Turkey Carcass Soup

Throw all your turkey and chicken soup recipes away.... I've found the one! Actually, I've always known about the soup I am now calling "the one." My mom makes it religiously and I've made it once before myself. I must not have followed it exactly and thrown a bunch of other crap in it because I am not remembering it with the passion I felt after tasting last week's batch.

This is the soup I'll always turn to when I want to use up my homemade stock, in the days after Thanksgiving, or when a sick friend needs some comfort.

And here's how I know it's "the one": My husband who does not relish soups the way I do usually eats about 3/4 a bowl of any soup served and then moves on to the rest of the meal. But with Turkey Carcass Soup, he and I were actually fighting over who got the one remaining bowl. I suppose we could have split, but I caved in.

Last week, I pulled our two turkey carcasses from Thanksgiving out of the freezer and went to town, re-creating the recipe from Jane Brody's "Good Food Book."

It's a multi-step process. First you make stock, then you make soup. I recomend dedicating a weekend to the event. It's an event after all. Stock on Saturday, soup on Sunday. Voila, dinner is served. It makes for a perfect Sunday wind-down to the weekend. If only I could bring back the Sunday Disney movies and Mutual of Omaha's Animal Kingdom companion to the "soup and grilled cheese nights" of my childhood.

As Brody suggests, my mom gets her carcasses from her friends who have no interest in using them beyond their initial purpose. She also saves the chicken wing parts she clips off. Her friend Marty is one of her best carcass suppliers from what I hear.

The stock is proof positive that homemade is the way to go. You can stop right here and just make stock, or you can take it to the next level and follow Brody's recipe for Turkey Carcass Soup. It's full of good for you barley and earthy vegetables such as mushrooms and carrots.

This is one recipe that my mother hasn't really adapted, though you could substitute brown rice, or even white rice and switch out some vegetables. Though I wouldn't recommend leaving out the mushrooms. They make the pot. And here in the Northwest, we are privy to loads of fresh and local mushrooms that add a much richer flavor than plain old white button shrooms. I used porcini this go around.

For the cookbook, I'll also keep Brody's recipe intact for the family members. But I did take some good notes and have a few shortcuts that I think one would be wise to follow. Like the teensy amount of leek used in the stock? I'm recommending that one use use the remaining leek in the soup. Another modification is that I recommend sauteing the onions, garlic, leek, celery and carrots in olive oil before adding the stock. I think that brings out more flavor.

We're sadly all out of our post-Thanksgiving batch. But my mom still has a quart left in her third freezer. She's lamenting that she gave too many quarts away this year. I'm fairly certain she doubles or triples the recipe because we certainly didn't have enough to share. But it's a wonderful thing to share.

Turkey Day Menu

• Cranberry Goat Cheese Spread
  with crackers
• Spiced Pecans
• Cheese Crackers
  not Lainey's recipe I'll use in the cookbook, but a close second, because I have the dough on hand
  
• 2 Herb-Rubbed Turkeys
  on 2 grills one gas, one charcoal, oh and brined overnight...
• Garlic Mashed Potatoes
  not an ounce of butter is used in the making of these french style pomme de terres
• Gege's Thanksgiving Onions
• Giblet Gravy
• Rummed Yams
  from my friend Liz, the most amazing yam side dish ever
• Cranberry Sauce
  also serving canned cranberry gel--I love that shit
• Pumpkin Pie
  w/ homemade whip cream, of course

The in-laws are bringing:

• More starters
• Stuffing
• Green vegetable side dish
• More pies
• Bob's lasagna (it's a tradition the 3 sisters in-law roll their eyes at, but I condone)
• Rolls
• Lots of wine (I friggin hope so)

Oh, I'm also thinking of starting the afternoon off with vodka gimlets--just to get everyone in the mood. But really because I recently read Julie Powell's book (Julie/Julia Project) and I can't stop thinking about them.

My husband's 5 siblings who live in the area and their families are joining us... And I hope my friend Cathy who is flying in from New York to meet up with her Seattle-based beau will stop by for a drink or dessert...and maybe another Seattle holiday orphan when he gets off the air at 6. we'll see.

Believe it or not, I actually wanted to cook more of the menu, being the foodie control freak that I am (thanks mom)... but that's a little too obsessive. Mom did give me a great tip when I mentioned this desire of how she handles the situation of not getting to have everything she wants for Thanksgiving...(especially when other cooks are involved and insist on items such as green bean casserole). She says the week before/after Thanksgiving, she'll cook side dishes that aren't on the menu, so she can get her taste of them. What a great idea...sort of like a slow paced food marathon of your own personal holiday treats. I never knew she did this.

Thanksgiving

Still haven't started on the cookbook yet, my excuse is all the planning for Thanksgiving and installing 8 new windows. Actually, there probably aren't a lot of family T-Day recipes for the cookbook. Everything was pretty standard. I'll add my aunt's onion recipe... oh and perhaps her cheese crackers. I'll have to see if I have that onion recipe in my cookbook folder or if I need to call mom for that. In fact, I still have to dust off that cookbook folder.

My mom and my aunts (Lainey and Gege) were super pros at the holidays. Only they were allowed in the kitchen...and it's still true to this day. They zoom in like caterers, most of the work already finished, the work divided up neatly in advance. By the time we sat down for pie at the end of the night, the kitchen was immaculate. My Uncle Bill, gets kudos for helping out in this respect. He and my mom are obsessed with cleanliness and do a lot of hard work to make their homes spotless...must be the German genes.

We are hosting about 16 for Thanksgiving. After two years with NO TURKEY (criminal) and a Christmas without red meat (really? spaghetti & meatballs is less work than roasting a hunk of meat? really?), we are having 2 turkeys. TWO! One on the charcoal BBQ and one on the gas grill. And the best part is that the oven will be free.

We test drove a turkey coated with a Bobby Flay inspired rub on the Weber kettle a couple of weeks ago. It was divine. We are still eating leftovers: almost a dozen turkey sandwiches, turkey noodle soup, and the freezer is loaded with turkey stock which simmered for 10 hours, and some turkey meat that will go towards burritos later in the month.

I'll post our menu when I finalize it later today...