out to thaw for the next day.)
The parts in the brine need to soak in all that flavorful goodness overnight. For the thighs, the Volt recipe wants you to add thyme, sage, and garlic... but Thomas Keller doesn't like you to put herbs directly in contact with meat in a vacuum bag, so I did it up Keller-style in what he calls a sachet, which means wrapping them in plastic wrap with the ends cut off (one sachet per thigh)...
This way you get that flavor infusing through the bag, but not in direct contact with one spot on your meat...
So... Yeah. The next morning after rinsing off and drying brined parts, everything was packed into its own bag. Breasts and legs were packed with duck fat. Thighs were packed with slightly smokey turkey fat (see below) and the sachets from above, and wings were packed with lard, thyme sprigs, and craisins (just for fun). 
Hee hee. It's like a turkey, only deconstructed. The breast meat cooked for 3 hours at 145°F and was perfectly tender and juicy. The thigh meat went for 3 hours at 151°F and were also juicy and incredible. I went with 3 hours at 151°F on the legs, but next time will likely do them in more of a "braised" style like I did the wings, at 180°F for 14 hours, so the meat is falling of the bone and crazy-tender. The leg meat was all for my soup and was perfectly cooked in terms of doneness, but there's annoying connective tissue in there that I'd just as soon break down. I did the meat in batches (obviously, given the different temperatures), and it is immediately chilled in an ice bath when it comes out, then goes into the fridge until "go time." While the parts were brining, the rest of the bones could be roasted off in preparation for stock-making.
I actually had two turkeys, so I had lots of good bones for stock... and since I was under the weather and frequently retreating to bed to let my ankles recover from pain, where I happened to fall asleep while the bones were roasting... they got nice and dark and tasty. I saved the juices from the pan as well as the slightly smokey fat for making gravy as well as for use in some of the vacuum-sealed bags (as mentioned above).
Stock-making time! The bones go together with thigh bones (not roasted, but removed as a last-minute thought before vacuum-sealing), onions, parsley, celery, leek greens, carrots, and bay leaves...
I dumped this all into my favorite pot with three gallons of water and slowly brought it to a simmer over medium-high heat...
In several hours, I had some of the tastiest stock ever. Six quarts were pressure-canned. One quart went into gravy (much of which was frozen along with leftover stuffing), and the rest went to the fridge to be used in my turkey pozole, which I'll post about next. The side dishes were all pretty much the same as last year (only without my oven breaking...). I went simpler on mashed potatoes this year, though... just boiling some Yukon golds, running them through a food mill, and seasoning with Amish butter, sour cream, and sea salt. They were perfection. Why screw around with fancy ingredients when simple is so good? I made big batches in advance in short flurries of time so I could clean up my kitchen and spare my ankles, then when dinner time approached I just prepared a small ramekin of each side:
I brought a portion of thigh meat and a portion of breast meat (vacuum-sealed) up to 145°F for about 30 minutes when it was time to eat. I fried up some strips of skin to make a turkey version of cracklins' so as not to miss out on that part of the awesome bird... Oh, and cranberry sauce is straight from my freezer from last year...
I can't even tell you how juicy and delicious the meat was when it was cooked this way, and by doing the meal sous vide it was incredibly easy. It may sound like a lot of work, but it was in such small patches of time that I was able to stay off of my feet and out of the kitchen as much as I needed to. I even had time to throw together a Bourbon Pumpkin Cheesecake for dessert...
Next up, the whole point of Thanksgiving dinner: leftovers!
2 comments:
Keller learned that herb trick when he was touring with The Greatful Dead.
Heehee... =)
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