Making Stock

Stock is the flavorful liquid created from cooking the bones of an animal with aromatic herbs and vegetables in water. It's a basic ingredient in many other dishes, such as soups, stews and sauces.

Here, I'm making a turkey stock with the carcass I deboned in the earlier post, as well as photo from my Thanksgiving stock for the western style example. If I were making a chicken stock, I'd want two carcasses fro the amount of vegetables in these examples.
 

For stocks for European and American cooking the ingredients are usually:

Bones from 1 turkey carcass

2 large onion, peeled and cut in half or quarters

3-4 carrots, washed, trimmed and cut in chunks. If really thick perhaps cut them in half lengthwise too.

4 ribs celery

sprigs of thyme

2-3 bay leaves

10 pepper corns
1/2 cup white wine (optional)

Put all this in a pot. Cover with cold water. heat slowly to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Simmer for 4 hours. Strain out the solids. Chill, remove the fat when chilled. Save the fat, it's useful to cook with where you want some turkey flavor, such as in gravy. Keep the stock refrigerated and the fat too.

The wine is helpful particularly if you're working with a cooked carcass and nice with a raw carcass too.

For Chinese stocks, they change up the aromatics so the ingredients are:

Bones from 1 turkey carcass

2 large onion, peeled and cut in half or quarters

3-4 carrots, washed, trimmed and cut in chunks. If really thick perhaps cut them in half lengthwise too.

4 ribs celery

3-4 cloves garlic, crushed

4 star anise

1 inch chunk of ginger, cut in round slices, like a coin

10 pepper corns
1/2 cup ShaoHsing wine (otpional)

Put all this in a pot. Cover with cold water. heat slowly to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Simmer for 4 hours. Strain out the solids. Chill, remove the fat when chilled. Save the fat, it's useful to cook with where you want some turkey flavor, such as in gravy. Keep the stock refrigerated and the fat too.

Deboning Poultry

This was something new for me. I'd seen it done a time or two and used in various ways but I thought it looked like too much work. But my skills have improved and Turducken is something that has tempted me about this technique, so I read a few links and watched a few videos on that topic to prepare myself for actually deboning a bird myself.

Deboning a turkey is a good static walk through of the concepts. They removed the backbone which is not something everyone does.

From Youtube:

• This video, he disassembles the bird more than I was planning, but he still shows the technique pretty well.

• Turducken video,  I like this one as it shows deboning the thighs and drumsticks while attached which was how I was thinking about doing this. You also get to see the technique as applied to three different birds. 

You need a medium sized sharp knife, 5-7 inches in length. A Boning knife is the specialty knife for this task and the flexible type rather than the stiff one would be my preference. But a utility or petty knife will do the job too. I used a 6 inch petty.   
As I was thinking about using some of the skin as a casing for a stuffed dish, I left the back bone intact to maximize the skin available. In hindsight, removing the backbone simplifies things overall and there's plenty of skin for what I had in mind. 

Start the cuts along the backbone. Cut in, when you contact the bone structure, keep the knife pressed against the bone and cut in shallow strokes against the bone, freeing the meat. Being right handed. I chose to work the right side first.

Soon, you'll encounter the hip joint. Cutting out the backbone eliminates the need to free this joint. Live and learn. Once you've cut around the joint as much as possible, you should be able to pop it free.

Continue following the bone carcass around the bird until you come to where the keel bone is attached to the skin.

Repeat the same steps on the other side of the bird. Now carefully pull and cut along the connection of the keel to the skin. You've deboned most of the bird. Trim off any meaty bits if you have a plan for them as I did. Otherwise, you can leave them on to flavor the stock.

Here, the core skeletal structure is removed and set in the bowl on the left. The legs and wings are still attached with their bones.

I removed the legs and wings.

The Breast intact and trimmed.

And I rolled the breast too, debating how I should cook it. It looks more bird-like rolled.

Then I loosened the skin off the thigh, which was easy to do. Then, I pulled the skin down the drumstick as far as I could. At which point I cut it off. Then proceed as in the videos to debone the legs.  Make a cut along the thigh meat to expose the bone. Then follow the bone, cutting to free the meat. Same for the drumstick. You can see the skin above the leg, which is opened up. Note that the drumstick skin forms a seamless tube.

My plan was to grind the leg meat along with the meat bits from the carcass. Which means removing the tendons in the lower legs. This proved to be a hassle, which I suppose is why its rarely done. You see boneless skinless thighs in stores because it's pretty easy. But you don't see boneless skinless drumsticks because it's hard.   Repeat for the other leg.  


The wings, I trimmed off to maximize skin coverage on the breast meat. I figured they would be too much hassle to debone as well so they went into the stock as is.

I plan to use the ground meat for a potsticker type dumpling and to do something like this with the leg skin and forcemeat.

Holiday Meal 2011

None of this is anything traditional to China though some come closer than others.  Rather it is a meal created from fusing Chinese flavors and techniques with traditional holiday fare in the US.

I didn't want a whole turkey cooked in just one way and so thought about ways to use the turkey throughout the meal that would fit with the concept. This meant using the turkey bones for soup which would be served at the same time as the rest of the turkey. 

Which leads to disassembling the turkey and then using the parts in appropriate ways.  I've never deboned any poultry before but if I can successfully debone one of the legs with the skin intact, I may try my hand a fusion galantine.

Part of planning a chinese meal is cooking food in diversified ways so it can all come together rather than just a series of stir fries from the wok. So I'll have a quick deep fry, something steamed, something stewed, something fresh, a stir fry, and an appetizer.

Red-Cooked Turkey Breast  Turkey is a traditional holiday item in the west and I've seen recipes for things like red-cooked turkey legs. But I have other plans for the legs and I have a whole turkey to use up. Red cooking allows me to cook the breast ahead of time and then reheat it with a deep fry that will crisp the skin as well.

Turkey potstickers  My family loves potstickers and the fattier meat from the legs and wings is better used in a forcemeat than the breast.

Stuffed Rice Cake  Stuffing is a traditional concept though this is more of a dressing since it's not stuffed in the bird. I fused the idea behind Dirty Rice and a Rice Cake.

Simple Slaw A salad is a pleasant contrast to the meal. Sadly in the west we don't see the sorts of things we might call a salad served much in the Chinese restaurants. But they do have some of the same concepts available in the cuisine.

Gai lan  I just like this. It's simple and tasty.

Red Turkey Soup I'm reworking a Peking Duck soup with bok choy

Clay Pot of Five Spice Sweet Potato, Mushrooms Tofu and Chinese Sausage  Sweet potatoes are a common food in China yet I don't think I've ever seen them used in a recipe in a cookbook. They marry well with the sweet spicing of five-spice powder and a clay-pot is a simple way to bring another cooking style to the table. 


Pie, well, my family specified pie for dessert. I was thinking of egg tarts myself, but I lost the vote. Apple Pie it is.