Friday, November 27, 2009

Talking Turkey


turkey
Originally uploaded by Teckelcar
Doesn't that look scrumptious?

I love roasting poultry. The house smells divine and then you get a luscious bird to eat. Once in a great while I'll stuff a chicken, but really it's mostly just a Thanksgiving/turkey kind of thing. The blacken bits of skin are from the onions and lemons I place just beneath. It adds a wonderful flavor to the meat and, when coupled with the butter / margarine/ oil that the bird is basted with, really crisps up the skin.

Now I admit that fact I do not keep a kosher kitchen. I grew up in a Unitarian home and I am a life long member in the cult of butter. But this year I did things a little differently, I made a kosher bird.

Meryl was coming over to our house this year and she invited her mother to come down. Which was perfectly fine with me, the only tricky part was that her mother only eats kosher meat. So Meryl and I decided that she would buy the bird and I would cook it. In the end her mother was unable to come, but we decided to stick with the original plan.

Of course if you get a kosher turkey it behooves you to cook it in a kosher fashion. I had to use parve margarine and change around my normal stuffing. My normal herb seasoned stuffing was off limits so I bought a couple of challahs from a local kosher bakery and made my own bread crumbs. All I had to do was to slice it, dry it in the oven, and crumb it in a food processor. Add some sage and poultry seasoning and it looked and smelled just the same. The final product was a rip roaring sucess.

The bird was fabulous and from what I understand, the koshering process is not that unlike brining. I've been wanting to try that, but the whole wrestling around with a wet raw turkey in a vat of salted water was very unappealing. This was a much better solution.

So yay me! Another sucessful Thanksgiving, now with kosher goodness.

No comments: