Classic Stuffed Turkey

We had a small, quiet Thanksgiving dinner, with just our family and J&J's. It was my turn to host, so I was in charge of turkey, stuffing, gravy, potatoes and one dessert, with J bringing sides, rolls and another dessert. I love stuffing, so I made two whole batches, not realizing that J&J's kids wouldn't eat any (!). I was thinking about the copious amount usually consumed by my brother Rib. I love having at least part of the stuffing cooked inside the bird, so I wanted a recipe for a stuffed turkey that would still turn out moist and delicious, and decided to try the latest turkey guidance from Cook's Illustrated.


Table setup with kissing corn (kids' table visible through doorway at center-right).



Table setup with pressed-glass turkey candle holders and linens and silver from my grandmother.

Wild Rice, Apple and Dried-Cranberry Stuffing from Gourmet (made by me)


This stuffing was very good--it's pretty much just a basic bread stuffing with sautéed celery and onion and fresh parsley, sage & thyme, then some cooked wild rice, diced apple and dried cranberries stirred in. I would recommend either cooking this in the bird or keeping it covered the whole time it is in the oven--the wild rice on the edges got a bit crunchy/chewy.

Rolls rising (made by J from my great-grandmother's recipe).


Swiss Chard and Sweet Potato Gratin from Smitten Kitchen (made by J). This was delicious but very rich. Half a recipe would have been plenty for our small two-family group (again, the kids didn't eat much of it).


Old-Fashioned Stuffed Turkey from Cook's Illustrated's November-December 2009 issue.



This recipe calls for a 12-15 lb turkey, and mine was near the upper limit of that range (I did want some leftovers). A sidebar in the magazine lists the "secrets" to a great old-fashioned stuffed turkey:

1. Dry brine (rubbing turkey with salt under the skin and in the cavity 24-48 hours ahead of cooking)
2. Stab the fat deposits with a skewer to aid the rendering of fat
3. Dry rub with baking powder and salt just before roasting to encourage browning (I did not do this step, as in an earlier recipe trial of a roast chicken recommending this technique, it imparted a slight chemical taste)
4. Bard the turkey by draping strips of salt pork on its back while roasting
5. Combine stuffing cooked inside and outside the turkey (doesn't everyone do this anyway?)
6. High-heat finish for the last 45 minutes to crisp the skin.

Now, there were a couple of other small ways (in addition to number 3 above) in which I deviated from the recipe. Nevertheless, the turkey was moist and flavorful, giving off lots of fat and basically no juices during its roasting time (I poured off the grease and scraped up the brown bits to dissolve as much as I could into the gravy, straining to get out the undissolved bits; my brother pronounced it the "best gravy ever"). Here's how I did it:

Old-Fashioned Stuffed Turkey
adapted from Cook's Illustrated Nov-Dec 2009
Serves 10-12

1 12-15 lb turkey
3 T kosher salt
12 oz salt pork, cut into 1/4"-thick slices and rinsed

onion, celery, carrot and a few sprigs fresh thyme for gravy neck stock, chopped roughly

Your favorite stuffing recipe (besides the wild rice one linked above, I made a traditional stuffing with sautéed onions and celery and fresh parsley, sage and thyme. I did not make homemade bread for the stuffing this year, and missed it.)

Now, two days before Thanksgiving, having already put the turkey in the fridge to thaw several days before, you go to pull out the giblet/neck packet and salt the turkey according to the recipe. After having removed it from its wrapping, you discover that the bird is still frozen solid in the middle and completely unwilling to birth its packet. You panic and put the turkey on a rack over a broiler-pan bottom in the fridge, hoping that the direct contact with the fridge air will thaw it sufficiently by the next day.

One day before Thanksgiving, the giblet/neck packet is just barely able to be pried out of the cavity. You heat a little oil in a saucepan and brown the snot out of the neck, then sauté the chopped vegetables in the same pan, scraping up browned bits. Add the neck back in, add water to cover, and simmer for a few hours. Return to still very, very cold turkey, and rub 3 T kosher salt in cavity and under skin of breasts and legs, trying mightily not to tear it where it's become slightly dried-out and fragile from its uncovered overnight fridge stay. Cover it with plastic wrap, put it back in the fridge, and hope for the best.

Thanksgiving morning, get the turkey out of the fridge, remove plastic wrap, and hope it comes to something resembling room temperature by roasting time. Use a skewer to poke lots of little holes (1" apart) in all the thick, fatty parts of the skin on the breasts, thighs, legs and back. Prepare stuffing, then line cavities with cheesecloth and put in as much stuffing as will reasonably fit, leaving the rest in a bowl in the refrigerator. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Place turkey breast-side down on a rack in a roasting pan and drape back with slices of salt pork.

Roast breast-side down until thickest part of breast measures 130 degrees, 2-2.5 hours. Remove from oven, close door, and increase temperature to 450 degrees. Transfer turkey in rack to another pan, remove and discard salt pork, remove stuffing bag, and turn turkey breast-side up. Empty stuffing back into reserved stuffing in bowl and mix together, then put in large casserole dish. Pour drippings from pan into strainer over fat separator, scraping pan with a silicone spatula.

When oven is up to temperature, return turkey in rack to roasting pan and roast until skin is brown and crisp, thickest part of breast is 160 degrees, and thickest part of thigh is 175 degrees, about 45 minutes. Transfer turkey to carving board and let rest 30 minutes.

Reduce oven temperature to 400 and bake stuffing until it reaches 165 degrees in the center. Make gravy from defatted drippings, neck stock, and a well-mixed slurry of flour and water, plus some of the potato cooking water if desired, seasoning to taste (probably won't need much salt!).

This was a fabulous turkey, in spite of the stressful moments that occurred in its preparation. That overnight uncovered fridge stay that dried out the skin some made it roast up perfectly, cracklingly crisp--my brother said it was like pork rinds only better--but left the flesh moist and delicious. This is a great, easy, non-chemical-y way to get the skin really, really crisp. It did make it quite a bit harder to rub the salt under the skin, but if I'd been able to do the salting before the drying of the skin, maybe that would solve that problem? Next time will tell.

For dessert, J brought a perfectly-delicous Costco pumpkin pie and her homemade pecan dacquoise pie. and I made Banana Chocolate Bread Pudding, using leftover challah from previously having made Pumpkin Pie Bread Pudding with Bourbon Toffee Sauce for a friend. The challah wasn't left over, per se, because I did use a whole loaf for the first bread pudding, but it was left over because, after searching high and low for already-baked challah, I made my own. I guess in the middle of Thanksgiving week, all the bakeries are turned over to dinner rolls, and there wasn't any challah. I suppose I could have substituted, but I wanted to follow the recipe as closely as I could, so there I was, two nights before Thanksgiving, madly making challah late in the evening and about killing my KitchenAid in the process. Anyway, both of them turned out delicious, though I should definitely have used less than the whole loaf for the banana pudding.

And after all that effort over the bread, I couldn't muster up a couple tablespoons of bourbon for the toffee sauce, so I used Kahlua instead. Next time for the bourbon.

Orange Latkes

Just as the Orange Mashed Potatoes have nothing to do with oranges, likewise with the Orange Latkes.

But first, the rest of dinner. I made the French Roast Chicken in a Pot I previously posted about with no pictures. Here's what it looked like during the stovetop part of the process:



I also made the Simple Crusty Bread, and realized as I was looking back that I never put my preferred method all in one post. Here it is:

Simple Crusty Bread
(no-knead variety)
adapted from several sources

6-6 1/2 C unbleached all-purpose flour, or combination of all-purpose and whole wheat (not more than 1/2 whole wheat)
3 C warm tap water (100-110 degrees)
1 1/2 T active dry yeast
1 1/2 T kosher salt
1 1/2 T honey (if using whole wheat flour)

Put water in a large bowl. Add salt and honey, then sprinkle yeast over top and let soften for a couple of minutes. Stir until everything is dissolved, and then add flour to make a thick, sticky dough. Cover with a slightly-dampened kitchen towel and let rest at room temperature for 2-5 hours. Then either cover and refrigerate, or start making loaves.

To make a loaf, sprinkle the dough with a little flour and use a serrated knife (my tomato knife works great) to cut off 1/4-1/3 of the dough. (Unless baking multiple loaves, cover remaining dough and put it in the fridge.) Knead on a flour-covered board just one or two times, to smooth the surface a little and get a little flour on the outside so it sticks less. Then form the dough into a round loaf shape, holding the dough between your hands and stretching it with your thumbs while pushing it back in on itself with your fingers. Turn it over and pinch the pushed-in parts together. Cover the board generously with flour, place loaf on board pinched side down, sprinkle with more flour, and cover loosely with a tea towel. Let rest 40-60 minutes.

One half-hour before baking, turn oven on to 450 degrees and put dutch oven (cast iron and stainless steel both seem to work fine) in to preheat. When ready to bake, take pot from oven and remove lid, slash a deep (1/2-3/4") cross in the dough, and carefully transfer dough to hot pot. Replace lid and put back in oven to bake for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, remove lid and let cook 10-30 minutes longer, until brown, crusty, and hollow-sounding when tapped on the bottom. Let cool, slice, and serve with good butter.

Now for the latkes. I originally heard this great recipe on NPR several years ago, and have made it several times since. This year I decided to see if adding garnet sweet potatoes would make as large an improvement to the latkes as it did to the mashed potatoes, and the answer is oh, yes, yes, and YES. Here is the recipe with my adaptations (HIGHLY recommended, though of course if you're allergic to sweet potatoes you can follow the original).

Orange Latkes
adapted from Judith Nathan's Jewish Cooking in America

1 lb russet potatoes
1 lb garnet sweet potatoes
1 bunch scallions, chopped (all the way up, not just the light parts)
1 large egg, lightly beaten
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
canola oil for frying
applesauce and sour cream for serving

1. Peel russet and sweet potatoes, and skin, trim and halve onion, and grate in a food processor (theoretically you could do this by hand, but it sounds awful, doesn't it?). Dump all grated vegetables in a bowl and mix with 3/4 t kosher salt. Let sit for 10-15 minutes, then put in a tea towel and wring out as much liquid as you can.

Let squeezed liquid sit in bowl for another 10 minutes or so (leaving veggies in towel to minimize exposure to air), then carefully pour off, leaving white potato starch behind in the bowl.

2. Add the veggies back into the bowl, and stir in scallions, egg, a little more kosher salt, and a good amount of freshly ground black pepper.

3. Heat about 1/4" or a little less canola oil in an electric frying pan to 350 degrees. Use a medium-large portion scoop (a couple of tablespoons) to scoop up some of the potato mixture and place in pan, flattening with the back of the scoop.

Cook until golden, then flip to brown the other side.

Put on paper-towel lined plate and keep in 170-degree oven until you have a few layers saved up.

Call everyone to dinner and serve with sour cream and applesauce.

Yes You Can Make Pita Bread (Really!)

Our church Christmas party was "A Night in Bethlehem." We were supposed to come in "Biblical" dress, and the food was Middle-Eastern-ish. I signed up to bring pita bread, because I knew that was the best way to ensure that my family and I could eat pita bread that was not flat and dry and utterly appetite-wasting.

Making your own pita bread is a snap IF you have two items: a decent food processor and a baking stone. You can do without the first of these if you don't mind kneading by hand, but if you don't have to hand-knead you can have finished, soft, delicious pita bread in ONE HOUR.

Pita Bread
makes 6-8 6-7" pitas
adapted from Cook's Illustrated, Jan/Feb 1999

1 pkg (2 1/4 t) dry active yeast
1 C warm water (110-115 degrees)
1 T olive oil
2 t sugar
1/4 C plain yogurt
1 1/2 t salt
1/2 C whole wheat flour
2 C bread flour (or higher-protein all-purpose, like Bob's Red Mill or King Arthur), plus extra as needed

1. Sprinkle yeast over warm water in bowl of food processor, and let dissolve for a few minutes.

Add oil, sugar and yogurt and pulse a little to mix. Add salt and flours and process until smooth, about 15 seconds, scraping sides of bowl as necessary.

Keep processing, adding flour, until dough is soft and satiny and pulls completely away from sides of bowl, about 30 seconds (or turn dough out onto floured work surface and knead 12-15 minutes).

Put dough in medium bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and place in warm, draft-free spot until dough doubles in size, 30-45 minutes. (At this point, dough can be punched down, wrapped tightly in plastic wrap, and refrigerated up to 2 days.) Before the dough is completely risen, put baking stone on lowest rack in oven and preheat oven to 500 degrees for at least a half-hour.

2. Turn dough onto lightly-floured work surface, and, if it is sticky, sprinkle lightly with flour. Divide dough into 6 or 8 equal portions with a chef's knife or bench scraper. Roll each portion into a ball, then roll with rolling pin into a four-inch circle (the picture below shows two batches that I mixed up in succession).

Let rest for 10-15 minutes, then roll into a 6-7" circle.

3. When oven and stone are fully heated, carefully and quickly place a few dough rounds directly on the baking stone (I do three at a time on my round stone), and bake for 3-6 minutes, until bread is puffed and golden brown on the bottom. Pause between batches to let oven return to 500 degrees (they don't cook as quickly or puff as dramatically at lower temperatures). Transfer to a wire rack to cool, and spray with a little olive oil if desired. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Simple Crusty Bread v1.2

This time I tried with about half whole-wheat flour (Bob's Red Mill whole wheat pastry flour), and I baked it in the cast iron dutch oven without parchment, just carefully picking up the risen loaf and putting it as gently as possible into the hot pot. It didn't stick and the crust didn't have a funny flavor on the bottom, so that's good. The crust was also really nice. However, the bread itself was a little cardboard-y. Then I remembered that a lot of bread recipes I've seen say to add some honey if you replace any of the all-purpose flour with whole wheat. Aha. So next time I think I will add 2 T honey to the warm water/yeast/salt mixture before adding flour.



[Edited to add] Today's (Friday's) loaf (second of three from this batch of dough) turned out even better. I think the whole wheat flour benefits even more from the long, long refrigerated rise/rest than the white flour does.

Bread and Chicken, Chicken and Bread

Friday was the third and last roast chicken trial. This is the method I used most in the past, taken from The Cook's Bible by Christopher Kimball.

Slow-Roast Chicken

3.5-lb chicken
little bit of butter
kosher salt and freshly-ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Remove giblets from chicken cavity and pat dry with paper towels. Poke chicken all over with small skewer (I used a bamboo cake tester) (this is borrowed from the crispy-skin method, in part to make the skin crispier and in part because the pok-pok noise when you pierce the skin is so satisfying). Put chicken in V-rack in roasting pan, breast side up. Put a little softened butter on your hands (a teaspoon or so) and rub the chicken all over. Then sprinkle lightly with kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper. (I suppose now is where you could put the whole assemblage into the fridge overnight to dry out the skin, in which case you shouldn't have the oven on yet.)

Put chicken in oven and roast for 30-35 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 200 degrees and roast for an hour. Then raise oven temperature to 400 degrees for a further 15-30 minutes, until temperature is 165 in the thigh and 170 in the breast (or thereabouts).

As you can see from the pictures, I also tried this time to stick veggies in the bottom of the roasting pan: a garnet yam, peeled and cut into chunks, the rest of the Russian Banana fingerling potatoes, a few carrots, peeled and cut into sections, and two leeks, quartered. I drizzled with a tiny bit of olive oil (since the chicken would be dripping its own fat on them, too), sprinkled with some salt and pepper and tossed to coat. The leeks didn't fare so well--if I do them again, I'll leave them whole (the ones I've been getting don't have much if any dirt down in them), or switch to whole shallots.

This chicken was delicious, and just about as easy as the French pot-roast method. I think in the future I'll use the French method if I want to make gravy, or just for a change, but I'll go back to this method as my default.

I also baked up the last of the Simple Crusty Bread, this time borrowing from another no-knead bread recipe, in Cook's Illustrated. They suggest letting the dough rest/rise in a parchment-lined skillet, and then transferring dough and parchment to a preheated cast-iron dutch oven in the oven. The oven and pot are preheated to 500 degrees, and then the temperature is lowered to 425 for the remainder of baking, the first half-hour with lid in place, and second half-hour uncovered.

This method definitely works better than throwing water in the broiler pan underneath the baking stone for developing a crisp, shiny crust. However, it seemed to me that the parchment imparted a slightly off flavor to the bottom crust of the bread. I've never had that issue with baking on parchment before, but then it's never had direct contact with a preheated-to-500 degrees hunk of cast iron before, either. I seem to recall one of the other no-knead recipes I've seen also called for baking in a dutch oven, but without parchment. I'll see if I can track that one down and try it.



And finally, the bebe, hanging out with Grandma.

Clawing My Way Out of That Rut

We were all getting sick of the winter rut (Mavis actually told me after I last served it that he was pretty much done with pearl couscous with sausage and butternut squash), so I am now entering what I sort of hope will be a significant period of experimentation and adding new things to our regular repertoire. I say "sort of" because as much as I love cooking and putting together wonderful meals for my family, trying new recipes takes more time than throwing together familiar ones, and I get even more behind in my other projects and responsibilities. So we'll see how long I am able to keep it up before the burgeoning chaos (read: piles of random stuff) completely swamps the computer.

I have read in several places lately (okay, probably over the last year or so) several different versions of no- or low-knead bread. Tonight I tried the first of these collected recipes. As with the chicken, this one seems so easy that I may never get to all the others (although watch this space for the third and last roast chicken trial, coming in about a week). I got this from the Oregonian FOODay, but I can't find the recipe online.

Simple Crusty Bread
makes 4 loaves

1 1/2 T yeast (regular, not instant or rapid-rise)
1 1/2 T kosher salt
6 1/2 C unbleached all-purpose, plus more for dusting dough
3 C water
cornmeal for dusting pizza peel

In a large bowl or plastic container, mix yeast and salt into 3 C lukewarm water (about 100 degrees). Stir in flour, mixing until there are no dry patches. Dough will be quite loose [not really]. Cover, but not with an airtight lid. Let dough rise at room temperature 2 hours (or up to 5 hours [what I did]).

Here is the dough after mixing and before rising (after five hours it was up to the rim of the bowl; actually, it was there after 2, but didn't get any bigger after that):

Bake at this point or refrigerate, covered, for as long as two weeks. When ready to bake, sprinkle a little flour on dough and cut off a grapefruit-size piece [or, since this is supposed to make four loaves, 1/4 of the dough] with a serrated knife. Turn dough in hands to lightly stretch surface, creating a mounded top and a lumpy bottom. Put dough on pizza peel sprinkled with cornmeal; let rest 40 minutes. Repeat with remaining dough or refrigerate it, loosely covered.

Here is the shaped loaf, sitting on the pizza peel to rest.

Place broiler pan on bottom of oven. Place baking stone on middle rack and turn oven to 450 degrees; heat stone at that temperature for 20 minutes.

Dust dough with flour, slash top with serrated or very sharp knife three times. Slide onto stone. Pour 1 C hot water into broiler pan and shut oven quickly to trap steam. Bake until well browned, about 30 minutes. Cool completely.

Tonight's other trial came from the latest Cook's Illustrated. It seemed like something we would all like, and I already had some of the ingredients. The original recipe called for using 4 8-oz chicken breasts cut into 8 cutlets to serve 4 people. Heavens, that's a lot of meat. I halved it (or close to it--the two breasts I bought were just over a pound total) for the four of us, and it was perfect. Here's how I made it:

Chicken Saltimbocca

1/4 C unbleached all-purpose flour
freshly ground black pepper
2 chicken breasts
1 1/2 t minced fresh sage leaves, plus 4 whole large leaves
thinly-sliced prosciutto to cover one side of each cutlet (for me, 2 slices of Prosciutto di Parma were enough)
2 T olive oil
5 oz dry vermouth
1 t freshly-squeezed lemon juice
2 T cold unsalted butter, cut into four pieces
1 1/2 t minced fresh parsley
salt to taste

Preheat oven to 200. Combine flour and 1/2 t pepper in shallow dish. Trim chicken, removing tender from underside, and carefully cut parallel to cutting board into 1/4 to 1/2-inch-thick cutlets.

If chicken seems wet (mine didn't), pat dry with paper towels, then dredge in flour, shaking off excess. Sprinkle one side of cutlets evenly with chopped sage, then top with prosciutto, trimmed to fit (Cook's says to press lightly to adhere, but when I did this it only made it stick to my hand).

With familiar recipes I'm cooking from memory, I don't usually do a mise en place, but it's a really good idea when you're trying something new to have everything ready to go before beginning, especially if it's a pretty fast-moving recipe and/or you're trying to prepare (as I was tonight) other parts of dinner at the same time.

Heat oil in large skillet over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add sage leaves and cook until leaves are uniform in color, 30 seconds maximum. Carefully lift out with tongs and put on paper towels. Carefully put half the cutlets in the pan, prosciutto side down (tricky because it doesn't really stick to the chicken), and cook until light golden brown, 2-3 minutes. Flip carefully (I used tongs) and cook on the second side until also golden, another 2 minutes or so. Transfer to warm plate in the oven, and repeat with the second batch.

Pour off excess fat from skillet, and pour vermouth into the pan, scraping up brown bits if necessary (I found that the pan was hot enough that the boiling action of the vermouth lifted it all up without any scraping on my part). Simmer until reduced to just a few tablespoons, 5 minutes or so. Stir in lemon juice, then reduce heat to low and stir in butter, one lump at a time. Remove from heat and stir in parsley and season with a little salt and pepper.

The finished sauce:

Remove chicken from oven, pour sauce over it, and top each cutlet with a sage leaf.

I served it with the bread (just a tad dense; I'll make more/deeper slashes for the next loaf) and cheesy polenta with zucchini. Argh! I just realized I forgot the fruit dish I had planned to serve, incorporating some of those beautiful canned pears I put up last fall! Oh well.



This meal was a big hit with everyone except Number Two, who was too tired to be overtly enthusiastic about anything other than the bread, but who nevertheless ate almost all of what we served him.

Speaking of Number Two, I've decided to come up with better blog names for my kids. Suggestions are welcome.