Thanksgiving Tuesday To Dos And Carcass Use Too

It's 2 days before the big feast so there are things you need to get done.

If you are using a frozen turkey it should be thawing in the fridge today. You want it fully thawed by the time you start working with it.

If you are using fresh bread for the stuffing you want to cube it up and have it out on trays to dry today. That way it will become more integrated when it cooks as opposed to it being more like separate chunks. If you like it chunky wait until Thursday to cube it.

If you have time today make cranberry sauce. It will keep great in the fridge for a couple of days. You can also make any pies that require baking and freeze them prior to baking. Then thaw them and bake on Thursday.

If you feel the need to peal root veggies like beets and potatoes ahead you can, but they would need to be stored in water baths until use. I wouldn't do that myself, but if you must.

Carcass use.

After dinner take as much of the meat off of the turkey carcass as you can and the put it in a big pot with some carrots, onions and celery that are in big chunks. Use the outer skin of the onion because there is a lot of flavor there. Add maybe 1 tsp of salt and the same of black pepper and turn the heat on high and cover.

For Soup:

If your plan is soup you want to keep a medium boil going for an hour or two. This will act to separate the soup broth from the fat over time. Once the broth has cooked 2 hours remove the carcass and veggies and allow it to cool until the fat comes to the top. Skim the fat off. Now you have soup broth. You can add leftover turkey,veggies and noodles or whatever you wish.

For stock:

If your plan is to make stock you want to bring the pot to a boil and then turn down immediately to low and let it simmer for 3-4 hours. This will allow the fat to integrate into the stock and create a dense, meaty stock. After at least 3 hours remove all of the carcass and veggies and continue to reduce until your stock has reduced another 10-20%. You want to wait until towards the end to salt and pepper a lot because the flavors are going to intensify over time.

For storage, allow the stock to cool and ladle into freezer bags that you can label and date. You can make soup from stock, but not the other way around. This stock heated to boiling for a while will release the fat and allow for straining later if you wish.

Our menu:

We have finalized our feast for Thursday. We will be having roasted winter squash filled with homemade dressing and dressed with mushroom gravy. For sides we will have steamed Yukons tossed with caramelized onions and some baked sweet potato fries.

For dessert we will have dark chocolate and red wine.

Have a great Thanksgiving.

Be very well and more soon....