Turkey Bone Broth ~and~ Turkey Wild Rice Vegetable Soup

EDIT: You know you've got a good, collagen-rich bone broth when you put the pot on the counter to ladle out a bowl and it looks like this.

I scooped out what I wanted and the hole created never filled in. It was SO gelled that a spoon stood up in the center  😊

I don't make turkey bone broth often, so I always forget what deep brown, rich flavor it has! Roasting helps with that of course, but I also roast my chickens, so I'm not sure why the broths are so different.

I really scored here! 😃

$1.61 for two turkey backs, necks and. . .uhhh, well. . .as my mom would say, that little triangular piece 'that jumped over the fence last' :-)

I trimmed off the excess fat then drizzled on some EVOO, seasoned the parts and pieces with Poultry Seasoning and Chicken Seasoning. 

Roast these at 375° - 400° for an hour or so, until everything's nicely browned in a 4-6 quart Dutch oven.

Somehow I wasn't thinking, and roasted everything in this porcelain pan. Not as efficient. I had to use a silicone spatula to scrap all the good brownings back into the big Dutch oven pot.

Remove the meat from the bones, and set that aside. Put everything else back into the pot, with a few bay leaves, and enough water to cover the bones. This only yielded a couple ounces of meat that I'll combine with some roasted chicken.

Simmer this, covered, on a very low bubble for 3-4 hours. After an hour, I added 1/2c white vinegar (or you can use apple cider vinegar) and enough water to bring everything to 1" from the top of the pot.

Stir occasionally and continue to simmer the rest of the time. Cool an hour or so, then scoop out all the bones and everything solid. Throw this away. Strain the broth back and forth into another clean pot, using a finer mesh strainer each time. After 3 or 4 strainings, cover and chill overnight.

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YEA! It's Soup Day!!

Scrape the solidified fat off the top of the gelled broth. What simmered down and concentrated is shown in the Dutch oven on the left. About 2-1/2 quarts of good, rich, brown turkey broth that gelled nicely. Heat it up. To this I added 3 bay leaves and a big spoonful of chicken Better Than Bouillon. 

In a heavy frying pan, melt 2T butter and add the chopped 3 carrots, 2 celery stalks, and 1 onion. Drizzle with some EVOO, then heat everything to a sizzle. Add 2T Kalamata olive EVOO and 2/3c Lundberg Wild Rice Blend. Stir this for several minutes until the bottom of the pan starts to brown and the rice is snapping.

Add just enough chicken stock from a carton to keep it cooking but not getting too brown.

Transfer the rice and vegetables to the pot of broth and add enough stock to bring it to within 1" of the top of the pot.

Add 5 oz. turkey (and roasted chicken) and a big handful of sliced, fresh spinach.

Simmer just long enough until the carrots and celery are done the way you like them, and the rice is cooked. . .Lin

Mmm - Roasted Turkey -- In June!?!

Change - re. fresh herbs. . .see below**

Every year, at the end of November, I vow to make more turkey in the coming year. Mmmm, if you were here with me now, you'd know why. My home smells like Thanksgiving!! (well, almost, no wonderful-warm scent of stuffing. . .) This is half a turkey, so no stuffing. It will brown and cook quick, but my method  (hot, cooler, hot oven temperatures) is my secret for creating wonderful roasted chicken and turkey. Lots of flavor, and not dry.

After the 350° roasting - before the last 425° roasting

½ a perfect turkey that calls your name. . 

~ mine is just under 5#, so adjust times for size*

½ a stick of real butter - no substitutions!

your favorite seasonings, spices and herbs**

~ today my fresh herbs are: regular and lemon 

~ thyme, pineapple sage, rosemary

Rosemary Seasoning and Lemon Thyme seasoned salt

- - - Done! - - -

Roast, uncovered at 425° for half hour, then roast an hour, covered at 325°, then uncovered with the heat back up to 425° for the last half hour.  Baste in between each temperature change, or at least 3-4 times, quickly, while cooking.

**Adding the Fresh Herbs. . . Put them in the juice in the bottom of the pan, then poke and baste - when you reduce the heat to 325°. Remove them before poking and basting, an hour later, when you again, increase the heat to 425°.

MMmm, Lunch today. . .

This would be wonderful, hot out of the oven with garlic mashed potatoes, pan drippings, fresh green beans and carrots.  But I'm not doing that today. I had 4 gorgeous sweet potatoes that I didn't think to bake with the turkey, but poked them, then covered them on a plate and microwaved for 8:30 minutes. Perfect! It was almost noon and I realized I hadn't eaten yet. This will be a good combination breakfast-lunch. Maybe a salad for dinner later. . .

This will make great sandwiches, turkey tetrazzini, turkey Waldorf salad, turkey mac'n-cheese, turkey noodle soup, cut up in scrambled eggs, turkey tacos. . .any way you'd use roasted turkey. . .Since I'm A Soup Freak. . .of course, it goes without saying, there will be a nice big pot of turkey rice, turkey vegetable, or turkey noodle soup - soon.


Starting The Soup

This meat will be all covered and tucked in, with a damp paper towel, the cover snapped shut, and refrigerated for the next couple days. Any left by then, will be frozen in a zip-type bag. The skin and bones are going back in this pot, to be slowly simmer, covered - with a splash of white balsamic vinegar added to pull the collagen out of the bones. Cook, covered at a low bubble once it boils hard for a couple minutes, for 2-4 hours, with some chopped celery, pepper, carrot and onion,  salt and pepper - adding water if needed.

I'll strain the broth until it becomes clear bone broth (no particles) for the soup. Then finally straining, into a tall flat edged, glass jar and refrigerate. The fat can then be pulled off in a round, solid, yellow circle. It can be melted on dog food, or used in cooking, since it's well strained and rendered. I might use it to brown the turkey with onion, for the soup, tetrazzini or turkey stroganoff!

Ahhh Be Creative! Try to think of all possibilities regarding food, seasonings, fresh herbs, creating healthier-rendered-fats.

Happy Cooking 😊 🍗 💖 🤎

Ahhh. . .Turkey. . .Not Just For HolidaysAnymore! . . . Lin

Two-Day Thanksgiving Turkey Soup

Day 1 - Creating The Bone Broth

This is putzy-time-intensive soup and certainly not what everyone would consider a fun way to spend several hours.  However, anytime I make a turkey, on a holiday or other time in the year, I love making it!  For this first, and probably most important step, take ingredients shown, 2 uncooked wings (and shoulder sections) and combine with other components shown in a 3qt. pot.  Carrot chunks, celery, onion garlic, salt, pepper, giblets-heart, neck, gizzard and liver.  

You don't have to start with those big wing-shoulder sections, but obviously you'll have a much meatier soup if you do.  I did this year, since I was cooking one of 2 turkeys my 'Curling Family' won in a Turkey Bonspiel!  It was an almost 20# bird, and my roasting pan is designed for a 17# turkey.  So I did a couple amputations before roasting it.

Fill the pot with enough water to almost cover the turkey parts and pieces, and vegetables.  Cover and bring to a simmer.  Take the liver out and eat that after about 15 minutes, with a little salt, before it gets too tough.  Continue to simmer the rest on low heat, for about an hour or a little longer.  After the pot contents come to room temperature, transfer everything solid into a medium glass bowl.  Set this broth aside for now.

After dinner, when the turkey's cooked, removed from the roasting pan, carved and leftovers are being put away.  Put bones, skin, tough meat pieces back into the roasting pan.  Bring this to a simmer, adding water as needed.  Stir and scrape all the brownings up, with a wooden spoon.  Let this simmer 20 minutes or so.  Strain all the liquid from the roasting pan into a larger, 5qt. pot, straining a couple times if necessary using a progressively finer mesh strainer.  Add in the other, smaller, pot of well strained broth to this.

Stir, then put this big pot of strained, greasy-future-broth, in a chilly place for several hours, or overnight.  My deck worked just fine since it was in the mid-20°F range here last night.  Whew. . .you still with me here? 😁

Day 2 - Magic - Creating SOUP!!

Next morning, carefully lift the fat layer off the top.  By now, all that has contributed greatly to the broth's flavor.  If you taste it, though, you'll see it's only nasty grease and calories.  Just for fun, I weighed what ended up on this plate, to calculate the calories.  It was 6oz., which would have been an additional, 1,400, gut-gurgling calories!!  😲

3 med. carrots

3 stalks celery

1 med. yellow onion

5 lg. cloves garlic

1t fresh ground garlic salt

2t lemon pepper

¾c wild rice or a blend

I love Kagayaki 6-Grain Rice.
It's a wonderful blend of black rice, purple barley, hull-less barley, rye berries, MG red rice, short grain brown rice sold in Asian Markets.

Chop-slice the vegetables and put them in the pot with the broth.  Add seasoning and rice.  Simmer for an hour or more ,until the rice is puffed up and almost tender.  Next, pick through that original group of ingredients used to make the broth.  Discard the bones and fat, keeping only the meat.  You can heat and eat the carrot, celery and onion, or - if your dogs or cats like vegetables, mix ONLY the carrot and celery with their food.  DON'T give them onion or garlic.  In certain amounts, those are toxic to them!

Add turkey to the pot, bring to a simmer, stir, taste and decide what, if anything is needed.  Too flavorful - add water, not enough flavor - add some leftover gravy or powdered chicken soup base, not enough liquid - add water.  The flavor of mine was perfect!  The broth-to-solids ratio was a little low, but I left it thick so as not to add water and soup base.  This was just pure chicken flavor with only a little salt and pepper needed.

Heat, serve, savor your memories from this Thanksgiving and once again, take a little time to Give Thanks for all the Blessings in your life 💕 Happy Cooking to you! . . Lin