Thanksgiving in a Tube

Turkey and mushroom sausage recipe. Make it as meatballs for your next holiday buffet.

November is in the air yo, and that means it's time to dust of those old copies of Gourmet magazine and find granny's favorite recipe for green bean casserole. But how about something different? Have you ever wondered if you could capture the flavors of Thanksgiving in a sausage? Dude I have. I started imagining everything stuffed in a casing, potatoes, dressing, greens, gravy...My mom suggested dried cranberries, but why not sauce Ma? Thanksgiving is THE All-American holiday and what's more American than using a little innovation to cram dinner into a neat easy to eat tube? While I didn't manage to get the entire meal into one sausage, I think I have come up with something that works. Let's take a look at the ingredients.



The Turkey

Don't get me started on turkey. I am a fan of buying from local producer, but in the end I don't care where you get it. Walking to the supermarket to buy your turkey (take a wagon) counts as buying local. The magic of a meal should happen in the kitchen not where you fork over the money. Try to find one that is not frozen, there may be still time to order one from the meat counter, ask. If you buy a frozen one allow a week for it to thaw in the fridge, quick thawing a turkey really effects the texture and moisture, try to avoid that. Oops, I got started.

For this sausage recipe I used a whole turkey, I got 5.75 pounds of ground meat from a 11.5 pound bird and made stock with the bones. I like using the whole bird beacuse that mix of fat/lean/skin that make for good texture. Besides since I have a meat grinder, I rarely buy anything ground. However I realize you may not want to go to the trouble. I will write the recipe using just a couple of pounds of ground turkey.



Stuffing not filler.

Essential to the Thanksgiving experience is stuffing. I used to get so mad at my brother because he would not eat stuffing, I didn't get it, I could eat stuffing all day long, I wished Thanksgiving was everyday so I could eat stuffing. How could he not like the magical combination of bread, sausage and herbs? For this recipe I knew I didn't want fuss with bread, and I already making sausage, so to get the flavor and texture of stuffing I turned to an old French standard, Mushroom Duxelles. I know what your thinking, and no, using a French recipe does not make this sausage any less American. Remember the French helped us with a thing called the Revolution, and Ben Franklin, booster and friend to the turkey, loved to party in Paris.

Mushroom Duxelles was the first thing I cooked in culinary school. As it was with 25 students cooking on 12 stoves, we didn't get much of an explanation of what we were doing or why, we were told chop, cook, don't burn. In the end everything was scraped into a large hotel pan, it was one of those forest/tree deals, I was so worried about getting rapped on the knuckles with a wooden spoon that I worked quickly sweating every detail and did not know what I was supposed to do with the end product. Our next lesson was de-boning poussins (tiny chickens). We then stuffed the birds with the Duxelles and roasted them. After tasting, a light went on: Ah, the essential flavor of stuffing. The recipe for Duxelles is centuries old, so I wont be trampling on anybody's copyright if I give it to you. While I can't give its exact origin, some say named after the town of Uxel other say named after La Varenne's boss, I can say it was a method of saving and preserving mushrooms that were going bad. For this recipe I used regular white mushrooms which are fine, you could use wild mushrooms for more fanciful flavor, but since the buttons where on sale I couldn't pass them up.



The Herbs.

Sage, rosemary and thyme and you got Thanksgiving. It pains me to recommend that you buy fresh sprigs packed in plastic for two and a half bucks a pop, but fresh sometimes makes a big difference. Dried Sage has little resemblance to fresh you gotta find it, rosemary I have never used dried so I couldn't say, but thyme you can get away with using dried in certain circumstances, such as stocks and sausages. However we need fresh thyme for the sauce later so you might as well bite the bullet. Better yet if you don't have one, think about starting an herb garden. Not now, in the Spring. Sage grows easily, thyme like a weed, but rosemary is a little fussy. If you are interested about growing and cooking with herbs check out The Herbfarm Cookbook, by Jerry Traunfeld, it's a great book.



You'll also need some fresh parsley. Chop up the leaf for the recipe and save the stems for making stock (or broth if you live in the D.C. area and are unsure of the difference. Hint: Bones=stock, meat=broth).


Cranberries

Of all the gifts the Pilgrims received on that first Thanksgiving the greatest one was the cranberry. When I first started thinking about this project, I definitely wanted cranberry sauce inside the Thanksgiving sausage. I started with the recipe on the side of the cranberry package, 1 cup water 1 cup of sugar boil and strain, I tired a few experiments. I got great color, but all I could taste was the sweet and the syurp was effecting the texture. I tried less sugar, citrus, vinegar, but things got worse. Finally I realized that I should let the cranberry sauce be just caranberry sauce. I took of my dotted sausage making hat and popped on my saucier touque to find the right sauce.



I didn't want to get to crazy with a sauce but cranberries needed a little punch. That thought back to my Advance sauces class and remembered the great combo of red wine, shallot and thyme.



I softened the shallot then added the wine and thyme and reduced to dry. I added the berries water and sugar and boiled.







I ran the mixture through a stainer to get a nice smooth sauce. Here are the quantities

15g/ 1 T Butter
20g/ heaping T Shallot, minced
60ml/2oz/ 1/4c Red wine
2 Sprigs fresh thyme

225g/8oz/ 1 cup of water
170g/6oz Sugar
Zest from 1 lemon
340g/12oz/1 package cranberries, sorted and rinsed.
Salt, cayenne pepper

Heat medium sauce pan add butter and soften shallot. Add wine and thyme reduce au sec. Add water stir in sugar, sprinkle lemon zest and bring to a boil. Add cranberries cook until soft, 10 minutes. Push through metal strainer with a rubber spatula or wooden spoon. Salt TT. Also for a little more zip try stirring in a little cayenne.



Mushroom Duxelles

15g/ 1 T Butter
20g/ heaping T Shallot, minced
1 clove garlic minced
225g/8oz Mushrooms, cleaned, chopped fine.
1 T parsley, chopped fine

Heat large sauté pan add butter and soften shallot and garlic.
Add chopped mushrooms stir and cook until dry, 10 minutes.
Stir in parsley, Salt and pepper TT, set aside.

Yield 145g.

Time to set the table with some Thanksgiving Sausage.

900g/2 lb Turkey ground
14g/2tsp Salt
5g/1tsp (heaping) Black pepper
4g/2tsp Fennel (nice if toasted in dry skillet)
4g/2tsp Coriander seed (toast with the fennel)
2g/1tsp Brown mustard seed
3g/1tsp Ground ginger
8 leaves fresh sage chopped
1g/1T fresh thyme
1g/1T fresh rosemary
2 juniper berries
1 Duxelles recipe

120g/4 oz/ 1/2cup ice water
15ml/1 T cider vinegar

Put the salt and spices and herbs together in a spice mill and pulverize. Using either stand mixer with paddle attachment or a wooden spoon with a big arm, gently but thoroughly mix herb/spice mixture into ground turkey, then toss in mushroom duxelles, then stream in water and vinegar.

You can stuff the into casings for the hip sausage look or you can:



make meatballs (about 35 1oz portions) for the Office party



make mini bugers (AKA Sliders)



Or the ultimate in comfort food, the Thanskgiving pie.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving and have fun cooking.

Cheers.

More Turkey Tips for Mr. McGee

In response to the recent post, Please Mr. McGee Don't Drown my Turkey, Kit from Santa Cruz sent in the following PSA:



Thanks for sending that in, Chris, it reminds me of the good times we spent parked in front of the TV on Saturday mornings.

Oh yeah, don't down your food! True thirty years ago, true today.

Cheers.

Please Mr. McGee, Don’t Drown my Turkey.

It’s getting to turkey time when the media outlets churn out the usual fodder regarding the best prep for your holiday bird. I try not to use this forum to throw stones at articles that promotes practices with which I don't agree; however I am temporarily suspending my editorial policy to comment on an unusual stinker.

I really enjoy the Curious Cook column penned by Harold McGee. His book, On food and Cooking, sits between my Larousse and my dictionary. It is an important reference book that is cited again and again in modern cookbooks when a writer wants to put science in the culinary arts. But this week…oh I can’t even…

In “Miracle Cure or Just Salt Water,” published in yesterday’s New York Times, McGee stakes out a position against brining. He balances this argument on a couple of wobbly points, but I think the true purpose these straw men is to prop up his notion of how turkey should be served: Swimming in sauce. Yeah, he says you shouldn’t brine because you can’t make a decent gravy, “its drippings become too salty to use.”

Is the holiday called Thanksgravy? Gravy Day?

No it’s about the bird, and the bird should come first. You can make gravy out of anything. How about some chicken stock, a thickening agent, and some of the pan drippings? Brining a turkey at home is a very rewarding process especially it you are going to be cooking your tom in a grill or a smoker. What are the benefits? McGee lists them in the article and also on page 155 of his book.

One of the benefits of brining is it provides some latitude in finishing temperature and meat texture. You can cook the breast to 165F and still have a wonderful white meat AND properly cooked dark meat. But McGee sticks to his gravy. In place of briny latitude he proposes that you slice the breast meat thinly and “coat the meat thoroughly” with sauce. Again, the bird plays second fiddle.

McGee writes that his saucy approach “takes its inspiration from the world of barbecue and its ways of dealing with well-cooked meat. In particular, pulled pork.” Oh no, please don’t tell me you bathe your pulled pork too. Not only is it wrong to hold BBQ in sauce but I found out it’s illegal. I contacted Jim Ellison, proprietor of the blog CMH Gourmand, and a producer of Columbus Foodcast. He also happens to be a Barbeque Judge certified by the Kansas City Barbeque Society. Jim referred me to the KCBS rules which states pooled sauce is grounds for disqualification in competition.

My point here is that to cover something with sauce means that you are covering up something. Don’t get me wrong I am all for ketchup on my French fries, and I have over a kilo of German mustard (thanks Liisa and Karhu) on hand, but sauce is a supporting actor, its roll is to enhance the meal. At the end of the article McGee makes the same point, that his approach enhances the meat. I think there is a line (and not a really fine one) between enhancing and dominating, and saucing meat like this crosses the line.

Thanks Harold McGee for giving me a reason to rant, and by the way, I love your book.

Click Here for MAC’s tips for a Perfect Turkey .

And Click here for my article on Genuine Authentic Barbeque .

Cheers.

MAC's Holiday Turkey Tips

So you're bootin around the web looking for Turkey Tips? Well you found the right place. I am not going to give some fancy pants preparation, just straight talk so that you can keep cool during a time when it feels like all heck is about to break loose.

1. Plan ahead.

The name of the game is preparation, play it right and the only thing you'll have to do on T-day is drink a beer and watch the smoke curl off the barbecue (okay maybe there's a few things to do). Start out by getting a Turkey. What you don't have one yet? Go now go go go. Most turkeys you'll find at the store are going to be frozen and they take several days to thaw. 24 hours for every 4-5 pounds of meat, says this month's Gourmet magazine. Placing an order for a bird (about a month ahead, too late now) is always a good idea, supermarkets usually provide this service and you can request that they thaw it for you. In the past, I have ordered Kosher turkeys which can save you some prep time (I'll talk about that in a moment). You can also snoop around to find locally produced turkeys. For second year in a row, we ordered our turkey from the Dickmans. They have a farm down by Kankakee were they pasture raise poultry.

2. Selection.

Think small. Don't worry about leftovers, pick the smallest bird that will feed your crew. We cooked an 11 pound turkey recently that fed 6 adults and 2 children and still had half a bird left. I think you should be able to serve 8-10 with a 12 pounder. A smaller size is easier to handle, and cooks quicker. Maybe right now you are thinking, jeeze that's small, I don't wanna run out of meat; I get the same feeling every time ("It's not enough food!"), relax, let's chant together: Pick the small guy, pick the small guy. It works.

3. Cure yer bird.

You don't need fancy pants seasonings, you don't need a flavor injector, I don't have a turkey baster, I don't own a basting brush. Here's my secret ingredient: Salt. A brine cure changes the flavor of the meat in magical ways. It's juicer too. Both Best Recipe by Cook's Illustrated and Charcuterie by Michael Ruhlman have good discussions on brining, but here is what I did: Dissolve 225 grams (1 cup) of Kosher salt per 4 liters ( 1 gallon) of water, make enough to cover the turkey. I used maybe 8 liters for my 11 pound pullet, make sure you use a non-reactive container: Stainless steel, glass or plastic. Put a weight on it to submerge. Let it soak in the fridge for 18 hours. Be careful on the time, leave it too long and it can get too salty. Some brine recipes call for sugar, it doesn't do much for me and I think it causes the skin to brown (read blacken) quicker. You don't have a bucket that big? Here are two alternatives: Order a Kosher turkey, they are already salted, most supermarkets can get you one. Do a salt rub, the November 2006 of Cook's Illustrated from has a salt rub recipe, I never tried it, but Novak did and he was happy with the results.

3. Give it a rest.

After the briny soak let your tom dry in the fridge uncovered for 12 hours. This will give the brine in the bird time to balance and the skin a better chance for crisping during cooking. Before resting, truss the turkey. Towards the end of the 12 hours brush the skin with some olive oil.

4. Let's take it outside.

Nothing finer than smoked turkey, my weapon of choice is the Weber Smokey Mountain, but you can use a kettle grill, gas, whatever. The important thing is to create indirect heat and a hood temp of 350F. You skoff? yeah I said 350, I wanna have my turkey sometime today and the skin will be crispy and it will have plenty of smoky flavor. Before putting it on, brush it again with some olive oil, if you have a thermometer that you can leave in while cooking, stick that in, and start cooking. Plan for three hours, check it every once in a while, make sure one side isn't cooking faster than the other, but try not to peek too often. When the internal temp reads 165F pull it off and let it rest. If you can't do it outside, cook it in a 350F oven, maybe stick some fresh herbs in the cavity like rosemary, thyme, parsley, bay leaf and some peeled cloves of garlic. I haven't cooked a turkey in an oven in a long time, but that sounds good.

5. Carving.

Unless it is chiseled in stone on the dining room wall, don't carve the turkey at the table, put the whole bird on a platter, present it to your guests, then take it back to the kitchen for the wet work. Pick out a long, thin, sharp knife and cut up one side at a time. Remove the leg and thigh together at the thigh joint then find the then remove the wing at the joint. Now the easy part: Remove the whole breast from the side you are working on. Start by making a longitudinal cut along the breast bone then work the knife along the ribs so that you have one big boneless piece of meat. Now can cut straight across the boneless breast for 3/4 inch thick slices. I think the pros call em cutlets. Cut up the thight meat serve the drum whole. Serve the turkey warm, enjoy the company.

To Review: Get it, thaw it, cure it, dry it, cook it, cut it, serve it. What could be easier?

Here is a sample thanksgiving menu:

Brine cured smoked turkey

Cornbread mushroom stuffing

Mashed potatoes with roasted parsnips

Sauteed Swiss Chard with garlic and red pepper flakes

Giblet gravy

Cranberry sauce

Pumpkin Pie

Please don't make yourself crazy with the holiday, good food is important but taking time to be with friends and family is what really matters. if the turkey burns, make spaghetti.

Cheers.