Recipes by Ingredient + Prep – Page 41 – Writing With My Mouth Full

Brined and Roasted Turkey

I’ll take pig any time over a turkey but this year, I thought I’d tackle most of our Thanksgiving menu because it was the first time our family was complete since my brother permanently moved out of the States. My new sister-in-law and our favorite adoptee, Cameron, joined in the festivities. With the homemade stuffing and gravy, I combed through the many turkey recipes online and decided to put two recipes together from Bill Telepan and Alton Brown. Here they are in one, tested with love.

The young twelve-pounder bird cost me almost $40 from Whole Foods so there was no room for mistake: for three days I carefully planned and participated in my first ever brined and roasted Thanksgiving turkey. I made the brine in a large glass pot where the turkey also fit; the glass pot fit in the refrigerator to brine for three days. You can definitely make your brine in a non-aluminum stockpot and just transfer it to a large container where the turkey can fit (also non-alumininum pail or basin) and just store, covered, in a cold place if it doesn’t fit in the fridge. New Yorkers who don’t have a basement can store it on their fire escape. On the day of cooking, give yourself at least five hours to prep and cook the turkey.

Ingredients:
1 12-pound young turkey, unfrozen
1 stick of butter

For the aromatics:
1 apple, sliced
1 cinnamon stick
1 bunch sage leaves
1 medium red onion, quartered

For the brine:
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup salt
1 tbsp black peppercorns
1 tbsp juniper berries
1 tbsp allspice berries
1 small knob of ginger, peeled, crushed, chopped

1. Three days before serving, prepare the turkey in brine. Combine all brine ingredients in a large stockpot with enough water to submerge the whole turkey and bring to a boil. Stir to dissolve solids. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature. Set aside.
2. In the meantime, wash the turkey inside and out with cold water and let sit in a colander to drain.
3. Transfer the brine into a large non-aluminum container and submerge the turkey in the brine. If the turkey is not submerged fully, just make sure that you turn the turkey over 24 hours later to marinade the other side.
4. Early on the day of cooking, remove turkey from the brine into a colander to drain in room temperature for at least 30 minutes. Heat the oven to 500º while you wait with the rack on the lowest slot.
5. Prepare the aromatics. Combine the ingredients with 1/4 cup of water in a microwave-safe bowl and microwave on high for 5 minutes. Set aside.
6. Move the turkey to a chopping block and pat the turkey dry with paper towels, inside and out. Tuck back wings and drumsticks. Using your hands, rub butter and a palm-full of salt all over and inside the turkey. Add the microwaved aromatics inside the turkey. Transfer the turkey on a rack in an aluminum foil-lined roasting pan.
7. Set your alarm for these steps so you don’t forget: Roast turkey for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and cover the turkey with thick aluminum foil and continue to roast for 1 hour, lowering the temperature to 350º. Remove from oven and carefully turn over the turkey to cook the other side. (I used the aluminum foil as potholders to turn it by hand.) Cover again and cook for another hour. Remove from oven a third time, uncover, and return to the oven for another 30 minutes to brown that side.
8. A total of three hours cooking time later, remove the turkey from the oven, stick a meat thermometer in the thigh and make sure the thickest part of the bird is perfectly cooked. (My thermometer said turkey is 180º.) Set the turkey, still on the rack, on a chopping block and let rest for up to 30 minutes before carving and serving.

Red Pepper Flake Cornbread

This was a last-minute addition to my Thanksgiving menu this year. I’ve been cooking for three days but forgot to plan for a carb–I didn’t know Cameron was going to bring homemade biscuits–so I made my brother run an errand to buy buttermilk and corn at the grocery store in the morning. Cornbread is easy enough to make, but I was intrigued by this recipe because of the spiciness. I didn’t really know how it would translate to bread form.

The final product tasted like regular cornbread–mine came out paler because I used white sugar–but the kick in the end was a nice surprise. It even made my dad cough the first time because it was so unexpected.

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups fresh corn kernels
1 tbsp red pepper flakes
1 cup white flour
3/4 cup cornmeal
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1 cup buttermilk
1 egg
2 tbsps butter
1 1/2 tsps salt

1. Preheat your oven to 350º with the rack in the middle slot.
2. In a medium glass bowl, whisk together the flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder and salt. In a separate bowl, whisk the buttermilk, egg and corn together. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry and stir until just combined. Set aside.
3. In a small saucepan, melt the butter and stir in the red pepper flakes and cook for 1 minute. Pour into a square baking dish. Top with the cornbread batter and level with a spatula. Bake for 45 minutes or until the edges are golden and the center is set. Remove from oven and let rest for up to 10 minutes before slicing into squares.

Chunky Apple Muffins

After a full week of craving salty foods, I woke up Sunday morning eager to bake something sweet. I’m not a big fan of too much sweet, though, so I opted for an easy apple cake recipe minus half a cup of sugar. When I took out the baking pans from the oven, I saw an old muffin pan I’ve only used a few times. From there, I just decided to make muffins instead of cake so I can transport them easier to work the next day.

Ingredients:
1 red apple, peel on, chopped in small chunks
2 cups flour, sifted
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup butter, melted, plus a little extra to grease the muffin pan
1 tbsp baking powder
2 tsps cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt

1. Preheat the oven to 350º with the rack in the middle. Butter and flour a muffin pan.
2. Combine the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, sugar and salt in a large bowl. In a separate smaller bowl, whisk together the eggs and the buttermilk, and then the melted butter.
3. Pour the buttermilk mixture over the flour mixture. Fold in the apples. Stir until barely combined. Try not to over-mix so that it’s not too sticky.
4. Spoon a small amount of batter into each muffin hole so that it’s only halfway full. It will rise and will need the extra room later. Bake for about 15 minutes or until muffins are just set. Lower the oven temperature to 275º and bake for another 10 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean from a gentle poke. Turn off the oven and leave the muffins inside until the oven cools back down. The muffins will continue to cook in the remaining heat.

Kimchi Fried Rice with Fried Egg

Funny how Korean food is my crutch cuisine after a night out of excessive drinking. If not a hot, spicy soup before going home, it’s kimchi fried rice topped with a fried egg when I wake up. Korean food can lead you to too much drinking, but it sure does help you recover from it.

A fried egg is perfect with this fried rice. When you crack the half-cooked yolk and let the yellow ooze over your rice, you’ll forget about that banging headache, too. Mmm, I’m getting hungry just thinking about it.

Ingredients:
leftover cooked white rice
kimchi
1 egg
oil

1. In a heavy skillet, heat some oil and add rice. Fry and cook by stirring and tossing until the cold rice is warm and free of clumps. Add a small amount of kimchi and stir. The rice should be red-orange, but you don’t want it to be too moist. I try not to add too much of the kimchi juice. Remove fried rice to a bowl.
2. Using the same skillet, heat some oil again and fry the egg. Serve on top of the fried rice.

Sage Ice Cream

It’s probably not the right time to be posting recipes about ice cream, but I’m going to do it anyway because it’s so easy if you have an ice cream maker. Now, to me an ice cream maker is one of those things you register for when you get married. I’m not on that path so I had to borrow one from someone who recently tied the knot. I must say that it will be my next purchase as soon as I have my own kitchen space. (Of course that’s what I said before I got the three Le Creusets, the tagine and the bamboo steamer.)

Sage came up as a possible pairing for our pumpkin-squash Supper theme last month. The herb itself is so fragrant that in ice cream form, it overpowered the cake and chips I wanted to match it with. In the end, we served a more subtle pumpkin ice cream to complete a last course we called Trio of Pumpkin, and now I have a whole tub of sage ice cream sitting in the freezer reserved for those quiet nights indoors.

Ingredients:
2 cups heavy cream
2 cups half-and-half
1/3 cup fresh sage, coarsely chopped
4 large strips of lemon zest, peeled using a peeler
9 egg yolks
3/4 cup white sugar
1/4 tsp salt

1. In a heavy saucepan, bring cream, half-and-half, sage and zest to a boil over moderate heat. Remove from heat and cover the pot for 10 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, whisk together yolks, granulated sugar and salt in a large bowl. Pour in half of the hot cream and whisk to combine. Transfer to the saucepan to combine with the remaining hot cream. This is your custard.
3. Cook custard over moderate heat while stirring constantly with a wooden spoon. Do not let it boil. After about 5 minutes, the custard should be thick enough to cover the back of your spoon.
4. Pour custard through a fine sieve into a bowl and let cool in room temperature, stirring occasionally. Cover with Saran wrap and store in the refrigerator until cold, at least 1 hour.
5. Using an ice cream maker, pour in chilled custard and churn, following manufacturer’s instructions. Mine took about 20 minutes. Scoop out of ice cream maker and transfer to a resealable plastic container and put in freezer to harden.