Turkey Carcass Soup

     This is a soup that I make just two or three times a year and I have been waiting to blog its preparation since this blog's inception.  Our family celebrates many holidays, Easter being one, with a roasted turkey, and turkey is a comfort food that offers numerous taste treats for days following the event.  I love turkey ala king, turkey sandwiches, and most of all, turkey soup.  Reading this blog entry will teach you how to wow your friends with the best turkey soup they have ever tasted.  The best flavors for a soup broth are hidden in the turkey's carcass bones.  In this short segment you are going to see how I release them into an unbelievable broth.  In most soups, the broth offers a salty medium to help you enjoy some noodles and veggies.  This is not the case with carcass soup, with carcass soup the broth is the treat.  We still enjoy the veggies and noodles in my turkey soup, but they become a tool who's purpose is to transport the lush broth to our mouth.

      I am starting this blog entry on Easter Sunday morning, and we celebrate Easter with a Thanksgiving-like feast.  My challenge today, will be to stay sober enough to make a great soup stock, which I will finish off on Monday night.  You'll be amazed how easy it is to make this great soup, but I'll warn you now that it does take time.  Two days are required to make this soup, so plan ahead.  On day one, I like to break out some beer, turn on the TV, and wander back and forth from the living room to the kitchen as the flavors grow.  Day two is rather fast, but I do manage to squeeze in a beer.  I make my soup with noodles, but as always, feel free to make your soup with rice or different vegetables.  You had better like your soup better than mine, or you haven't learned a thing from this blog.

     Ingredients-

Turkey Carcass

2 Yellow Onions

4 Stalks of Celery 

1 Cup of Baby Carrots

1 Clove of Garlic

Dried Parsley  

Water

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Kosher Salt

Black Pepper

1 Can Jellied Cranberries (Optional)

Wow! Is that a simple list or what? But it takes time.....

     Make it-

     Open a nice beer, wash your hands, and get a huge pot with a cover.  I start with a carcass that has had stuffing in it, the flavors are crazy good.  When the stuffing is gone and most of the meat is stripped off the carcass it looks like garbage.  This garbage will make fantastic soup!  Break the carcass up into parts so it will fit into the pot, and try to cover it with water.  Add a little kosher salt and black pepper, but you won't need much, especially if you're working with a carcass that had been stuffed.  Cover the pot with a tilted lid so the water won't boil and the steam returns to the pot.

     That's it for a few hours!  Go watch TV, drink, and shoot the shit.  Now that's comfort food.  After three hours or so, the carcass will be falling apart.  Shut the heat off and let it cool a bit before pouring the mix though a fine strainer.  Cover the strained broth and chill it over night in a refrigerator. Next, take the carcass pieces and separate (pull off) the good meat from the carcass, including the tasty dark meats.  This is a messy task, but well worth the effort.  Place the separated meat into a sealed container and store in the refrigerator over night as well.  I didn't bother to show this messy part, but common sense will guide you.

     The next day, remove the broth from the refrigerator.  Thanks to boiling the bones and all, you'll find that the grease has moved to the top of the container and the broth has jelled at the bottom.  This separation makes it a snap to scrape the grease off the top, leaving a wonderfully flavored broth that is much lower in fat.  No worries, all the flavor is there.  Now, put the broth on the stove and add the meat back.  Add a healthy tablespoon of dried parsley and turn up the heat to medium.

     As I said before, "This soup takes time, but it's so worth it!"

     Next, chop the celery, carrots, and onions.  Toss them in a pan with a bit of extra virgin olive oil, kosher salt, and black pepper.  Simmer them a bit before adding a bit of minced garlic. Continue to simmer the veggies until they are almost soft.  When they are ready, toss them into the broth. bring the broth to a full boil, then reduce the heat to a gentle boil for a half hour.  

     Add the noodles to the soup, as cooking in the broth gives them wonderful flavor.  Turn the heat off shortly before the noodles are fully cooked, as they will continue to cook after the heat is off.  If you don't do this, then the noodles might get mushy.  If you're using rice, sauté the rice with the veggies, as you would for pilaf, then add everything to the soup.  A quick fry of the rice always adds a great carmelized flavor to it.

     Finally, I love to serve this flavorful soup with a slab of jelled cranberry right in the center.  Try it and you won't be disappointed!  It's sooo good. If you hate cranberry, then you can skip it.

Utica Greens

     This post is dedicated to Jane, a great friend of mine that lives in Colorado.  While in Central New York, Jane had this local dish and she wanted to know how it's made.  As with any local cuisine, everyone makes Utica Greens a bit different, but they all share a few common traits.  Utica Greens are a combination of escarole, onions, peppers, prosciutto , cheese and breadcrumbs.  I don't often make greens, so I'm  sure a number of locals would criticize mine as being less than authentic.  We have other local favorites that I have a better mastery of, such as Chicken Reggies.  I'll share my take on Chicken Reggies in the coming weeks, and trust me you'll love them! 

     Most Utica Greens use only escarole but I like spinach better.  In this posting I used both spinach and escarole, the combination had good results.  Another break with tradition was my use of bacon rather than prosciutto.  I like the salty taste and crunchy texture of bacon with the soft greens, but most people do use prosciutto.  Using both might be a great option too.  Please remember that you're using my blog as guidelines only.  Make your greens the way you like them.  Look at the number of hot peppers I'm using, obviously I like my greens hot.  In fact, I'm not really big on spinach or escarole, so I use a lots of meat, peppers and onions.  You don't have to make it that way if your big on the green in greens.

     

     Ingredients-

Escarole 

Spinach 

1/2 pound Prosciutto or Bacon

1 Red Onion 

1 Red Sweet Bell Pepper 

6 Cherry Hot Peppers 

Sliced Mushrooms 

4 Garlic Cloves

1/4 pound Butter

1 1/2 cup Romano Cheese grated

3/4 cup Mozzarella Cheese grated

1 1/2 cup Italian Bread Crumbs

1 cup Red Wine

Extra Virgin Olive Oil 

Kosher Salt

Black Pepper

Worcester Sauce

     Let's make them.

     I made these greens to go with lunch so it was a bit early to have a beer.  That said, use your own judgment.  I start by chopping the meat into small bits.  Next, I clean and chop the onions and peppers.  Clean the mushrooms and chop them also if they are too large.  The garlic is minced, as is usually the case.

     I use a deep electric skillet quite often, and this time is no different.  It works great later on when we are adding the spinach as the spinach takes up a great deal of space until it cooks down.  First, sauté the meat over medium heat until it's crispy.  Remove and drain the meat leaving a tablespoon or so in the pan.  Add all the peppers, onions and mushrooms.  Top it with butter, kosher salt and black pepper.  No garlic yet.  Sauté over medium heat folding the vegetables occasionally.

     While that's cooking I start the escarole.  Escarole can be a bitter green, so I add a generous amount of kosher salt and a bit of sugar to a large pot of water that will be used to cook it.  Set the heat to high and get that pot boiling.  This is a very dirty vegetable that requires lots of care in the sink.  Cut the bottom off and rinse each leaf carefully as the dirt is always present well into the upper part of the leaves.  After that, I give it a course chopping and toss it into the pot. Cook the escarole until it is fork tender.

     When the onions and peppers are almost soft, add the garlic, wine and Italian seasonings.  Reduce the heat a bit and simmer to reduce the wine.  Taste for seasoning as you go.  After the wine is reduced significantly add spinach and watch it shrink as you fold it into the hot vegetables.  I used a whole large bag, but I could have used even more.

     As that cooked I drained the escarole and it too went into the skillet.  I add a bit of Worcester sauce now and make a final check on the salt and pepper.  As it all cooks a lot of moisture gathers in the pan. You can drain it off if it looks excessive, but the next step will mop lots of it up.  How dry do you like your greens? That will determine how much, if any, moisture you want to remove.

     Reduce the heat to low before you add about a cup of Romano cheese and a cup of bread crumbs.  Incorporate these by folding them into the mix.  Now I put the greens into a shallow casserole which I top with 1/2 cup of romano, then 3/4 cup of mozzarella, and finally 1/2 cup of breadcrumbs.  Bake it at 375 until the cheeses melt.  Let it set for a bit before serving.  Greens are a great side dish to almost any meal.  In the Rome-Utica area we often see greens served on steak and chicken sandwiches and in the sandwich wraps.  If you haven't had one, trust me you're missing something.