Turkey Confit

I consulted about four recipes for this. New York Times, Salon, Serious Eats, and Mastering the Art (in which I actually looked up Confit de Oie).

The basic ingredients are: Turkey, fat. You can use olive oil or any animal fats you want (traditional is duck fat, but who can afford it?) Then there are some herbs and garlic. The recipe below is what we did, but variation from the recipe is acceptable.

Although traditional is duck fat, you can really substitute any kind of fat or oil. Julia herself recommended lard or vegetable shortening if you can't get duck fat. We used some high quality olive oil to fill out the fat content, with some salt pork for extra flavor.

This recipe is absurdly simple. Really low pressure for Thanksgiving, though it might be tough if you had much more than about 5 lbs of turkey. We might have been able to do it in our dutch oven? I don't know. You quickly run out of space.

Ingredients

• 5.5 lbs turkey (2 thighs and 2 legs)
• 2tsp of salt per pound of turkey
• an onion, chopped finely
• 2tbsp sage, chopped fine
• 2tbsp fresh thyme, chopped fine
• About a quart of oil
• 2 lbs of salt pork
• A clove of garlic, top lopped off
• A couple sprigs of thyme and sage (whole)

A day ahead of time, combine the onion, sage, thyme, and salt. Cover the turkey in the salt mixture, then set in the fridge for at least 8 hours or overnight.

When you're ready, wash off the turkey and pat dry. Pack it tightly in a pot along with salt pork, garlic, and herbs. Then pour in the olive oil (or whatever fat), just enough to cover the turkey.

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Set the pot over a burner on medium-high heat until you get some bubbles coming up from the oil - the oil will be at about 200 at the bottom of the pot, though I found that the oil doesn't circulate well. Then throw the pot, covered, in the oven and leave it for 3 hours.

After 3 hours, it's done. If you want (and if the turkey will stay together), you can sear the turkey to crisp the skin before you serve it, but it's not required. Just set the turkey in a bowl to let some of the oil to drain out, then serve on a separate plate.

Thoughts: Super easy. The salt pork was unexpectedly salty (duh, I guess), but the turkey was just really well seasoned. The flavor was great. I would do this again in the future, though I don't know that the animal fat was strictly necessary. Just a nice addition. I would also try this with other birds. Goose? You're next.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Turkey Gumbo

After Thanksgiving, we went to Jeff's house and had amazing leftover turkey gumbo. Pat & Eleanor had given us the turkey carcass from our own feast, so Claire and I were inspired to try it. The recipe we made was ENORMOUS but good. You will almost CERTAINLY want to alter the amount of stuff in this.

Ingredients

• 1/2c oil or leftover bacon grease or something similar
• 1/2c all purpose flour
• 2 large onions, chopped
• 2 red bell peppers, seeded, chopped
• 4 celery ribs, chopped
• 8 cloves worth of garlic
• 1 tsp cayenne
• 1/4c white vermouth
• 1 tbsp dried thyme
• 4 bay leaves
• 1 28-ounce cans diced tomatoes with juice
• 4-6ish cups turkey stock with turkey
• 1 package (?) andouille sausage (I think about 1 lb), cut into 1/2" slices
• 1 16-ounce packages sliced frozen okra
• 1 lb peeled (tail off) de-veined shrimp.
• Salt to taste
• Gumbo filé to taste

So, it's important to note before you start that we made the turkey stock as follows: chop up the turkey carcass and place in a slow-cooker. Cover with water, and leave for about 24 hours. Fish out any bones. DONE.

In a huge pot, add the grease / oil. Heat until quite hot, then add the flour. Stir around this paste, cooking over medium heat, for about 5 minutes. If you use oil, at least, it's supposed to turn reddish-brown through this process. Ours started out that color, so who knows. Anyway, add the onions, peppers, and celery. Cook until everything is quite soft - about 20 minutes. Then add the garlic and cayenne and cook another couple minutes. Then add the vermouth, thyme, and bay leaves. Turn to high heat and cook for a minute, before you add the tomato, stock, and sausage. Bring to a boil and simmer for 20 minutes, then add the okra and simmer for another 10 minutes. Finally add the shrimp and cook until just fully opaque (3-5 minutes). Salt to taste (ours needed quite a lot).

Serve.

Thoughts: Great flavor. Claire and I agree that we could have used more turkey - we could have had more, but we ate a lot of the turkey before we tried this. I think the amount of shrimp and sausage was good, though. We agree that the flavor was great.

Disaster Index: 1/10, but it made so much we'll be eating it for like 2 weeks.