Turkey Squeezings -- or Cooking 101

[Dave (imported)]

A few months ago we had a cooking tthread.

I propose using this for that big dinner THANKSGIVING...

Rule #1 - Never squeeze that Butterball. It isn't a fruit smoothie...

CRANBERRY SAUCE

This takes about an hour to cook. Ten minutes to prepare.

I took to making my own cranberry sauce when my food allergies went bonkers a few decades ago. THat red stuff that plops out of a can and quakes like Jello contained a few chemicals that kind of upset my tummy.

Now my relatives love my recipe better. It's more like a fine Jelly than a blob of chemically adjusted, fruit-flavored pectin.

1 bag of fresh cranberries

1 cup sugar (I prefer brown or turbinado sugars because they have a richer taste. White crystalline sugar works just as well)

1/4 tsp of ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp of ground ginger

1/4 tsp of ground nutmeg

Water

First, check each tiny cranberry for a stem or for softness. Bags of fresh cranberries are not altogether perfectly clean or unsquashed. This might be a half dozen icky cranberries but you don't want to eat them. Be careful, those little things are bouncy suckers, like nature's superballs of joy.

Second, Put the cranberries in a pot large enough to hold double their volume.

Add 1 cup water

Add 1 cup sugar (white or brown or Turbinado)

Add cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg and stir gently.

(you can add the fleshy parts of an orange if you like that taste. I'm allergic to orange.)

Third, put on stove and heat slowly. Boiling sugar and water to syrup the second most dangerous thing you can do in a kitchen.

Don't bring it to a boil too fast. You can burn the sugar or boil over the mix. Sugar syrup burns like nothing you can ever imagine. Don't leave it alone in the kitchen and forget it. That's bad! Treat with care.

Keep at a slow, gently boil. this will rise some and get bubbly. The heat will break open the cranberries, release their inner goodness and as the water evaporates, thicken this sauce. Once the sugar and water go over 180 degrees (which is not a boil. A boil is 212 degrees) the sugar will not recondense to crystals. It will be syrup. It can be candy if you boil away enough water. Don't do that.

As this boils, use a large spoon to crush the cranberries as they float to the top.

It's done when all the cranberries are opened and the resulting mixture is thick and clinging to a spoon.

Overboiling will only create hard candy. IF it looks too thick, add some water and stir. It should be spoonable out of a dish but thick enough not to run. So its sort of a jelly.

LET THE STUFF COOL BEFORE YOU TRY TO HANDLE IT. Nothing burns your flesh like sugar.

Then put it in a serving dish and refrigerate.

I freeze the extra in 1 cup plastic containers and freeze them. That way I can thaw as needed.

It's good as a tart/sweet dressing for snacks or ice cream or on a strange BLT.

[JesusA (imported)]

The home-made is always better than the chemical-laden canned. My wife, though, always adds some chopped fresh ginger to hers. Even better that way....

[moi621 (imported)]

I like it with the whole rolls of cinnamon bark.

I use to sit with a bowl and slurp it from the cinnamon bark I would dip or try use as a straw.

Fresh Orange peel is good too.

Moi

[gareth19 (imported)]

Some amaretto can add a nice flavor as well, but don't go adding multiple flavors; keep it simple. Choose orange, cherry, or amaretto to go with the cinnamon or ginger, maybe a hint of cloves, but only one.

[Dave (imported)]

BREAD STUFFING

I like and make simple stuffing. One of my very bad eating habits is taking leftover stuffing and using it as bread for lunch meat.

I make my own chicken stock since my tummy is allergic to nearly everything canned or boxed or jarred...

(I covered a stock recipe somewhere in the archives)

The vegetables, sweatmeats, and ground meat are all there to bind the bread and give it taste. The stock is simple to make it soft and stuffing like and not hard crusty and tasteless. This is like what to do with the old loaf of bread -- add something wet to make it soft again. Think deprivation food for those who use every part of the dead animal.

Also, while cleanliness is next to godliness, in this case, cleanliness prevents spreading salmonella on chicken and turkey. Keep your hands and tools clean. Wash the countertops. Don't lick that spoon and reuse it. (gross, gross). All that nice stuff.

ingredients

Two loaves of Bread

They should be prepared the night before. Crumbled or sliced into cubes and left to go stale. You can also toast it in the oven as long as you don't burn it. The idea is just to age it. Leftover bread makes better stuffing than fresh bread. Please note that you can use any bread even that sliced white bread, whole wheat, or sourdough bread or rye, etc... the texture and taste of the stuffing changes as you change the bread. Pepperridge Farm makes a thin sliced bread for fancy sandwiches that makes excellent stuffing.

1/3 pound ground meat (optional)

Alternatively, the boiled and finely diced giblets that you find in the turkey or chicken. Check inside the turkey or chicken with your hand.

Yes you have to sick your hand inside that dead creature that looks and feels so icky.

mirepoix

1 & 1/2 to 2 cups finely diced onion (That's about one big yellow onion)

1 & 1/2 to 2 cups finely diced celery stalks - you can Chiffonade the leaves and add them after the harder parts are sauteed in a skillet (next step)

1 cup finely diced carrot

(That combination has a fancy word - mirepoix. It's French talk for Chefs to confuse us...)

several cups chicken stock

salt

For turkey stuffing add a 1/2 teaspoon of ground sage, 1/2 teaspoon of rosemary, a clump of chopped parsley, and a 1/2 teaspoon of thyme.

You can add more of these to taste.

Preparation:

I usually have a suitable baking dish or a bread pan ready before I start.

Take a bread pan because that makes pretty loaves and slices so nearly for the table and line it with teflon tin foil then rub the inside with soft butter. YES butter. really coat the inside with butter. You'll love that rich buttery taste.

Have the bread ready and waiting in a large mixing bowl.

Heat the oven to 325 for a convection oven or slightly hotter for a conventional oven.

You want to cook this slow. Don't rush it.

MAKE IT

Take a large saute pan and heat some butter or flavorless oil. Then crumble the ground meat into it and add the onions, carrots and celery.

This isn't frying to a golden brown but cooking to translucent glaze and softening. salt to taste.

Keep the heat gentle and don't burn the mix but cook it and when done -- pour the. entire skillet into the bread.

LET IT COOL and gently fold it into the bread with a large spoon. The stick your very clean hands (without any jewelry or rings) and mix the stuff together. It's going to eventually make a sticky loose mix, sort of.

The stock is available to wet it down until it forms a nice texture and comes together in one lump.

Then pack it into the bread pan (maybe two or three bread pans). If you have a big turkey, shove it up the bird. Don't be afraid, that turkey is dead and won't bite. Wash your hands of the turkey juices, too. Pack the extra in a bread pan. Cover the stuffing with a loose top of tin foil.

Bake it

Roast the turkey as instructed on its wrapper. It will tell you how long and what internal temperature. Don't trust those plastic pop up thermometers on the frozen bird. They suck. Get a meat or food thermometer. I have a wonderful digital thermometer but any of them do the job.

Roast the pans of stuffing for a 45 minutes to an hour and then remove the tin foil on top. That will make the top of the stuffing brown and crisp. If you have a food thermometer -- the internal temperature of the stuffing should be over 160 degrees. (TRANSWARD asked me to make this 160 just to be safe. OK.)

Overcooking will only dry out the stuffing. You can judge that way if you want.

If you used those tiny individual bread pans (maybe they are meatloaf tins) then check them to earlier to be sure they aren't overcooking. I never used these but I've thought about it. However, since Thanksgiving dinner at my house consists of ten or more, those tiny individual servings are too cumbersome and awkward.

Eat it

[Paolo]

Seriously, 1 cup of sugar?

I tried cranberries once, and whole bag of Stevia didn't help the sour little bastards.

[Uncle Flo (imported)]

I am of the opinion that cranberries are inedible no matter what is done to them. --FLO--

[Dave (imported)]

Seriously, 1 cup of sugar?

I tried cranberries once, and whole bag of Stevia didn't help the sour little bastards.

I won't be angry if you add more sugar. Just add proportionately more water because too little water will make the jelly set up like hard candy.

I miss the tartness of citrus fruits and this is my way of making up for it.

And for those who don't know -- raw uncooked cranberries are so tart as to be inedible. Uncle Flow is right. You have to cook them into something for all that goodness to come out.

[kristoff]

Seriously, 1 cup of sugar?

I tried cranberries once, and whole bag of Stevia didn't help the sour little bastards.

I had to provide the cranberries at last year's dinner, despite the fact that I have never yet tasted a cranberry I liked. Relatives later came to me with puckered mouths to say how good they were. Liars, one and all. This year my sister's father in law is hosting everyone at the country club (no shit, me at the fancy ass club), and he has decreed no cranberries. Lucky me!

[transward (imported)]

Funny, I love cranberries, but like rhubarb, it takes a lot of sugar to balance the intense sourness. I usually use about a cup of sugar per 12 ounce bag of cranberries, but you need to use your tastebuds. There can be considerable variation from one bunch of cranberries to another. I also have made a mean sweet and sour sauce w/ fresh cranberries to use with Chinese Fried pork or shrimp.

Also do a raw cranberry relish. One 12 bag cranberries, one orange including peel (get as many seed out as possible.) 1+ cup sugar, good handful nuts, (pecans or walnuts best), a pinch salt. Run through grinder or pulse in food processor. A little candied ginger is good with this. Grind into bowl, add sugar, starting w/ one cup until you like the taste. If it seems a little dry add some orange juice.

Transward