463085 Fri Nov 23 11:31:02 -0800 2007 2 31 Home Cooking 0 3149396 Allstonian and I started the pre-holiday prep work early Wednesday afternoon by trekking into Government Center to pick up the heritage turkey we'd ordered from Stillman's Farm. When she'd placed the order back in the late summer, Allstonian had told Aidan that we wanted the smallest possible turkey we could get, since this year it was just going to be the two of us for Thanksgiving. So when we got there to pick up our bird, Aidan's wife Kate Stillman handed us a Royal Palm turkey that, as Allstonian put it to her sister later, was slightly larger than a capon. (Later that afternoon, our digital scale claimed it about seven and three-quarters pounds, though that could well have been underweight because we were just weighing it on the scale itself, without putting it into a large bowl or something to center the weight. Well under 10 pounds for sure.) We were so enthused about the idea of getting a heritage breed from our CSA that we hadn't actually thought to ask how much it cost. It turned out that it cost, erm, a lot. Let's just say that it cost just over twice the total bill of everything else we bought for the meal and leave it at that. Or we'll just say that on the B line coming back home from Government Center, I said, "This turkey had better be awesome." Awesome was not the word that came to mind when we took it out of the bag. "Ew" was rather more to the point. Both of us being used to broad-breasted whites in terms of what turkeys look like, this bird looked undeniably scrawny, with disproportionately huge wings and legs. The fact that Royal Palms are black and white meant that there were black marks all over the skin, and because it was a freshly killed bird, it was a case study in what true-crime aficionados would term "morbid lividity": it just looked kinda bruised and floppy and very much like what it was, a dead bird that had very recently been alive. (Seriously, if you're one of those folks who finds it icky to think too hard about where your meat comes from, heritage turkeys are not for you.) It looked even worse after the brining. Now, I know that there are a lot of anti-briners on this board, but when I read most of the complaints about brined turkeys, it's clear to me that the problem is that they've done it wrong: "rubbery," "processed," "over-salted" turkey happens when you brine the bird too long at too high a salt solution, thereby creating, basically, corned turkey. Which is nasty, yes, but it's also not what a properly-brined bird is like at all. So I created my standard turkey brine, adapted from Alton Brown's. For this small bird, I went with three quarts of liquid (half water, half vegetable broth), a cup and a half of kosher salt, a half cup of brown sugar and a few cloves, allspice berries, peppercorns and yellow mustard seeds cracked in a mortar and pestle, heated until the salt dissolved and then cooled instantly with about six cups of ice cubes. The bird went into the stockpot with the brine and more ice cubes were added, until the stockpot was full. This (fitted with the lid, weighted down with a gallon of unpasteurized apple cider) went into the mudroom at 3 in the afternoon, and came out at 7 p.m. After rinsing the bird and settling it onto its rack in the roasting pan, it now not only was scraggly and bruised and pockmarked, it was mottled brown from the brine. Into the fridge it went, regardless, for a roughly 18-hour air-dry. In the meantime, we knocked out the three pies for dessert: pecan, pumpkin and, in a nod to my Texas heritage, buttermilk. (Yes, three pies for two people. The pumpkin and pecan are quite small, and we'll have leftovers of all three for the next week or so.) We also peeled, cut and prepped the yellow turnip, Brussels sprouts, green beans and sweet potatoes for sides, and I made a small cornbread for the dressing and Allstonian made the traditional family cranberry sauce, which is actually a recipe that a friend of ours gives on his weekly college radio show every year on the Friday before Thanksgiving. Honestly, it felt kind of weird getting up on Thanksgiving morning and not having anything to do for several hours. We hung around the living room listening to our fellow CH regular Joanie do her weekly DJ set (Joanie: I'm the one who didn't want to hear "Whole Wide World" -- yes, it's his best song, but it's the only one you ever hear!) and watched the Macy's parade, until around noon when Allstonian went into the kitchen to prepare her stuffing for the turkey. (Yes, stuffing. See, when you don't destroy the turkey by over-brining it, it's not too salty to stuff!) A basic New England-style bread stuffing with onions and celery and herbs, it went into both cavities, after which I mopped the bird down with a little oil and popped it into a 400-degree oven. Two hours or so later, my cornbread dressing (with sausage, pecans and dried cherries) was made up and put into a baking dish. (It's that Boston-meets-Texas thing again: Allstonian stuffs the turkey with a white bread stuffing, I make a cornbread dressing, we get the best of both worlds.) That, the green beans, and the sprouts went into the oven as soon as the turkey came out. And the turkey was a thing of beauty, the very essence of what one expects to see in a stuffed and roasted Thanksgiving turkey. It was so gorgeous I took photos: if I remember the password to my Flickr account, I'll post them. As the turnip simmered and the sweet potatoes (which had been sent through the slicing blade of the Cuisinart) braised on the stovetop with two tablespoons each of cream and butter over low heat in a covered pan, we let the turkey rest, at least one of us hanging out in the dining room at all times to swat away the cats leaping onto the table. Then Allstonian carved the turkey (using the method written up in the New York Times, which we'd heard mentioned on the Bryant Park Project that morning) while I took the roasting pan back into the kitchen to build the gravy. (Yes, gravy: see the parenthetical aside concerning stuffing, above.) There were about three tablespoons of turkey fat in the pan, so I added an equal amount of flour and built a roux with the pan situated over two burners set on low. When the roux was a shade or two darker than peanut butter, I poured in a quarter-cup of white vermouth and started to deglaze with a whisk, adding a ladleful of stock at a time, stirring it in until smooth and stopping when the gravy was exactly the right consistency. The turnips and sweet potatoes mashed, the roasted veg and dressing out of the oven (along with the yeast rolls, which I'd bought on Saturday night at the wild game supper in Bradford VT) and the turkey de-stuffed and carved, I ran upstairs to jump quickly in the shower and change clothes and then we sat down to probably the best Thanksgiving dinner I have ever made. The turkey, as nervous as we'd been about its looks and as much as I'd balked at the price, was a revelation. While I'm not sure I'm willing to drop that kind of cash on a heritage turkey every year, I here to tell you: believe the hype. This was turkey that tasted like turkey, beautifully moist even in the breast and tender even in the most sinewy parts of the legs. It was, no contest, not only the best turkey I'd ever made, it was the best I'd ever eaten. The rest of the meal was equally perfect, and ironically, the only thing on the table that was overly salty was my cornbread dressing, which hadn't come anywhere near the brined turkey. The only reason I was disappointed about it just being the two of us this year was that I felt bad that none of our friends and family could partake in the feast! Fri Nov 23 11:31:02 -0800 2007 17548 BarmyFotheringayPhipps 1 3149471 Sounds like a wonderful meal :) Fri Nov 23 12:05:24 -0800 2007 3149396 138472 maplesugar 1 3149706 That was a great post. Thanks! Fri Nov 23 14:10:33 -0800 2007 3149396 77061 bear