132. Spiral-Sliced Ham

Date Cooked: April 4, 2010
Page: 478
Rating: B-

I cooked this recipe almost 2 months ago. Time is flying by with another little one in the house. Definitely takes another chunk of time out of my already precious little time. In addition a few other changes have altered our dietary eating habits so the truth is trying to cook through this book has gotten a little more difficult. But I forge on anyway.

Nothing screams Easter like a 10lb. ham for two. Well actually it wasn’t really two, I have two little eaters as well so I guess it was more like two and a half. This year was a quiet Easter for us but we still wanted a nice family dinner and there is one thing we don’t eat a lot of in our house. Ham. We don’t dislike it but never really seem to want to cook one. Easter is a good excuse to cook one. The book is full of little articles on the best kitchen equipment or brands of product that taster’s recommend. Often this is useless to me because many brands aren’t sold in Canada or they are but are sold under different names. In this case the book recommended Cook’s Spiral-Sliced Smoked Ham. Just so happens that my preferred supermarket had them on sale. 10lbs. of ham is relatively inexpensive ($17) … compared to the 4 lbs of lamb shoulder chops I am looking for ($80).

Easter Sunday was time to get this big guy in the oven. I made some drastic miscalculations with regards to the timing of my meal. Between cooking time and resting time I underestimated by almost 2 hours. This probably would have been okay if it wasn’t for the fact that I was planning on dinner being at 6pm. By time 8pm rolled around we were famished.

Cooking a spiral sliced ham is not exactly rocket science, although I still struggled. In essence you are merely reheating a previously cooked product. The real learning for me was carving the ham. If done right you get a lot of meat with very few cuts. The book nicely outlined how to do this. I will say that I have become rather good at carving turkey, chicken and ham.

Rating: B-. I still can’t say I get overly excited about ham. It is a fine product but I would rather eat a good pork roast over a ham. This was served with a sauce which was rather tasty. Both of my eating children enjoyed the ham which always makes it a winner.

112. Classic Roast Turkey

Date Cooked: October 12, 2009
Page: 360
Rating: A-

For those that have been following long enough you may recall my turkey from last year. The photo was a disaster. I had already begun disassembling it when I realized it was time for a photo. This year I did not make the same mistake. The turkey looked great but I still don’t think I have a photo that does it justice. Anyway this was my second year being responsible for the turkey portion of our Thanksgiving dinner.

I must start reading recipes better prior to starting them. It was 9 o’clock the night before Thanksgiving dinner and I had just finished putting the turkey into a container to brine overnight. I read through the recipe to see what I would need to do the next morning when I came across this fantastic bit of information. Brine for 4 hours, air dry in the fridge for at least eight hours. Ummm…. I’m not supposed to brine this over night? I check the clock and consider my options… I could throw caution to the wind and let the bird sit in its salty bath all night, risking an overly salty turkey. Or I could stay up late and remove the turkey from the brine before going to bed.

At 1 o’clock in the morning I’m in my kitchen rinsing a turkey in the sink and patting the turkey dry when my son comes downstairs. I can tell he is confused and then he informs me that he would like some toast for breakfast. I finish up with the turkey, place it in the fridge and guide my son back to bed. I think he may have fallen asleep en route to bed. I wasn’t awake much longer.

The next day about three hours before dinner I got the turkey ready for the oven. I put coarsely chopped onions, carrots, celery and thyme in the pan and mixed a third of it with some melted butter and put it inside the turkey. I rub melted butter over the whole turkey and then placed it in the oven to roast. The turkey was roast breast side down for about 30 minutes before it was turned onto one side for 15 minutes and then the other side for an additional 15 minutes before finishing out its roasting breast side up. During each turn the turkey was basted. During the first turn I was lucky enough to suffer a burn to my hand. I grabbed the handle of my pan and when I shifted to get a better grip when lifting, an exposed part of my hand came into contact with the rather hot handle. The only saving grace was I was able to suffer through the burn and not drop the turkey. I was much more careful after that.

When the turkey was complete I removed it from the oven and let it rest on my cutting board for almost 30 minutes before carving it. I don’t want to brag but I am definitely getting better at carving.

Rating: A- The turkey turned out well. I am usually a dark meat eater but I am finding that I avoided white meat simply because it was always so dry. Not so with this turkey! Although I still drowned most of the meal in gravy.

111. Giblet Pan Gravy

Date Cooked: October 12, 2009
Page: 364
Rating: B-

When I was but a wee lad growing up I detested gravy. You couldn’t put it anywhere near my plate. Then I of course grew up and after realizing how many dry mashed potatoes and dried white turkey could have been saved with gravy I accepted it. And then I turned acceptance into a full out love of gravy. It would not be uncommon for me to add more gravy than food it was to cover. A Thanksgiving dinner would be turned into a quasi stew as I ladled on the gravy.

Speaking of gravy I remember the first time I had gravy at my in-laws. They commonly use vinegar gravy, something I had up until that point never had before. I, in my usual excess gravy fashion ladled this all over my dinner. Had my first bite and it immediately became clear to everyone that something was amiss. I tried to hide my surprise at the unexpected flavor but they noticed and they laughed. Every time I eat dinner there I am always sure to check the gravy before pouring it over my food.

I’ve never made gravy before. That’s right, for all of my love of gravy I have never made it myself, so I had high hopes for this gravy, simply because it was gravy. Making gravy requires three stages. At least this recipe did but I imagine most authenticate gravies are made in a similar fashion.

Stage one starts out with the giblets and turkey neck being sauteed. After a few minutes I threw in some onions and once nicely browned I covered everything and let it cook on low for about 20 minutes. After that I added some stock, water and herbs (thyme and parsley) and brought it to a boil before simmering uncovered for 30 minutes. It is a good thing that I did this stage in the morning. Once cooked, I strained everything through a fine mesh strainer and set the gravy stock aside. The giblets and turkey neck were to be reserved for later use but I did not like the idea of re-adding the meat to the gravy (and neither did my wife), so in a rare moment of deviation, I omitted it. That being said my dog feasted on the gizzards (minus the heart which I ate… not very good after being cooked for 50 minutes) and shredded turkey meat.

Stage two thickens the gravy and gets completed close to the end of the turkey’s roasting time. In this stage a roux of butter and flour is made and then most of the gravy stock is whisked into it and then simmered until it thickens.

Stage three is the final stage and uses the drippings from the turkey pan to complete. The roasting pan is set over two burners and then using white wine and some reserved gravy stock the whole thing is simmered until the liquid is reduced by half. The liquid is strained and then defatted. Once done it gets whisked into the thickened gravy from stage two. Gravy complete.

Rating: B-. It was good gravy. I loved it as much as I like all gravy. But it did not blow me away. I expected something almost magical but it tasted almost the same as packaged gravy, but most likely much better for me. I guess I am trying to say the work was not really worth the result. I spent a lot of time making the gravy which could have been used doing something else. If it was something that could be made in less than 30 minutes with minimal effort I would absolutely make this more often. But until then it will be a special occasion recipe.

110. Bread Stuffing with Bacon, Apples, Sage, and Caramelized Onions

Date Cooked: October 12, 2009
Page: 369
Rating: B+

I had pretty high hopes for this dish. I learned last year that I don’t like stuffing a turkey and I dislike the cooked stuffing that comes out afterwards. So this year I opted to cook all of the stuffing in a baking dish, which they recommend for any stuffing that doesn’t fit in the turkey, so I’ll pretend none fit in the turkey.

This recipe actually started two days before Thanksgiving when I had to start drying out the bread. I cut an entire loaf of French bread into slices and left them out overnight to dry. The next day I cut the slices into cubes and left them to dry overnight again. Thanksgiving morning the bread rocks were sufficiently dry. The whole point of drying out the bread is so that the dried bread can rehydrate with even more flavorful liquid when the stuffing cooks.

Unlike the chaotic mess of last thanksgiving, I planned ahead this year to reduce the last minute panic of trying to get all the dishes finished. So first thing in the morning I got started on the stuffing, so all it needed was some time in the oven closer to dinner. I began this recipe by cooking the bacon in my dutch oven. Any recipe starting with bacon is great. The smell is awesome and I always cook a little extra because I am guaranteed to sample a few cooked pieces, this was no exception. Once the bacon had finished cooking I put it aside and using a small amount of the bacon fat (draining the rest), I began to caramelize the chopped onions. This is a technique I still need to work on. Maybe it is my patience that I need to work on as it always seems to take forever to get a nice golden brown color without burning them. Once the onions were almost done I threw in the chopped apples for a few minutes before removing everything from the heat.

In a large bowl I mixed the onions, apples, bacon, stale bread, sage and some stock. This was thoroughly mixed and then transferred to a 9x13 baking dish that had been buttered. On top of the mixture I placed several pats of butter and then pour some more stock. Covered in foil it sat until ready to cook before dinner. About an hour before dinner was to be served, the stuffing was baked for 25 minutes before the foil was removed and then baked for an additional 30 minutes.

Rating: B+. I enjoyed this stuffing. The flavors were great and the bread was definitely not dried out. My biggest complaint though, which is more to do with my execution of the dish than the recipe itself, is that the bread needed to be cut into smaller pieces. The bread pieces were a little too large in comparison with the rest of the ingredients. Sometimes it felt like eating a soggy (but flavorful) piece of bread, and not a mouthful of stuffing.

29. Roast Stuffed Turkey

Date Cooked: October 10th, 2008
Page: 367
Rating: A-

** This is a horrible photo of the turkey and makes it look like a big burnt ball. It looked much better than this photo portrays and I didn’t remember it being blackened like that which makes me think the camera is darkening the photo. Just feel I need to justify this.

As I had stated in the last post I didn’t spend the entire time cooking this turkey but I did prep it, load it in the oven and carve it. My sister-in-law monitored it and made sure it was nicely buttered.
The 16lbs. turkey started its journey to the table in a 4 hour salt water bath. Actually it started with a rinse and removal of the giblets, neck and a little trim of excess skin, then it hit the salt water. What I discovered is that I do not have a pot or bucket large enough to brine a turkey of this size. I thought I did but the turkey was too wide and although I considered jamming it in I thought better and started looking for an alternative. That alternative was a Rubbermaid tote that was much too large. The brine calls for a cup of salt in four gallons of water but I needed a lot more than 4 gallons of water to cover my turkey. I think I used two whole boxes of salt to brine it. It’s a good thing table salt is cheap. It took two people to safely lift the tote once it was filled with the water and turkey. The next problem was finding a place cool enough to store it while it brined because I’m pretty sure fridges large enough to hold a 20 gallon tote aren’t common. It’s a good thing fall is here because my garage was still pretty cool from the nighttime temperature drop. So the turkey was finally brining and I could hit the basement.

Four hours after it was placed in the brine I removed the turkey and rinsed it before patting it dry. I loaded it onto the oven rack and pre-heated the oven. I threw some onions, carrots and celery in the pan and then I left the kitchen. My sister-in-law, once she was finished preparing the stuffing, jammed it to capacity (and I mean this turkey was STUFFED). She buttered it and put it in the oven.

At some point around the 2-3 hour mark I was done with the basement and able to finally help in the kitchen. It was also perfect timing for turning the turkey. Have you ever turned a greased up 16 lbs turkey with silicon oven mitts? I won’t ever again. Now I know why they sell big turkey forks. After struggling and burning myself and coating my shirt sleeves in turkey juice it was ready to go back in the oven. And I was ready to start a few other dishes (not from the book). The house at this point was smelling awesome!

Once the turkey was done I set it on my cutting board to rest for a bit. The pictures do not do it justice. Once it had rested for a bit I scooped out the stuffing and then set to carving it. I was really looking forward to this part of the dish. I think overall I did a really good job as a first timer carver. I unfortunately didn’t get any photos of the final product. But take my word it was a delicious turkey if I do say so myself.

Rating: A- I am a huge fan of brining and I don’t think this is a step I will skip anymore in poultry preparation. The turkey was cooked wonderfully and had lots of moisture and flavor! I’m sure it could have been better but I was definitely pleased with the team effort in putting this together.