Smoked turkey vs. regular?
8 years ago
last modified: 8 years ago
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- 8 years ago
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Comments (10)Glad to. It's fast and easy. Only drawback is that it IS made with oil; however, I always degrease the dish before I serve it anyway so most of the oil is gone. Have your 'holy trinity' (celery, bell pepper and onion) already chopped up and ready before making the roux. Also have a jar of peanut butter out to judge color. Use a pyrex glass measure about 2 to 4 times the volume of the ingredients--so if you are using 1 cup each of flour and oil, that's 2 cups and you need at least a 4 cup measure; I usually use an 8 cup pyrex measure. Mix the oil and flour together well in the measure and put it in the microwave for about 3 minutes on high. In the first stage, it bubbles a bit. This is (I think) the water molecules being driven off of the starch molecules. At any rate, after 3 minutes take the measure out, mix well with a fork, and stick it back in for about 2 minutes on high. The bubbling will subside and it will begin to go from cream to light brown. Take it out again, mix it up again and put it back in for maybe a minute. Take it out, mix, return for 15 or 30 seconds--repeat until it's where you want it. Now the timings are necessarily inexact because of the variations in microwaves--wattage, cavity size, etc. So you have to judge it by color, and to some extent by smell. The main idea is to steadily decrease the nuke times, stirring well between nukings. For a chicken and andouille gumbo (my favorite), I go for a roux a little darker than peanut butter. You can continue to nuke it in 10 to 20 second bursts until it's the desired color. Now, once it is the right color for your dish, throw in your onions, bellpepper and celery. Be careful--it will put out a huge cloud of steam,and spattering roux isn't called Cajun Napalm for nothing. The water in the vegetables quenches the roux, and it arrests the browning. Once you add the vegetables, there is water present in the system so because of the laws or physics the temp can never get higher than 212 degrees and therefore no more browning will occur. From start to the point where you add the vegetables is usually under 15 minutes. Cook the gumbo according to your recipe. To degrease the gumbo before you serve it, use a cheap ecko half cup ladle, skim off the fat and some broth and ladle it into a 2 cup pyrex measure. Let it settle a few seconds, ladle the fat off of that (the half-cup ladle fits just right into the pyrex cup)and pour the fat into a styrofoam cup and pour the broth back into the pot. Once you've gotten most of the oil removed, ptu the styrofoam cup in the freezer and toss next time you put out the garbage. One of the most memorable gumbos I ever made was made with duck fat for the oil. Talk about good! My favorite Louisiana cookbook is Richard Collin's "The New Orleans Cookbook"--see the link. But my all time favorite way to make gumbo is as follows: Smoke a roasting chicken in a charcoal smoker. Remove the skin and bones, reserve the meat. Make stock out of the bones and skin and the drippings in the smoker's water pan, strain it through a cloth to get rid of the ashes and debris. Make the roux, add the vegetables, use the stock you just made for the liquid, add sausage and whatever else you do, then add the reserved chicken meat 10 minutes or so before it's ready to serve; degrease and serve. Bon appetit!! Here is a link that might be useful: new orleans cookbook...See MoreDeli meats vs meats cooked/smoked at home
Comments (9)Lars, your home cooked meats are much healthier than "deli meats". I consider deli meats, both smoked and non-smoked to be processed, with flavor enhancers and preservatives. Even the highest quality deli meats are chunks of meat that are tumbled and pressed (with a binder) together, to form the hunks you see in the deli case. The highest quality deli meats have the largest amount of whole muscle. The low end deli meats will have small pieces of meat. I have seen some higher end deli meats recently that advertise "no nitrates". It really doesn't matter if the meat is smoked or not, again, quality is the guide. You could lower the fat content of your home cooked smoked turkey or chicken by removing the skin before cooking or grilling. Watch the labels even on the turkey breast for additives. I think it's worth paying a little more to seek out poultry that has no additives. Nancy...See MoreTurkey: White meat vs Dark meat
Comments (43)Dark meat absolutely, and how disheartening that so many people are also preferring it these days. Darn! I don't care how well the white meat is cooked, it's sadly lacking in flavor. I make a good gravy, so I'll eat it as a vehicle for the gravy, including as a roast turkey sandwich. My favorite chicken salad is actually made with leftover turkey moistened with pan drippings kept for that purpose, and some of that meat can be white if I'm not able to send it all home with guests. Btw, Fawnridge, I once hopefully purchased a skinless, boneless turkey breast. My husband ate a bunch of it sliced in sandwiches loaded up with mayo for flavor, but I threw the rest of it away. I may never purchase a breast alone again, but if I do it'll be skin on and bones in for their flavor and moisture, and to create drippings for additional flavor after cooking....See MoreChicken vs Turkey broth
Comments (29)We buy turkey often. I think it has more flavor than chicken, so buy it whenever I can find it. Usually thighs or legs. But I am not a great fan of chicken - especially not white meat. I think it is so bland it takes work to make it taste like anything. I took a trip to Morocco 4 years ago. On the menu everywhere was what amount to a national dish, tagine. On most menus it was listed as chicken tagine (occasionally, lamb was offered). I ordered and ate it many times. Something about it tasted not quite right. I thought it was the lemon and other spices. Then close to the end of the trip a chicken tagine cooking class at our hotel was part of the itinerary. Tour members showed up to the restaurant kitchen. All ingredients were already cut up for us and on big platters running down the center of the work surface. I took one look at the "chicken" and realized it was turkey. I asked the other women and they agreed it was turkey. The chef came in and I asked, "So the recipe has been changed to Turkey Tagine?" He said, "No, it's still going to be chicken." I explained that the meat I saw was turkey. The other people on my tour also spoke up and said it was turkey. He insisted it was chicken. Oh, well, I thought, maybe their chicken meat LOOKS like turkey meat. Since it was already cut up in cubes, could I really be sure? Maybe it's free range or they are fed something different. So we all made our tagines and sat down to a group meal. Unanimous among our group: it was turkey. We talked it over and realized why what we had been eating so far didn't taste like chicken: we'd been eating turkey all along. It was semantics, I guessed. Some people never ordered it again, saying they didn't like turkey. I have made tagine several times since at home, and intentionally have always used turkey....See More
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