That sounds amazing. Your 'stuffing' might need a small binder. Maybe a bit of cooked wild rice, toasted cubed baquette, minced celery, onion, broth. Not as much as traditional 'dressing' with your sausage and cranberry being the bulk of it....just a 'glue'. Just a thought as i do the same with wild mushrooms, lamb sausage, apples/cranberry, and chestnuts as the bulk with just a bit of mixed breads as a binder.
A 'on the table' pre-dinner app? Or a 'social arrival sideboard' appy? : )
Both apps are the fun part for me since the main meal is a tradition now. Glad the soup days are over. A friend, now moved far away, insisted for years on making a pumpkin/squash soup. It was like glue and sweet. I even bought tiny t-cups for serving finally, (should have bought expresso cups, lol) as it was sooo filling. And would get cold trying to sit everyone...
and get thicker, haha. So for the table i do a massaged baby geens, lots of different baby kales and seared radicchio. Whatever i can find. All prepped ahead. Always a bit different. A slice of goat cheese or gorgonzola, pear slice, a couple toasted nuts, maybe soaked dried cranberries, pomegranate. All ready in separate small containers, but stacked in one bowl in the fridge so the 'construction' is quick. Looks pretty on the table at each service on the dinner plate. And can sit and wait at room temp forever it guests are active, social and won't sit, or someone is running a bit late, or the bird isn't done. Always something. A warmed simple dressing, lots of lemon, pom juice, olive oil, spooned over the salad at the table close to settling.
Shopping this morning so not sure what i will find for this year.
Hoping to find baby artichokes. Not the bottled marinated oily ones but the tiny ones, fresh or frozen. DH loves them. I want to quarter and roast them with a parm crust for the salad. Maybe in small ramekins and just set the hot ramekins on the greens to soften them. Yum.

Baby cheese scones with tapenade.

John, that's interesting. I've never de-boned a turkey leg. A stuffed one sounds good, though. Please let us know how it turns out.

Thanks for the stuffing ideas, that is really helpful. I was all "groan, T'giving turkey again" but now I'm getting sort of into this . . .

Easier to debone thighs and stuff them - less tendon/more meat.

Can I sidetrack and with an almost dcarch idea? But you said turkey legs! I am a huge dark meat fan. I know how much I hate the tendons and was looking for an idea of how to get around that. It's really hard to just bite straight into or cut it or anything else with all those tendons. I've linked the way to do it below, from another site. But only if you want. I also have seen it where the leg is sliced opened, tendons removed, stuffed, and then tied back onto the bone too.

Enjoy your meal!

Here is a link that might be useful: remove tendons

Interesting, I ran across a recipe for "turchetta". I'm not sure I want to go to that degree of trouble, but it would be cool.

John, this "stuffing" is used in a rolled pork roast, but I think it would work well with turkey legs and thighs, too.

Filling
1 cup apple cider
1/2 cup cider vinegar
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1 large shallot, peeled, thinly sliced
1 1/2 cups dried apples (packed)
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1 Tbsp grated fresh ginger
1 Tbsp yellow mustard seeds
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Bring all the filling ingredients to simmer in medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Cover, reduce heat to low, and cook until apples are very soft, about 20 minutes. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve, reserving the liquid. Use a rubber spatula to press against the apple mixture in the sieve to extract as much liquid out as possible. Return liquid to saucepan and simmer over medium-high heat until reduced to 1/2 cup, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat, set aside and reserve this liquid for use as a glaze. Pulse apple mixture in food processor, about fifteen 1-second pulses.

Brush the reserved liquid on the meat as it cooks.

Deboned turkey is in a gallon ziplock bag, brining in salted orange juice, which is my quick/lazy way of getting salt, sugar and acid in a brine. Some deboned legs, bought separately, are brining in another ziplock. My refrigerator looks a bit scary. There are four more legs to debone but I'm going to leave them for tomorrow. I used the Pepin deboning method, as turkey is basically a large chicken, and pulled the tendons out with pliers. It was easier than deboning a chicken, because the parts are bigger and easier to grab. Carcass was roasted for an hour and is now in the 7 qt pressure cooker becoming a half gallon of stock, that will be reduced down to two cups later. Time for bed.

Legs deboned. I leave the end knuckles.

Whole turkey deboned. It is a small one.

Nice neat job - I'm impressed! Can't wait to see what you come up with.

Great job! Makes me want to come on over even if it is a bit far from Nashville to you and in such bad weather. Happy Thanksgiving!

Stuffing done. Roasted shiitake, cremini, portobello mushrooms; bacon and sausage; onion and garlic; thyme, parsley, sage; toasted sourdough bread; dried cranberries; roast hazelnut; chicken stock; egg binder; salt, pepper.

That took long than I expected - oof, running a little behind here.

My clear gravy is totally not working out.

All the turkey stuffed and waiting

While stuffing.

Some of the boneless legs are stuffed with blue cheese; various greens including beet greens and arugula; garlic; toasted almonds. Others with the stuffing mentioned previously. The whole boneless turkey was layered with the first stuffing, then finished with the second. The turkey and legs were first brined for about 24 hours.

I air dried the turkey under a fan outside for a few hours - it is about 45F here - so the skin is quite dry. I'm going to brush it with something, not sure what, to darken it up. Probably honey + butter + anchovy paste.

Gravy is just going to be a standard opaque :-( make-ahead gravy but livened up with a bit of truffle.

Have to start working on the mashed potatoes and brussell sprouts. But I need a break, going to sit down with a beer and think about what I might be forgetting.

A friend is bringing a beet salad and an appetizer, another is bringing a side dish, an apply, and lamb to grill - that's the real main dish! - a third is bringing pie. SWBMO has made two pies as well.

One guy owns a tavern, so I hope he brings beer. Another guy is starting a winery, so I hope he brings wine.

We have 15 adults and teenagers, plus two very small kids who will be roving rug rats during dinner, hopefully no-one will step on them.

I don't feel like we are breaking much new ground with this menu but it will be passable.

This post was edited by johnliu on Thu, Nov 28, 13 at 17:01

Crap. Xantham gum is tricky to work with because it is so powerful. I needed about 0.5% by weight, which was 2.5 grams, I guess I should get a drug dealer's scale because mine seems not precise enough.

Can't say I didn't warn you! So, how about the rest of it? All sounds good.

Your deboning is artistry. The bones are clean, clean. And you apportioned the filling in the main bird so evenly it is sure to cook well. Terrific job. Sounds tasty.

The gravy turned out very well. The entire process:
- Reduce about 1 gal turkey stock to about 2.5 cups, which took most of the previous afternoon/evening
- Attempt and fail to clarify the reduction
- Weigh the reduced stock at 515 grams
- Consult fancy-pants modernist cooking website which prescribes 2.5 grams (0.5% by weight) xantham gum.
- Tap xantham gum powder onto my kitchen scale
- Note that said scale only displays to zero decimal points, and seems erratic in distinguishing between 2, 3, and 4 grams.
- Wish for a coke dealer's scale
- Guesstimate at 2-3 grams and whisk into reduced stock
- Admire the smooth, spoon-coating consistency of the gravy
- [Wait 15 minutes]
- Curse at the obscene, gloppy consistency of the gravy
- Add almost 1 cup of chicken stock and buzz with immersion blender to get a smooth, coating gravy with, alas, less flavor than previously
- [Wait an hour]
- After roasting the turkey, deglaze roasting pans with some chicken stock, scrape all the dark, crusty, sticky stuff into a bowl, buzz to a smooth espresso-colored paste with immersion blender, and whisk that into the gravy
- Sigh in relief at the intensely flavored, chocolate-colored sauce/gravy of a substantial but not gloppy consistency.

Aside from the bleeping sauce, everything else was easy. This was the most relaxed Thanksgiving I've had in years. We had 15 people but others provided half the meal, no dishes had to be scrapped, and we were cleaned up by 10:30 pm.

My son was assigned to mash the potatoes, and he just had to use the immersion blender, so they ended up rather gluey.

The final menu was
- Cheeses
- Roast stuffed turkey (I'll get a pic up in a bit)
- Grilled lamb chops
- Garlic mashed potatoes
- Roast brussell sprouts with garlic, hazelnuts, asagio cheese
- Beet and persimmon salad
- Cauliflower gratin
- Sauteed gai lan
- Bacon, sausage, mushroom bread stuffing
- Three or four pies, one was a chocolate-pumpkin, also a chocolate-caramel-pecan pie
- A couple of wines and martinis were had, but it wasn't a big-drinking night. I had the good sense to drink naught but coffee for most of the evening, so I'm not even hung over.

The very best eating of the evening was the grilled lamb chops. My friend simply tossed the chops in salt and olive oil, waited until everyone was seated and eating, then disappeared to the grill for ten minutes and returned with a platter of still-sizzling chops on a bed of rosemary. My laboriously constructed turkey was fine, but didn't compare to the perfect timing, perfect doneness, and perfect simplicity of that lamb.

We got some good news during the evening. The lamb griller and his family have been preparing to move to Dallas, because his practice here is struggling; now he may be able to stay in Portland after all, knocking-on-wood here. Another friend's bike shop/tavern was called out in the most popular local cycling blog; named as one of the top three things Portland cyclists have to be thankful for.

Like many of you, I have a refrigerator full of left-overs now. This morning, we are making "leftover pies" from stuffing, turkey, mashed potatoes, sausage, etc. We'll freeze them. Tonight, I'll ask a couple of neighbors over for a "left-over dinner" and try to get rid of the rest of it. I'd like to have a stuffed turkey leg for lunch next week but that is all.

Great job, John!

/tricia

Sounds wonderful! I love the idea of stuffing the turkey. I'll never do it myself, but it sounds really cool. :-D

My family are traditionalists. I love to play with my food, but I am not allowed to do it on Thanksgiving. One year, when I was on chemo and not feeling all that great, I allowed someone else to bring the mashed potatoes. I'm still hearing about that from my kids--they were delicious, but they weren't MY mashed potatoes. So we do the same foods every year, and since we only do have them once a year, it's OK and everyone is happy. :-)

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Cj

All I can say is WOW!