Turkey carcass soup
“A kitchen condenses the universe.”
–Betty Fussell, My Kitchen Wars, 1999
I’ve been busy but I really haven’t cooked since Thursday. I’ve made many turkey sandwiches, I shopped and packed up my Blogging By Mail package and that was so fun. I also found a great book, The Quotable Feast by Sarah E. Parvis. Its a book of quotations about cooking, eating, drinking, and entertaining. I’ll be adding these quotes to my posts so keep an eye out for them. I purchased and help eat a bag full of cheeseburgers and fries from Culvers. They are the best and sometimes it is exactly what I want. Last night we snacked on assorted chocolate treats from Trader Joe’s. The favorite was the English Toffee and I’ve promised to learn how to make this myself. Hopefully that won’t take all the fun out of it.
On Friday I did make my turkey carcass stock and today I cooked the barley and chopped the veggies. Even with just half a turkey carcass I still had probably 5 quarts of stock. Today I cooked the barley. I always cook the barley separately from the stock, otherwise I won’t have stock, I’ll have barley that has sponged up all the flavorful goodness of my stock. This year, like every other year I cooked too much barley so I packed up and froze half of the stock and 2/3 of the barley. Honestly I can’t stand to eat more than one bowl of turkey soup right now as I am turkey’d out.
I’ll be back to cooking tomorrow.
Turkey Carcass Soup
1 turkey carcass
1 onion
1 stalk celery
1 carrot
large pinch of salt and a few peppercorns
Put all of that into a stockpot and cover with water. Bring it to a boil and lower the heat so it simmers. Let it cook for 2 or 3 hours. Remove from heat, let it cool some and then pour it through a sieve to remove the solids. Refrigerate the stock.
1 carrot, diced
1 stalk celery, diced
1 shallot, diced
1 parsnip, diced
12 mushrooms, diced
1/2 cup frozen peas
1/2 cup white wine
Seasonings
1 cup cooked barley
Chopped turkey
Heat up about a quart of the stock. Add the fresh veggies and the white wine and let them simmer for 10 minutes, then add the peas, barley, turkey, and the seasonings. I think I’ll be using Penzeys’ Mural of Flavor.
4 Responses to “Turkey carcass soup”
1 EH 27 November 2006 @ 11:37 am
Looks delicious!!!
2 Scott at Realepicurean 27 November 2006 @ 2:53 pm
Turkey Carcass sounds good to me. People forget how to make a natural stock nowadays, let alone how to clarify it and turn it into a delicious soup.
3 Gloria 30 November 2006 @ 9:02 pm
I found a wonderful recipe where you roast the carcass until it starts carmelizing, then you do your simmering. Makes for a darker more flavourful stock. My 90+ year old neighbour thinks its some of the best she’s ever had.
4 vanessa 30 November 2006 @ 10:52 pm
Scott, Making homemade stock was something I learned to do in college. I’m not sure I clarify it totally (I don’t make a raft, etc.) but it works for us.
Gloria, I’m up for giving this technique a whirl. I love stories and tips from the older folks and I think it would be a shame not to keep those ideas alive.
Leave a Reply