Second Thanksgiving

I think virtually everyone who knows me knows that I love turkey, I love roasting turkey, and I love feasting on the resulting carcass, especially the dark meat. So when I made plans to travel upstate for my mother’s Thanksgiving, naturally I anticipated a big ol’ turkey with all the trimmings — oh, and hanging out and relaxing with my family, of course.

Then, a few days before the big event, I called to remind Ma to brine the turkey. She responded, “How should I brine the turkey breast we’re having?”

Dead silence. Turkey BREAST? No drumsticks? No wings? No skin? No interesting turkey parts at all?

Well, that sealed it. The week after Thanksgiving, I worked from home one day and cooked up Second Thanksgiving, complete with a 16-pound fresh turkey (picked up for a mere 39 cents per pound, thankyouverymuch)!

I have to show off the bird first, followed by the brining technique I used:

Succulent would aptly describe this bird, and my dining companion, who helped with everything except the turkey, would agree.

The brine was created Monday evening, so the bird had 36 hours to soak up the spicy, salty goodness prior to roasting. I took a 5-gallon pot for the big bird, and mixed together a gallon of warm water, 125g table salt (I’m trying to use this up), 125g kosher salt — about a half-pound total — and about a half pound of regular sugar until the solids dissolved. I added to this solution the following:

3 tablespoons black peppercorns
1 cinnamon stick
1 tablespoon caraway seeds
2 tablespoons allspice “berries”
4 star anise
3 onions, quartered and chucked in
2 oranges, quartered, with the juice squeezed in separately a bit
4 tablespoons honey
3 bay leaves

This brine is a variation on Nigella Lawson’s brine, which has yet to fail me in four tries.

Add the turkey, minus the neck and giblets (yes, I couldn’t find the giblet bag until prior to roasting), top up with cold water until the whole turkey is underwater, and stick in the fridge until roasting day.

Day-of, take out the turkey and let it come to room temperature. Do a reasonable job of removing all the little peppercorns and allspice and so forth from the turkey and its cavity. Mix three tablespoons melted butter with 3 tablespoons maple syrup for the glaze. Brush this on prior to putting the bird in a 425-degree oven for 30 minutes to start the skin on its way to golden-brown goodness. Reglaze as you reset the temperature to 350 degrees, and watch the bird over the next 2 1/2 hours or so, in my 16-pound case, reglazing every half-hour or so. You can, and should, use a meat thermometer and wait till the thickest part gets to 158-160 degrees. Take the turkey out of the oven and let it rest without carving.

But carve it I did, stopping to eat a bit of the skin along the way. So good, with a little sweetness from the syrup, a lot of deliciousness from the thin fat layer still clinging to the underside… just so incredible. The point of carving, of course, is to constantly take little chunks of meat before anyone else gets it, too.

Breast carving is an art form, even if I started getting antsy and dispatched with the “even slices of breast” method early on. Juice was running out at every slice, so I think I did pretty well. This was a moist turkey. I cleaned off the carcass really well, ultimately, and stock will be forthcoming.

The stock will be amazing in part because I kept the juices that dripped out during roasting. I have to say, the flavor in this pre-stock was disgustingly excellent. It was all I could do not to start sopping it up with bread.

Meantime, my dining companion commandeered the stove, creating the giblet gravy…

Plated thusly in the only use for the gravy boat that came with the rest of my plates. This was wonderful gravy, and piping hot, it really accentuated the turkey, especially the white meat.

Large amounts of stuffing were baked, using 1 1/2 loaves of bread, celery, a package of breakfast sausage, and a big can of chicken broth. I would have objected to the quantity, except…

… holy moly, this was, and is, tasty, spicy stuffing. While mom added sausage to her Stove Top at home this year (finally!), boxed stuffing does not compare to homemade.

Fresh mushrooms from the produce aisle. Not for me, but cooked in butter, they were plenty tasty, I was told.

My creamed spinach was an interesting undertaking, in that I made far too little bechamel (equal tablespoons butter and flour) so that when I added the appropriate amount of heavy cream to the partially-frozen package of spinach (fresh spinach? Are you kidding?), there just wasn’t enough cream sauce. So I added butter, added cream… added butter…

Et voilá, something approaching a creamed spinach dish. Tinted a bit more green than I’d like, but it’s creamed spinach, and it tasted good.

One and a half pounds of mashed Yukon golds, skins on (though I picked out a lot of them and ate them prior to plating), with a half-cup of full-fat sour cream, four tablespoons butter, and maybe a third of a cup of milk — use more or less depending on how thick or thin you like your mashed potatoes — mixed in after mashing. I left salt and pepper up to the eater, after an initial half-teaspoon or so of salt was added. These were a little creamier than I normally make, but they were well-received and I happily consumed mine.

My first plate, with the typical bit-of-everything method to Thanksgiving eating. It turned out that everything went well together, so many forkfuls consisted of a little of each dish. I concentrated on dark meat, with a slice of breast underneath but well-gravied.

My dinner companion went much the same route, with the obvious exception being the mushrooms, and a focus on white meat for this dish.

After my first plate was finished with authority, it was time to revel in the true meaning of a whole turkey at Thanksgiving: eating with your hands. If I do say so myself, this was a brilliant drumstick.

And yes, that is indeed egg nog in my cup.

Even if you managed to have a beautiful Thanksgiving spread away from home, I highly recommend repeating it before Christmas for the sheer sense of accomplishment. It’s not terribly time-intensive, especially with a second person, and the leftovers — if you no longer feel the need to eat everything immediately — have so far fed me twice for lunch and three times for dinner, with a couple more meals left, and they’re still so delicious. Holiday feasts without leftovers just aren’t the same.

Second Thanksgiving should be a holiday, too. Who’s with me?