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Nov. 28th, 2008 07:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickDespite not being in charge of Thanksgiving, I wound up helping cousin San speed-thaw a twenty pound turkey in the sink last night.
"Can you come over and look at the turkey? I'm not sure it's all the way thawed..."
At nine in the evening before Thanksgiving, these are words to strike fear into the hearts of even the most stoic of chefs... so I drove over to San's (not a production -- it's less than a minute) and inspecticated the bird. It was still rather more frozen than was appropriate for the night before Thanksgiving. So much for "allow to thaw for two to three days in the fridge" which was what the package directions suggested for a thawing solution. Stupid package directions, setting folks up for a round of FAIL at the holiday dinner function where fucking up is, well, kind of serious. (At Xmas and Easter, there's a reason for the season besides the food. The holiday is not about the food. At Thanksgiving, the holiday IS the food. Fucking up the turkey on Tgiving is a bigger error than fucking up the turkey at Xmas.)
Since we'd been failed by the package directions, I went directly to Plan B, which is not so much a contraceptive pill as the clear and certain knowledge that one can speed-thaw a mostly-frozen twenty-one pound turkey using the cold water tap and a kitchen sink. If you're going this route, note that there will be quite a bit of cold, turkeyish water in your future. As soon as you can, pry the legs and wings loose so that the cold (it will be very cold and it HAS to be cold, for food safety purposes) water can contact all areas of the bird. Filling the body cavity with water that you let ooze down around the neck and bits will help thaw the inside of the bird so that the neck and stuff will (eventually) come out with a certain amount of yanking, twisting, and swearing. Remember, nothing says Thanksgiving Eve like having your hand up a dead bird's ass trying to assist same in birthing a partially frozen neck and some giblets.
During the thawing process, we consulted the Joy of Cooking for how long the bird would need to be in the oven because I thought that "five pounds an hour" sounded wrong. It was wrong. Joy of Cooking says "three pounds an hour" for stuffed turkey at 325. We adjusted dinner from noon to one of the clock on the grounds that nobody wanted to get up and stuff a bird at 4:30 AM, which would have otherwise been necessary. My people eat Thanksgiving at midday. (I blame cows for this.)
I overslept on Thanksgiving morning and San called the house to wake me up so that I could get over there and stuff the bird. Apparently setting the alarm on 'music' does not work nearly as well as setting the alarm on "annoying electric sheep bleats". My bad, there. I stuffed the bird, both ends. We put the bird in the oven. I fixed up eclairs for the people who were up and then I went home and fixed the fire and snoozed in front of it for a while.
After a shower and some cleaning up, I rolled back over to San's with the extra chairs and we settled down to the serious business of conversation until the bird got done. The bird went well. The stuffing (in the bird) was really good (Of course it was because I made it, but still. It's one of those things that looks unpromising at the outset and most of the deliciousity is installed over time and far from prying eyes so you can't TELL that it will be awesome or lame until it is far too late to do anything about the situation. You don't get any control after you put it in the bird. There are no mid-course corrections with stuffing. I always worry about the stuffing. It's always fine. I am a dork.) and was all eaten up by the time dinner was over. I have leftover outside the bird stuffing, which I brought home, but the in-the-bird kind disappeared like an onion snow. San, who does not like stuffing, had two helpings.
The gravy was quite good and received compliments plus also people ate a lot of it. I love having two cups of drippings to work with. I do. It was beautiful and brown and rich and ... damn. I love making gravy from a roast turkey. I do. I also remembered to skim off most of the fat before embarking on the gravy journey and I premixed my whitewash so that it was specially nonlumpy. There was (of course) extra gravy, about three cups. I split that with San (who requested gravy, so it probably didn't suck) and the gravy was dealt with. I'll be putting my leftover gravy on my leftover out-of-the-bird stuffing, natch. I didn't take any turkey meat home b/c I don't especially like it and others there do. I took the carcass home and made it into stock. I could have picked meat off the carcass but I am not going to make turkey soup with the stock so I didn't bother. (I keep the stock and make things like Tasty Dal and Potato-Leek Soup and Lentil Soup and such with it. A roast turkey carcass makes fantastic stock and lots of it. In my world, the turkey carcass is the crown jewel of Thanksgiving leftovers.)
I left the apple pie (half a pie) with SJ (who is keeping Amanda and John and the baby Riley) so that the apple pie can get eaten by people who are not me. John (or possibly Jon, I'm not actually sure) allowed as how it was a very good pie. He had two pieces after a substantial dinner, so probably he wasn't lying. In exchange, I took half a squash pie from San. It's gone now. I do not want to discuss how I can go from "half a pie" at 9 PM last night to "no pie" at 8 AM today.
"Can you come over and look at the turkey? I'm not sure it's all the way thawed..."
At nine in the evening before Thanksgiving, these are words to strike fear into the hearts of even the most stoic of chefs... so I drove over to San's (not a production -- it's less than a minute) and inspecticated the bird. It was still rather more frozen than was appropriate for the night before Thanksgiving. So much for "allow to thaw for two to three days in the fridge" which was what the package directions suggested for a thawing solution. Stupid package directions, setting folks up for a round of FAIL at the holiday dinner function where fucking up is, well, kind of serious. (At Xmas and Easter, there's a reason for the season besides the food. The holiday is not about the food. At Thanksgiving, the holiday IS the food. Fucking up the turkey on Tgiving is a bigger error than fucking up the turkey at Xmas.)
Since we'd been failed by the package directions, I went directly to Plan B, which is not so much a contraceptive pill as the clear and certain knowledge that one can speed-thaw a mostly-frozen twenty-one pound turkey using the cold water tap and a kitchen sink. If you're going this route, note that there will be quite a bit of cold, turkeyish water in your future. As soon as you can, pry the legs and wings loose so that the cold (it will be very cold and it HAS to be cold, for food safety purposes) water can contact all areas of the bird. Filling the body cavity with water that you let ooze down around the neck and bits will help thaw the inside of the bird so that the neck and stuff will (eventually) come out with a certain amount of yanking, twisting, and swearing. Remember, nothing says Thanksgiving Eve like having your hand up a dead bird's ass trying to assist same in birthing a partially frozen neck and some giblets.
During the thawing process, we consulted the Joy of Cooking for how long the bird would need to be in the oven because I thought that "five pounds an hour" sounded wrong. It was wrong. Joy of Cooking says "three pounds an hour" for stuffed turkey at 325. We adjusted dinner from noon to one of the clock on the grounds that nobody wanted to get up and stuff a bird at 4:30 AM, which would have otherwise been necessary. My people eat Thanksgiving at midday. (I blame cows for this.)
I overslept on Thanksgiving morning and San called the house to wake me up so that I could get over there and stuff the bird. Apparently setting the alarm on 'music' does not work nearly as well as setting the alarm on "annoying electric sheep bleats". My bad, there. I stuffed the bird, both ends. We put the bird in the oven. I fixed up eclairs for the people who were up and then I went home and fixed the fire and snoozed in front of it for a while.
After a shower and some cleaning up, I rolled back over to San's with the extra chairs and we settled down to the serious business of conversation until the bird got done. The bird went well. The stuffing (in the bird) was really good (Of course it was because I made it, but still. It's one of those things that looks unpromising at the outset and most of the deliciousity is installed over time and far from prying eyes so you can't TELL that it will be awesome or lame until it is far too late to do anything about the situation. You don't get any control after you put it in the bird. There are no mid-course corrections with stuffing. I always worry about the stuffing. It's always fine. I am a dork.) and was all eaten up by the time dinner was over. I have leftover outside the bird stuffing, which I brought home, but the in-the-bird kind disappeared like an onion snow. San, who does not like stuffing, had two helpings.
The gravy was quite good and received compliments plus also people ate a lot of it. I love having two cups of drippings to work with. I do. It was beautiful and brown and rich and ... damn. I love making gravy from a roast turkey. I do. I also remembered to skim off most of the fat before embarking on the gravy journey and I premixed my whitewash so that it was specially nonlumpy. There was (of course) extra gravy, about three cups. I split that with San (who requested gravy, so it probably didn't suck) and the gravy was dealt with. I'll be putting my leftover gravy on my leftover out-of-the-bird stuffing, natch. I didn't take any turkey meat home b/c I don't especially like it and others there do. I took the carcass home and made it into stock. I could have picked meat off the carcass but I am not going to make turkey soup with the stock so I didn't bother. (I keep the stock and make things like Tasty Dal and Potato-Leek Soup and Lentil Soup and such with it. A roast turkey carcass makes fantastic stock and lots of it. In my world, the turkey carcass is the crown jewel of Thanksgiving leftovers.)
I left the apple pie (half a pie) with SJ (who is keeping Amanda and John and the baby Riley) so that the apple pie can get eaten by people who are not me. John (or possibly Jon, I'm not actually sure) allowed as how it was a very good pie. He had two pieces after a substantial dinner, so probably he wasn't lying. In exchange, I took half a squash pie from San. It's gone now. I do not want to discuss how I can go from "half a pie" at 9 PM last night to "no pie" at 8 AM today.
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Date: 2008-12-02 11:07 am (UTC)Love that line. Good for you for saving Thanksgiving!
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Date: 2008-12-02 12:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-02 04:19 pm (UTC)