Turning straw into gold, or, hey, there’s meat in there!

Here, chez BLC, the joke with gro­cery shop­ping is to be extra care­ful with the bag with the eggs.  “Hey, be care­ful, there’s eggs in there!” is the invari­able cau­tion.  Which makes every other “be care­ful” warn­ing turn into “hey, there’s eggs in there.”  Yep.  One line, one trick ponies.

So when I was con­tem­plat­ing the turkey car­cass and other left­overs and uncooked veg­eta­bles in my pantry, and think­ing, shit, I really need to do some­thing with that car­cass before it goes bad, because starv­ing chil­dren in Africa don’t really like turkey, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let all that meat go to waste, the title post ocurred to me.  “Hey, there’s meat in there!  Be care­ful, don’t just throw that stuff out.”

Here’s the ingre­di­ents I had left.  A bit of white wine, some heavy cream, but­ter, baby car­rots, onions, and a half pound of rus­set pota­toes.  I thought to myself, self?  Get off the couch and cook some­thing.  And post it before Christ­mas, so those of your read­ers mak­ing turkey again have some idea of what NOT to cook.  Actu­ally, no, I flat­tered myself.  I needed the ego pat to keep going.

This was a two day process, about an hour and a half on the turkey stock/meat removal end, then twenty min­utes to assem­ble the casse­role and another half hour to bake the next day.

I started with a well-seasoned cooked turkey car­cass– breast/back plus the wings and the half-carved drum­sticks.  We are not pick it up with your hands type eaters at my house.  By well sea­soned, I mean this.  A la the meat dry brin­ing god­dess Judy Rodgers of Zuni Cafe, I rubbed my bird 24 hours before with some salt, pep­per, chopped fresh thyme and rose­mary, and lemon zest, along with less than a table­spoon of canola oil, to enable the smear­ing of turkey.  Then stick it back in a plas­tic bag in the fridge until you’re ready to roast it.

So– roasted, carved turkey.  Meat.  Lots of it.  Though it doesn’t look like it, right now.  Trust me, though, there is.  Now, I’m not going to ask you to hand-pick the meat off the bones, because turkeys are kind of greasy and gross to han­dle too much.  No, instead, we will do it in a way that means we get a nice, thick, fla­vor­ful stock.  We’re going to steam the car­cass then pick off the meat with highly tech­ni­cal meat-removal gad­gets.  But I’m get­ting ahead of myself.  So.  First.  Meat.

This con­sists of one breast/back carcass:

And some leg­gage and wingage:

Trust me.  There’s meat in there.  Now, you may be say­ing, “BLC, that back/breast car­cass thingy is too big for my pot.  What do I do?”  Easy.  Cut the sucker in half with your large, handy-dandy, Better-Half chas­ing knife.  No.  Just kid­ding.  I just wave it in a threat­en­ing man­ner, I don’t really chase him.  Run­ning with knives is dan­ger­ous, after all, and there might be eggs in there, some­where.  So… any­way.  Cut the car­cass in half, or get all Lind­say Wag­ner on the turkey’s ass and snap the back­bone.  Trust me.  It’s good for get­ting out the hol­i­day aggres­sions.  See, voila:

Okay.  Meat prepa­ra­tions are done.  Now, the stock base.  I had left­over baby car­rots and lots of raw onions.  I used up my cel­ery.  If you have some, you can use it.  I’m not stop­ping you.  Saute those pup­pies in a table­spoon of but­ter, or more, and some salt and pep­per.  See?

Then, add some of those left­over fresh herbs in those over­priced plas­tic pack­ets they sell at the market.

Then, though it is a rare occa­sion at our house, I had some left­over white wine.  Shock­ing, I know.

I dumped this in the pot with the veg­gies and herbs, then filled the bot­tle with water and dumped that in the pot, too.  See?  If you don’t have wine, you could use ver­mouth or sherry or just plan water, but don’t use more than what’s in that bot­tle above, in any event.

Next, you plunk in the meat, but not too plunky, because then the wine gets all over your clothes and on the top of the oven you still haven’t cleaned off since Thanks­giv­ing.  Wait, did I say you?  No.  I meant me.

But first, you should add some bay leaves, salt, and pep­per.  Here’s an artsy shot I took to give you an idea of how much.

Oooh.  Morn­ing sun­light and bay leaves.  Oooh.  So, yeah.  Meat plunkage.

Plunki­fi­ca­tion com­plete, shove the lid on.  Press it down until the ribs on the breast car­cass crunch a bit if it’s stub­born.  Like this.

And now a word from our not-sponsor.  In the bot­tom right cor­ner there is my new Ver­mont Coun­try Store Irish Flan­nel bathrobe.  Love.It.

So then, set the heat to low, and set it for this long, all the while ignor­ing how gross my stove back­splash is.

Okay.  Break­fast time.  A lit­tle of this:

Six dol­lar gra­nola.  I KNOW.  But it’s worth it.  Add a lit­tle to this:

Yeah.  10% milk­fat.  I KNOW.  But they’re my thighs, not yours.

On your way out of the kitchen, pat the very cute butt of a lit­tle of this:

Then retire for forty five min­utes for a lit­tle of this:

Yes.  I am a slob.  But the BH got me a GPS sys­tem for Christ­mas, so I’m a happy slob.  While blog­ging and eat­ing break­fast, do not look into the din­ing room, because you will then be forced to ignore this:

I have actu­ally cleaned it up since then.  Sort of.

So.  Your timer gets up and you run to the kitchen, dodg­ing the shoes piled all over the place, eager to see what’s hap­pened.  Mmm.  Steamed meat.

And… look at all that fla­vor­ful look­ing juice at the bot­tom, that came from the roasted meat and skin and has a won­der­ful body from the bones in the liquid.

Okay.  Here’s the highly tech­ni­cal part.  Pull the breast/back parts of the car­cass out and put them on a counter or cut­ting board.

Then, using two highly tech­ni­cal meat removal devices, i.e., forks (I KNOW!!!),  peel the skin off and then scrape off every bit of meat you see.  When you’re done, you’ll have some­thing like this.

That’s a lot of meat, right?  See? I told you.  But wait… there’s more!  We still have our dark meat to attend to.

You’re going to do the same thing to the thigh and wing meat, again using tech­ni­cal meat removal devices.  You should also pick out the herb sprigs now.

Okay, I did get fancy with the tongs to hold on to one end of the bones, but that’s because I’m a sissy and hate get­ting my hands greasy.  I could have just held the bones with one hand and then scraped the skin and meat with the other.  I set aside the skin at this point, and I also watch out for the dreaded YTT.  What are YTT, you ask?

Yucky turkey ten­dons, friends.  The ones that always make their way into the soup and then some­how stab you in the throat.  Yuck.

Now, if you wanted to make soup at this point, here’s what you’d have:

You could taste the stock and sea­son as needed, but I think you’ll find it won’t need any­thing.  If you want to make soup now (and really, you could, I won’t be hurt if you stop read­ing after this para­graph), I’d add another cup of water, and then a half cup of what­ever rice or pasta or wild rice you want, and cook over low until the starch is cooked.

If, how­ever, you have pre­ten­sions of potato casse­role good­ness, because you have cream and some left­over gravy in the fridge, then you do this.  Take all the meat and veg out of the pot, stick it in a con­tainer, and put it in the fridge, because I’ll be darned if I’m mak­ing meat stock AND a casse­role in one swell foop.

Then, ladle all those lovely juices into a fat sep­a­ra­tor or mea­sur­ing cup and let it set­tle 10–20 min­utes for the fat to sep­a­rate out.

Goo on top?  Fat.  If you have a sep­a­ra­tor, just pour it into a con­tainer and toss the fat left.  If you have a mea­sur­ing cup, scoop the fat out with a spoon.  Then put the con­tainer in the fridge.

Okay.  Phew.  Breather.  Time for a joke.  Why did the cow­boy buy a dac­shshund?  Because he wanted to get a long lit­tle doggy! (Blame the BH for that one.) (And my apolo­gies to long­time read­ers, but really, it’s the only joke that I know.)

Okay.  A day later, I’ve recov­ered from mak­ing stock, and I’m ready to use up pota­toes.  Three, to be exact.  Here’s all my ingredients:

Pota­toes, cream, but­ter, stock and turkey & vegs, and a con­tainer of left­over gravy.  Wait, no, the gravy went mouldy.  Toss it.  Then weep a few bit­ter tears and get on with your life.  For­tify your­self, and remem­ber, there is rarely left­over wine chez BLC.  Why?  Because I drink while I’m cook­ing.  Very relax­ing, if hell on my man­i­cure with the drunken chop­ping and all.

Wash your pota­toes and cut off the ends.  I don’t bother peel­ing, because 1) I buy organic, and 2) it’s where all the vit­a­mins and min­er­als are.  But­ter your casse­role gen­er­ously, and leave the big gob of but­ter in there.  But­ter loves you, it just wants to help you.  Let it.

So, slic­ing pota­toes.  You can do it by hand, with a knife.  The slices should look like this:

Or, if you own a fancy-pants Japan­ese $25.00 plas­tic man­do­line from Kitchen Etc. (oh, how I miss thee!), you can slice it on the thick set­ting, like this…

… yield­ing slices that look like this.  Hand cut slice on the left, for comparison.

Layer your casse­role with potato slices, and say hello to your friends, Mon­sieur Sel and Madame Paprika, i.e., Salt and Pep­per for the non-Blue’s Clues groupies.

Sea­son your pota­toes.  They will love you for it.  Lay­ers of fla­vor, peo­ple.  It’s what we’re going for.

Reward your­self for mak­ing a layer of fla­vor.  Remem­ber.  No left­over wine.  It’s a sin, you know.

Strew one half of the turkey fill­ing over the potato layer, then cover the turkey with more potatoes.

See?  Pota­toes, bestrewn with lay­ers o’ fla­vor.  Repeat after me.

Add the rest of the turkey over the sec­ond layer of pota­toes.  Then, dump in your stock and the left­over cream, once again mourn­ing the untimely demise of that gravy, which you had plans for, god­damnit, you were going to add it to the casse­role for more mois­ture goodness.

Top that sucker off with what­ever left­over slices of potato you have left.  Pre­sen­ta­tion is less impor­tant than taste, but this looks kind of pretty in a brown, leftover-ish way, doesn’t it?

Pop into a 350F over for thirty min­utes or so, and remove.  Look, gold­eny turkey left­over goodness.

You have now turned straw into gold.  And learned to be care­ful, because “Hey!  There’s meat in there.”

Serve with some­thing green, because it’s scurvy sea­son, for pete’s sake.