Sous-Vide Turkey with Leftovers
Once the Thanksgiving feast is over, the fun continues with leftovers. The downside of not hosting the Thanksgiving feast is the dearth of leftovers, unless you plan ahead, which we did.
For the past couple of years, Howard has been experimenting with sous-vide cooking. For a few years, he used a water immersion circulation that he rigged from old laboratory parts he purchased on eBay, but he recently upgraded to a brand new, more professionally-assembled one. It seemed natural to see what he could do with a turkey.
We don’t have a container big enough to fully immerse a whole turkey, so, the first step was to break the turkey down into parts: breasts, thighs, drumsticks, wings, and miscellaneous bones. The bones went straight into the freezer for stock later this winter. So did one of the breasts, as you can only eat so many leftovers….
With the turkey in multiple pieces, Howard tried a few different preparations.
He brined the deboned breasts and thighs for 22 hours in a classic sugar-salt brine with herbs (sage, thyme, and garlic) and spices (whole allspice, cloves, peppercorns, and coriander seeds) added. Then, he vacuumed sealed the meat (one bag per piece) along with a few tablespoons of duck fat in each bag and cooked in an immersion bath for 4 hours at 140F. To finish for serving, Howard broiled the breast and pan-fried the thighs to crisp up and brown the skin.
Breast and Drumstick Config (Broiled)
The drumsticks and wings were rubbed with salt mixed with sage, rosemary, and thyme and left to air dry in the fridge for 24 hours. These parts were vacuum-sealed in bags with sage, thyme, and garlic and a couple tablespoons of duck fat. To transform into confit, these bags were cooked at 180F for 11 hours. To brown the skin, these were broiled before serving.
Pan-Fried Thighs
To make the most of the turkey, we also made a simple turkey liver pâté from its liver. The cooked liver (which was simmered in water), sauteed onion, and a hard-boiled egg were pulsed in the food processor until almost smooth.
We enjoyed a post-Thanksgiving dinner with turkey served 3 ways (four if you count the pate served as an appetizer) along with our favorite sides (mashed potatoes, chestnut stuffing, and roasted Brussels sprouts).
Lots of leftovers which we’ve so far enjoyed as follows (click on the picture to go to the recipe):
Breakfast: Baked Eggs in Stuffing Cups
Lunch: Turkey Banh Mi
Dinner: Turkey and Noodles with Peanut Sauce
ffwd: herbed olives
What s not to love about olives, pretty much any kind of olive? This week’s recipe for French Fridays with Dorie was a simple little gem, Herbed Olives. The hardest thing is waiting a few days to let the flavors permeate the olives before sampling them.
Our Thanksgiving holiday was a little topsy-turvy. Yesterday, we enjoyed dinner with one set of friends and dessert with another, not necessarily in that order… It was a day filled with good company, good conversation, and good food. A lovely day! Today, we ate our own turkey with the usual fixings so can have leftovers. Howard prepared it in an interesting way, more on that this weekend.
So, back to the olives. This recipe was a good excuse to take a trip to the Middle Eastern markets in Watertown, a town with a large Armenian population. There is a stretch of grocery stores and bakeries filled with Middle Eastern treats. I stopped at Sevan Bakery, where they have an “olive bar” where you can fill a container with whatever varieties you choose. They offered many colors and sizes of plain olives that I could flavor myself.
To flavor the olives, lots of herbs and spices along with orange rind and chili pepper are warmed in extra virgin olive oil to bring out the fragrance. It smelled fantastic! Then the oil is poured over the olives. More oil is added to completely submerge the olives. Then, I let the olives steep for several days.
I served these olives as part of a relish plate along with sweet gherkins and chopped liver pâté made from the turkey’s liver. The olives are a perfect nibble with a glass of wine while finalizing your turkey dinner. They’d be great for a non-holiday dinner as well.
We don’t post the recipes, but you can find it in Dorie Greenspan’s book Around My French Table. To see how the other bloggers made out with their olives, you can follow their links here to read all about it.
A Plateful of Happiness 