Originally posted by Sarah – November 30, 2015, and Jess December 5, 2015
OK, so how many of you are also eating turkey noodle soup tonight? It’s not the most inventive dinner but you get why this is what we are eating. The key to the classic turkey soup is the stock. If you haven’t yet taken advantage of your turkey bones, now is the time!
Stock: Take your turkey carcass and place it into a large stock pot. Fill it with enough cold water to cover it by two inches. Add carrot, celery, and onion, all in a rough chop size. Then tie together parsley stems, bay leaf, and thyme and add that to the pot. Bring the liquid to a boil and back it down to a low simmer. The liquid should not be still, it is a moving liquid but not at a boil. Keep this going for a few hours, skimming the top of the stock every half hour or so. When it’s finished you strain out and discard the solids and you are left with the turkey stock. I used all of mine for the soup tonight but you can also cool it, pour it into containers and freeze it for later use.
Into my crockpot went my stock as well as a leek from the winter share.
Carrots from the share joined the party as well as some celery and two bay leaves. Oh, and don’t forget the chopped up turkey of course! I also add about 2 Tablespoons of tomato paste, the acidity is helpful in the soup base.
About 2 hours in I added a bag of frozen corn that I pulled out of the freezer from this summers crop. Into the pot it went. After a total of about 4 hours I cooked some pasta on the stove and added it to the crock pot. At this point you need to give it a taste and season the soup accordingly.
We served this with sliced apples from the share, a couple of sliced pears, and big hunks of crusty bread for dipping. It was a great bowl of hot soup on a chilly night. So, get that turkey carcass cooking, don’t throw it away! Enjoy.
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Here comes Jess’ post on turkey carcass stock!
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Hooray for the second Winter CSA pickup of the season! Today was also a Poultry Harvest pickup at Springdell Farm and as always I’m very excited to be a part of that. If you have not tried this yet, I encourage you to do so! You can break down your chicken to freeze for later use, freeze it whole, or use it right away and eat for a week! Meanwhile, as you probably recall, I was busy working my way through a 23 1/2 pound turkey last week. One of the things I did was to take the carcass and make a stock for freezing. I filled a 20 quart stock pot about halfway full before adding the turkey carcass, along with some leek greens, coarsely chopped carrots, onion, a block of parsley (frozen from Parsleyfest), and the herbs I had left on the counter from Fakesgiving (some sage, rosemary and thyme). I let it simmer on the stove off and on overnight, scraping the “scum” off the surface every couple of hours or so. If you fill the pot only half full, a carcass this big will stick out of the water at first, but the longer you simmer, the carcass breaks down and all fits into the water without issue.
The stock was then run through a fine mesh sieve and measured into 1 cup containers, very similarly to how I freeze chicken stock. I exhausted my supply of small containers (20-ish cups) and used the rest of the stock to make a soup.
My five year-old woke up with a little bit of a sore throat when I was making the soup, so if there was ever a perfect time to be waking up with a sore throat, this was it! I tossed in some turkey, farfalle, and carrots. (I would have added more but my son is still leery of greenery of any kind in his soup.)
It’s not too much to look at, but tastes like liquid Thanksgiving!
Tonight, we are enjoying a Bean Sprout Omelette. I’m breaking down my chickens to freeze for later use, and will be spending the rest of the evening making Sally’s Raspberry Almond Thumbprint Cookies for a cookie swap tomorrow. Until then, sweet and savory dreams!