December 2013

Christmas cooking 2013

I can really recommend Pioneer Woman’s turkey brine, two-step roasting process, and turkey gravy.

Ree says she uses a 20 pound turkey — that’s huge. The biggest turkey I could find was about 3 1/2 kilograms, call it 10 pounds. It fed seven of us, with enough meat left over to make turkey stroganoff (strongly recommended recipe) while leaving the drumsticks for whoever wants to gnaw on them.

The “10 minutes per pound” rule of thumb is only linear around 20 pounds, I guess, because at the end of the 100 minutes my turkey was already clocking 160 degrees. Maybe the thermostat is off.  So I cranked the oven down a bit while boiling the gammon, and the little red jobbie popped up pretty much when I needed the oven for Yorkshire Pudding. Which isn’t a pudding but the brits have strange names for things. Came out pretty well.

This is the only pic I have — it got a bit busy in the kitchen.

Gammon: 1.8 kilograms, browned, covered 3/4 with water, 20 minutes / lb, then stuck in the oven to brown. Nothing funny.

I had some complaints about the gravy. Well, one complaint. There wasn’t nearly enough of it. What I did was to Maillard an onion in the slow cooker for an hour or so, then I added the giblets and water and cooked it overnight. Used the pan drippings, some flour, and the stock to make the gravy. Unlike Pioneer Woman I didn’t add the giblets to the gravy, all the flavour was in the stock already.