Lemon Rosemary Roasted Turkey with Gravy

I think I'm this close to perfecting the roast turkey for the holidays.

I've been a big fan of the lemon-rosemary flavor combo for a long, long time, but never used it with turkey until this past Thanskgiving. I was inspired by the Trib's Good Eats Thanksgiving story, where super thin slices of lemon and whole rosemary sprigs are tucked under the skin. I hadn't yet bundled up the rosemary and that was a great way to use a lot at once. This approach didn't work out so hot as written. The flavor was great, but the lemon slices heated differently than the rest of the bird, scorching the skin above, giving this gross polka-dot effect.

My brother, who was my partner on this dish, has some great rosemary bushes at his place, so I took that idea and improvised. We also added a brining step at his suggestion. I hadn't had great luck with that before, but we had time and I figured it certainly couldn't hurt. He picked out a 17 lb bird for our group of 10 adults and 3 young kids.

The night before, I took the basic brine recipe:
1 cup kosher salt
1 cup sugar
1 gallon water

Bring to a boil for five minutes and then completely cool.

And tweaked it for seasoning and volume to:

1.5 cup kosher salt
1.5 cup sugar
zest and juice of a three (3) lemons
small handful of fresh minced rosemary (a few tablespoons)
small handful of peppercorns
and
6 quarts of water.

We then brought this to a boil to supersaturate the solution and then let it cool completely outside (This is so you don't essentially poach the bird). We were able to fit the bird in a small (disinfected) Igloo cooler, cover it with the brine, set it out on the 35F porch (I would have added a bag of ice if it had been warmer outside) and covered the whole thing. Easy enough.

The next morning (Christmas Day), I softened two sticks of butter and mashed in another couple of tablespoons of minced rosemary and lemon zest and a few pinches of kosher salt. I rinsed off the bird, patted it dry, and rubbed the butter under and over the skin. I then cut a lemon and an onion in eights and crammed them into the cavity with a few more sprigs of rosemary. A quick truss and we were ready to cook

Due to oven space, we used the grill, by simply putting the roasting pan on the grate. My brother manned the grill while I worked on the sides in the kitchen. He did have a bit of a problem keeping the temperature steady. I found that the only way around that is to practice with your grill to find the right setting, unfortunately. The only problem is basting. Once you open the grill lid, you lose all of the heat and you have to start again. The oven has pretty much the same problem, but it's less extreme in the variances. I think it's Alton Brown who says that you shouldn't baste at all, in favor of the constant temperature. Not that I like him that much (okay, not at all), but it's a vote in my favor. We did run out of gas, so we finished it in the oven for the last 20 minutes.

The end result was really quite nice. The breast skin blackened a bit, which made me realize I'd forgotten to warn my brother to tent the the breast with foil for the first hour (which evens out the colorization). But it was still quite tasty.

The meat was moist enough that it really did not need gravy, but I decided to give it a quick shot, since the pressure was off. I've never been really comfortable with gravy, as it always seems to be a rush job, by definition, and risky. I deglazed the roasting pan with a bit of chicken stock, whisked in some flour, cooked that into a nice roux and then added stock and white wine to get to the right volume and viscousity.. The drippings from the brine and seasoned butter were just salty enough, but not too much.

So, in the end, there was no magic trick. Just carefully working through the basics and working with a consistant flavor mix paid off.

Turkey Spinach Meatloaf

I found this recipe for Turkey Spinach Meatloaf many years ago in the Houston Chronicle. Prior to this, the only time I ever had Turkey Meatloaf was when we would visit my grandmother in Abilene, Texas.

For a number of years, we went to visit her for a week every summer, to give my parents a much needed break from us. I have to say, in spite of her age and the fact that it was, well, Abilene, she did a really good job of keeping us entertained. The only serious bout of boredom I recall was during the election of Pope John Paul I as we had to stay at her place for several days on end waiting for that damned white smoke. Thank God there was a seven hour time difference, so that by the time the cardinals would pack it in for the day, we'd still have the afternoon to get out.

Back then (the mid-to-late seventies), getting ground turkey wasn't as easy, so she was dependent on the whims of the local butcher. It seems she had about a 50% to 75%success rate getting it at the time of our visits - missing out on it just enough that it was a special treat. Her recipe was essentially a poultry oriented version of the basic beef loaf. She had a great touch with the seasonings on that.

So, when I spotted this one, I jumped on it, already being primed for the concept. Of course, it's very, very different. But very tasty. The basil really comes through, which was particularly useful this week, seeing as how I had to finish up the mountains I bought from Restaurant Depot.

This batch didn't work out as well as it had in the past. The flavor is fine, but it falls apart too easily. There are two basic reasons, I think.

First, I doubled the recipe and used two square cake pans. My second loaf pan is in a box somewhere down in the basement. Second, I went the almost completely fat free route, using 99% lean ground turkey breast and egg substitute, so I think there wasn't as much binding action going on. It usually cooks a lot longer for me that it did, as the loaf pans are twice as deep, which I think may give the egg proteins more time to firm up, like a custard.

Writing this makes me think that someday, I need to try to recreate hers. I can still remember the taste, so it may be doable.

Roasted Turkey & "Gravy"

I had grand plans to follow Alton Brown's guide for the perfect turkey this year. Printed in Gourmet a few years back, it's written exactly as he talks, like it's a transcript or something. The big problem is you realize just how little information there is and how difficult it is to tease out any of it when you need it. Oh, and I think he's really annoying on television, anyway, so reading this article excruciating for me*.

An example of the lack of information? There's absolutely no place where he gives an estimate of how long the cooking time would be. While I appreciate going by temperature only, not telling that info really makes planning meal time difficult.

Fine. I had the intent to brine it until I realized how much of the solution I'd have to make to put the bird in the cooler (many gallons). Screw it. It didn't seem to help last time anyway. Oh, and he doesn't actually have a recipe for the brine. You have to pick it out of the verbiage and it's still missing the point that you have to boil and cool the solution before you soak the bird.

So, I basically used the Roasted Chicken method on this larger bird. I grabbed a fresh 20 pounder at Jewel, so I didn't have to worry about thawing. I would have preferred a more natural bird from Whole Foods. But I happened to spot the chosen victim while on a regular shopping trip and saw that I could save myself an easily 3 hour ordeal.

They were out of sage at Jewel, so I mixed a holiday rub I picked up at Whole Foods into 1.5 sticks of butter. This was rubbed over and under the skin. I also threw a few sprigs of fresh rosemary and thyme, 2 small quartered onions a several smashed cloves of garlic into the cavity and then trussed it up (with twine - the legs were too big for the skin trick).

The only time crunch I faced was getting things out of the oven in time to put in the turkey. Then I remembered my trick from a few years ago - the grill. For the second time, stress just melted away.

The hardest part was regulating the temperature with the grill flame. I did use the Brown trick for browning the turkey:

• Start the turkey @ 500F and roast for 30 minutes.
• At that point, cover the breast with a foil shield and reduce the temp to 350F until done.
  

Easy enough. I found that High on my grill stays at an even 500F and you have to drop all the way down to Low to maintain 350F. This is, of course, dependent on the outside temp, which was about 35F that day. I didn't baste as I didn't want to lose heat.

I was surprised at how fast this cooked. We hit 165F within about 2.5 hours, when I expected about 4. It came out just right, though, so I think I finally got the thermometer right (granted, the thigh on the turkey is a much bigger target). Though it was ready a good few hours before dinner, it held a lot of its heat. I carved in the kitchen and added a touch of heat from the microwave before serving.

There was a downside to the amount of butter, though. I had nothing, I mean nothing, to make gravy with. Just a ton of cooked butter. Yuck. So, at the last minute, I whipped together a wicked veloute sauce. You have no idea how cool it is to be able to say that. It was flawless on the first try.

* Strangely, though, I really like his cookbooks. They have a lot of the science of cooking explained well. But on TV, I find him, well, patronizing, I guess.

(Turkey) Chili

When I was a kid, every year at Halloween, my mom would make us chili for dinner before we went trick-or-treating. If I remember right, it was to keep us warm on the cold October nights. But it was Texas, for God's sake. Right now, as I type this at 12:30 in the morning, it's 66F down there. It was always an agonizingly slow dinner because I just want to go run out and get the good stuff. It was really good chili, though. I appreciated it a lot more the other times she served it, when I didn't feel I was missing out on prime candy-gathering time.

In the spirit of the holiday, I decided to whip some up. I threw this recipe together from a few I found at the International Chili Society, memory of previous cookups and a few things I found in my spice collection. This works great with turkey, but should be good with beef as well. Tonight's batch was virtually fat free. If you go with beef, I would recommend adding up to another pound, to account for the loss of volume from the fat when browning and draining the meat before adding in the rest of the ingredients. A longer simmer time may be needed to tenderize the beef more.

TURKEY CHILI

2 pounds ground turkey breast
29 oz can tomato sauce
3 cups water
2 tablespoons masa flour
1 medium yellow onion, diced
1 tablespoon dried oregeno
1 tablespoon fresh sweet basil, chopped
1/2 tablespoon dried epazote
1/2 tablespoon dried jalepeno
3 tablespoons chili powder
1 tablespoon ground cumin

Brown ground (turkey) meat until cooked through. Mix masa flour with 2 cups warm water into a smooth paste. Stir into chili to tighten it and add flavor. Add remaining ingredients and simmer for 1 hour. Add water if needed during simmer.

This used up the last of the summer basil crop here. This worked out really well - I'm very pleased with the results.

One thing I've noticed - up here in Chicago, they don't sell ground beef for chili. I know, big surprise, but it never occurred to me how regional that was until I looked for it last year.

I remember my mom mentioned several times that she read one chili cookoff champion claimed his secret was to use several different sizes of meat: regular grind (i.e. hamburger), chili grind (much larger) and stew chunks. His theory was that every judge had a preference for the cut size of meat and, this way, he satisified them all. The turkey kind of naturally ends up giving several sizes of meat chunks, by the way it binds during cooking. You have to really break it up in the browning to get that consistent hamburger texture, but if you dial it back...