Greetings All,
So, Thanksgiving 2010 has come and gone, and I hope all 2 of you regular readers out there had a wonderful and culinarily successful holiday. For me, I decided to go out on a limb and deviate from my tried and true, perfect EVERY TIME turkey recipe and rather than roast by bird in the oven, I decided to break out the Weber Genesis and give it a whirl on there. Bolstered by my past successes with Prime Rib, Pork Tenderloins, and other big ass chunks of mammal, I thought it a great idea to try it with some avian fare for a change. After pondering it for a few days, I thought I had a good plan; stick with my usual turkey routine and just put it on the grill instead of in the oven. So, at 10:00 am on Thanksgiving, I pulled the grill out of the garage, gave her a good once over with the wire brush and started her up. She got nice and hot, I threw the bird and the giblets on the grill, backed it off to medium heat, and smugly went inside relishing in my culinary brilliance. I began crafting my gravy, preparing it for the neck and giblets lovingly roasting on the grill, added the wine to simmer and decided to go grab the gravy goodies from the grill.
Never in my life would I have ever imagined an ENTIRE 25 pound turkey.... ON FIRE....... Yup, the whole damn thing looked like a torch from an Indiana Jones movie. Luckily, having just removed it from the brine not 20 minutes before, I still had my bucketful of brine near the grill, so I quickly dunked it into the salty water and heard a satisfying hiss as my turkey stopped trying to roast itself. Realizing my error through my bourbon induced haze (not always smart to start drinking when you get up on a holiday simply because you CAN), I left the center burner on (a no no when roasting on the grill) and also neglected to put foil under the bird (another no no with high fat items). So I corrected my mistakes, turned the center burner off and got me some foil. I somehow managed to get the turkey out of the brine without looking at it, and was pleasantly surprised to see that the bird was not in the least bit black; the super salty brine lifted almost all the carbon from skin of the bird, just like I pushed the factory reset button in the turkey's cavity. So, I began anew with the grill set correctly and some foil to catch the excess fat, and life was once again on track. I had my doubts the first hour or so of roasting, but glad I had the fortitude to stay the course, as the bird turned out more beautifully than ever before, and was easily the best one I have EVER made. The meat was a little bit smokey, well seasoned from the brine, and very juicy. SO, should you decide to do your turkey on the grill, remember a little foil will save your ass, and not to get it too hot... I kept mine steadily between 300 and 350 degrees, and the 25 lb bird took about 3.5 hours to cook thoroughly, basting every 30 minutes with my usual garlic oil.
My second adventure for the holiday was to deviate from the standard pan-dripping gravy that everyone does for the holidays, since I didn't have a pan in which to catch said drippings with my bird being on the grill and all. SO, I decided to scrounge around and see what I had laying around the house and come up with something from that. I had about 10 shallots, a 2 year old bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau, some beef stock and some chicken stock, as well as the grilled neck and giblets from the turkey. So, I decided with these ingredients I was going to make a masterpiece. I peeled my shallots and tossed them whole in the oven with a little oil, made a sauce base with a little garlic and 2 cups of the wine, and started a nice reduction while the shallots roasted. Once golden brown and sweet, I chopped up the shallots and tossed them in the reduction along with the neck and giblets, and let it simmer for another hour. On a whim, I tossed in a few leaves of fresh savory from the herb garden, thickened it up, and mounted with with 4 tablespoons of butter (it was a big batch of sauce) and seasoned it up with salt and pepper.
The sauce was AMAZING! It had a nice toasty sweet flavor balanced nicely with full body of the wine and concentrated stock, accentuated by the smoothness of the butter that was stirred in at the end. The sauce went perfectly with the turkey, playing off of the smokiness and garlic of the turkey just enough to make your taste buds sing. OK, I lose a man card for that description, but it was awesome nonetheless.
Since it was a sauce on a whim, I didn't really write anything down, but I will estimate below as well as I can. Post up if you have specific questions. Oh, and if you like what you read and cook, please follow my blog, as there will be much more to come!
Roasted Shallot - Red Wine Sauce
2 Tablespoons Fresh Garlic, chopped
1 Tbsp Olive Oil
2 cups Beaujolais Nouveau wine (or any red wine you like)
4 cups Chicken Stock
4 cups Beef Stock
1 Tbsp Chicken Base or Bouillon
Turkey neck and giblets
10 shallots, whole roasted then rough chopped (medium to large size pieces)
10 leaves of fresh Savory, chopped
2 Tbsp whole butter (used for mounting the sauce after thickening)
Basically for this recipe I just went by gut. I sauteed the garlic a bit, then added the wine. Added the neck and giblets. Reduced the wine by one half (half the wine was left), added the stock, reduced by half again. I stirred in the bouillon, and let it simmer. After about 45 minutes, I added the shallots and savory and let it cook for another 45 minutes to 1 hour. I brought the sauce back to a boil, thickened it with corn starch and water, and let it cook another 15 minutes to let the cornstarch cook. I shut it off and let it cool for about 10 minutes, then stirred the butter into the warm sauce. The butter should melt slowly as you stir, which adds richness to the sauce. Once the butter is melted and stirred in, the sauce is ready to serve.
