Turkeys Terrorize New York City

Out in Staten Island, a large band of wild turkeys have taken to terrorizing the neighborhood. Protected by law, all the residents can do is squirt them with hoses and pray. Damn. Would anyone notice if a couple of birds found their way into one of my smokers? Honestly, officer. I have no idea how it got there.

Leftover Turkey Pot Pie Recipe

Looking for something to make with all that left over turkey? Here's one of my favorites, Leftover Turkey Pot Pie. It's really simple and filling. I do cheat and use pre-made pie crusts from the store, but hey, I never liked baking anyway.

Leftover smoked turkey makes a great pot pie as well.Feel free to change up the vegetables; leftover string beans, broccoli and/or corn make great additions. I even tried it once with left over glazed carrots! You can see some corn in the picture below. It's from a pie I made last year.

Ingredients

• 1 package pre-made refrigerated pie crusts enough for a (10 inch) double crust pie (Not the pre-made pie shells - buy the sheets)
• 4 tablespoons butter, divided
• 1 small onion, minced
• 2 stalks celery, chopped
• 2 carrots, diced
• 3 tablespoons dried parsley
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• salt and pepper to taste
• 2 cups chicken or turkey broth
• 3 potatoes, peeled and cubed
• 1 1/2 cups cooked turkey cut up
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup milk
  

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F . Roll out bottom pie crust, press into a 10 inch pie pan, and set aside.
2. Melt 2 tablespoons butter in a large skillet over medium heat; add the onion, celery, carrots, parsley, oregano, and salt and pepper. Cook and stir until the vegetables are soft. Stir in the broth. Bring mixture to a boil. Stir in the potatoes, and cook until tender but still firm.
3. In a medium saucepan, melt the remaining 2 tablespoons butter. Stir in the turkey and flour. Add the milk, and heat through. Stir the turkey mixture into the vegetable mixture, and cook until thickened. Cool slightly, then pour mixture into the unbaked pie shell. Roll out the top crust, and place on top of filling. Flute edges, and make 4 slits in the top crust to let out steam.
4. Bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C), and continue baking for 20 minutes, or until crust is golden brown.
   

Cooking With The Butterball In-door Turkey Fryer

I know it's not barbecue, but indulge me for a minute. The folks over at Butterball sent me an indoor turkey fryer to try out this year. At first I thought they were nuts. Why would I want to fry a bird inside? All that hot oil is dangerous, and frying stinks! The house would smell for days. I was a bit dubious in trying this out, but finally curiosity got the best of me.

I've been frying turkeys outside for years. There's nothing like the flavor of a fried turkey - it puts the oven roasted bird to shame. But frying a turkey outside is a hassle and it's dangerous as hell. Every year I read stories of people whom have lost their homes due to turkey frying accidents.

But this seemed different. Looking over the fryer, it seemed safe and well built. So I picked up a 12lb turkey and defrosted it in the refrigerator for 2 days until it was completely thawed. Seasoned it up and got it ready for it's hot oil bath.

This machine has some really nice features. It has a porcelain-coated pot that's dishwasher-safe and can be used for steaming and boiling, in addition to frying. The fryer includes a drain valve to make clean-up easy and only needs two gallons of oil. It also has an adjustable thermostat and a digital timer, that help make indoor frying simple.

A couple of words of caution. READ THE MANUAL and FOLLOW ALL SAFETY PRECAUTIONS. If you've never deep fried before, you need to know what to expect. Adding any food to any hot pot of oil will cause the oil to bubble up. Adding wet food will cause the oil to bubble and spout.

OChef put it this way..."The instructions advise you to wear oven mitts as you slowly lower the turkey into the fryer, and that is absolutely correct. The lowering process was a little scary and it took us about a minute to submerge the turkey in the oil. The moisture in the turkey causes the oil to bubble and we had to lower it slowly to keep the oil from splashing out of the fryer. If you're also standing there in bare feet, you'll have nearly 60 seconds to curse your stupidity as you wonder if scalding oil will spatter out on the tops of your feet (it will not, if you're careful. You may be wistfully thinking of an apron at this point, too.)" It's a great point.

One other thing to think about. This is a large appliance Lowering and removing a turkey into the fryer takes some room. On my counter top I found that the overhead cabinets got in the way. Next time I use this I'll do it on the kitchen table.

You'll have to trust me on this folks, as my camera crapped out taking the pictures, but this appliance made and incredible moist and tasty bird and some really outstanding french fries. The cover kept the bubbling oil inside the machine and kept the counter and surrounding areas nice and clean. It also reduced the smell significantly. This puppy works as advertised.

So what's the bottom line? The Butterball Indoor Turkey Fryer is a great new addition to your kitchen appliances. I know I'll be using it for more than just turkeys. Doughnuts anyone?

How to Brine a Turkey

The fine folks over at Cookshack, bless their hearts, released a video on how to brine a turkey just in time for thanksgiving. The video starts a little slow as they show images of the corporate logo and then then the recipe card for the brine. Don't adjust your monitor, there really is no sound for about the first 30 seconds of the video.



This reminds me of school. Dry, dull and a little crazed, but the information is right on. The crotch shot is a hoot. Guys, hire a professional videographer next time!

The Butterball In-door Turkey Fryer

Well - lookey here, just in time for thanksgiving, a tabletop indoor turkey fryer. Great idea. I love fried turkey

I haven't had time to try mine out yet, but for a limited time, Masterbuilt is offering their top-quality fryers to Butterball customers for an exclusive price of $119.95 plus free S&H. For a select few Butterball Turkey Lovers, they are reduced just in time for Thanksgiving.

So, hurry and get the perfect accessory for your festivities – a Masterbuilt deep-fryer. Go to butterballtrurkey fryer.com for more details. Use coupon code BBETF when ordering.

This thing is pretty sweet. First cook and pictures coming soon.

► Uses 1/3 less oil than traditional turkey fryers ► Cooks a 14 lb pound turkey under an hour ► Built in grease filter ► Drain valve for easy cleaning ► Cooking basket with drain clip ► Adjustable thermostat temperature control ► Porcelain-coated inner pot ► Dish washer safe ► Only turkey fryer approved for indoor use ► Also steams and boils all of your favorite foods

Cooking on the Orion Cooker

Way back in February, I picked up an Orion Cooker for an amazingly low price of $37 when the list price was $139. I didn't think too much about why the price was so low, it being February and all. I just figured they were clearing out last year's "summer" inventory. Un-boxing the cooker, I discovered that this was a used cooker. It had a dent and some paint stains on the lid. It really wasn't a problem as some manly bending easily fixed the dent and the paint came off with a quick swipe with a Brillo pad. Shame on Lowes of West Islip, New York for passing this off as new.

I assembled the cooker in less than 5 minutes; all you need to do is attach the four legs and set it up in the backyard for its inaugural run. I placed the drip pan in the bottom of the main cooking chamber and added some maple chips and a little mesquite, making sure to keep them out of the drip pan and close to the exterior walls of the cooker to get that smoky flavor I love.

The more I set this up, the more I was reminded of the traditional Dutch Oven cooking I've played with in the past. Orion claims that their cooker is using a unique process, but I've cooked this way for many a years and it wasn't new to me!

I then added some chicken stock to the drip pan, put in the cooking grate and was ready for the bird. You could try all sorts of liquids to flavor the bird, many people use beer, but I prefer the simple flavor of stock.

I rubbed the turkey with seasoned butter both under and over the skin. The bird is impaled on the same type of "throne" you would use when you are deep frying a turkey and lowered into the cooking chamber. It made me wonder why I need the cooking grate at all. The throne, for lack of a better term, held the turkey above the stock.

I put the lid on and built the fire using Matchlight as directed by the manufacturer of the Orion Cooker. You are directed to use an entire 13.5lb bag of charcoal, reserving 10-12 coals for the top. I found that the charcoal ring didn't hold all that and I was left with about two pounds of charcoal after I filled it up.

I lit the fire, using matches taken from my last visit to Duke's BBQ. I can't remember the last time I used Matchlight, but the smell of lighter fluid was overwhelming. I can't believe people actually use this stuff and expose food to these toxic fumes.

Now there was nothing to do but wait. The Orion manual claims "Remember – Fill it, Fire it and Forget it!" I don't think that's very wise advice. All this open fire needs to be watched carefully. I kept my animals and children in the house while this fire was raging.

The instructions claim that a turkey cooks at an astounding rate of 7 minutes a pound and boy were they right. I got caught up in reading She-Smoke by Julie Reinhardt, review coming soon, and let the turkey cook for 80 minutes.

Taking the cover off led to an interesting dilemma. Where do I put the hot lid? I had to walk to the sidewalk as it's the only place near the yard that's not covered in grass. As you can see, the turkey was a bit over cooked. It was a beautiful shade of copper. Getting the cooked turkey off the throne proved to be very difficult. Next time I'll remember to spray it with PAM prior to using.

So how did the turkey taste? It was moist and very flavorful. I've never seen the meat retract so much on a turkey leg before. I expected it to be tough since it was so compact. I don't know if you can see it in the picture of the breast, but it was very tender and moist, which surprised me as the bird was just short of being overcooked. The skin was pure rubber, odd considering how much butter I put on it, usually this causes it to crisp.

Cleanup of this machine was a real pain in the ass. Getting the now grease covered drip pan out was difficult and cleaning the narrow channel of all the ash was time consuming.

Do I recommend this cooker? For the most part. It cooks exactly as advertised and produces moist tender meat. For what I paid, I'm very happy; for full price - ah, not so much. It uses a great deal of fuel which makes it expensive to operate, compared to smoking a turkey in one of my traditional cookers. I'm also not too thrilled with the exposed fire. Fire safety is an important issue to me and my family. We've been down that road before.

Recipes: Charcoal-Grilled Turkey

My friend, well I've met him a few times anyway, Chris Lilly a 10-time world BBQ champion, owner of Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q restaurants in Decatur, AL, official pitmaster for Kingsford Charcoal and one of my inspirations created this recipe for Kingsford and it looks damn good.

Charcoal-Grilled Turkey with Fresh Herb Butter

Makes: 10 servings
Prep time: 20 minutes
Cook time: 3 hours, 45 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1 whole turkey (12 pounds)
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Kosher salt
• Coarse ground black pepper

Fresh Herb Butter

• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter
• ⅓ cup chopped Italian parsley
• ⅓ cup chopped green onion tops
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh sage
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
• 1½ teaspoon garlic salt
• 1½ teaspoon celery salt
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
  

Gravy

• 2 cups turkey stock (as directed)
• 2 tablespoons water
• 4 teaspoons cornstarch
  

Place the whole turkey breast side down on a cutting board. Remove the neck and giblets and set aside to make the turkey stock. With a sharp knife or a pair of kitchen shears, cut the turkey down each side of the backbone, removing it completely. Open the turkey and press it flat on the cutting board. Using a sharp knife, loosen the breast bone from between the turkey breasts and remove it with your fingers. This will enable the turkey to open completely flat. Apply a light coat of olive oil to the turkey skin and liberally season the skin with kosher salt and black pepper.

Build a charcoal fire for direct grilling. The heat over the coals should be hot, (approximately 450 to 500 degrees F).

Melt the butter in a medium sauce pan. Add the remaining fresh herb butter ingredients, mix well, and keep warm until needed.

To make turkey stock, add 3½ cups water, 1 ¾ teaspoons salt, turkey neck and giblets to a medium sauce pan. Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer for 1½ hours.

Place the butterflied turkey directly over the coals, skin side down, and baste with the fresh herb butter. Grill the turkey for 5 to 7 minutes or until the skin starts to turn golden brown and begins to crisp. Transfer the turkey to a 10”x10” baking dish skin side up, place it back on the grill, and baste with fresh herb butter. Cover the grill and close the air dampers reducing the cooking temperature to 350 degrees F. Cook for 2½ hours basting every hour with the remaining fresh herb butter. The internal temperature of turkey thigh should reach 175 to 180 degrees F while the breast meat should reach 160 to 165 degrees F. Remove the turkey from the grill, cover it with foil, and let it rest for 15 minutes prior to carving.

To make the gravy, scrape all of the drippings and liquid from the bottom of the roasting pan into a small bowl. Skim the grease from the top of the liquid. Pour the seasoned liquid, about ¾ cup, into a small sauce pan. In a small bowl, whisk the two tablespoons water with the cornstarch until smooth. Add the cornstarch slurry and two cups of the pre-made turkey broth to the sauce pan and heat. Serve drizzled over the turkey or on the side as table gravy.

Recipe created by champion pitmaster, Chris Lilly, on behalf of Kingsford charcoal

Turkey London Broil

Last night for dinner we had a cut of meat I've never heard of before; turkey London broil. What's turkey London broil? Well at my butcher, Brenman's Meat Market 2496 Gerritsen Ave Brooklyn, New York 11229, it's a boneless skinless half turkey breast that's marinaded in white wine, garlic and spices.

We purchased a 2lb turkey London broil and took it home and grilled it over a Stubbs brand charcoal fire in my trusty Weber kettle. 3 people for dinner.

There were no leftovers.

BBQ Recipes: Smoked or Oven Roasted Turkey with Browned Garlic Gravy - Your Choice!

This recipe is adapted from The El Paso Chile Company's Texas Border Cookbook by W. Park Kerr and Norma Kerr. This recipe works equally as well in the smoker or in the oven. If you do smoke your bird, be sure to use a light wood such as apple in the fire. If you're not sure what wood to use look here.

This recipe produces a wonderfully moist bird and a complex garlic flavored gravy. It's one of my go to recipes when I don't have the time to brine the bird. While 12 cloves may seem like a lot, the slow roasting or smoking of the garlic mellows its flavor. Don't skimp on the garlic!

For the Turkey:

• 1 - 12 lb turkey, preferably fresh, including the neck and giblets except the liver (If you're not using a fresh turkey, or a turkey that has been "enhanced" use a very light touch on the salt in this recipe.)
  
• 1 1/2 cups chopped onion
• 3 large carrots, peeled and chopped
• 3 stalks of celery chopped
  
• 12 un-peeled whole garlic cloves
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/2 lb thick sliced bacon or fat back. I prefer apple smoked bacon for this.
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
  
• 2 Tbs ground poultry seasoning. I prefer Bell's salt free poultry seasoning.
  
• 1/2 cup turkey broth, homemade or canned. Chicken broth can be substituted.
• 1/2 cup dry white wine.

For the Gravy:

• 3/4 stick (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter
• 6 tablespoons unbleached all purpose flour
• Degreased pan juices from the turkey roasting pan
• 5 cups, more or less, turkey broth, homemade or canned. Chicken broth can be substituted.
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Cooking Instructions:
Position a rack in the bottom third of your oven, so that the breast of the turkey will be in the middle of the oven. Preheat your oven or bring your smoker to 325 degrees.

Rinse the turkey inside and out. Pull any visible fat from the cavity and discard. Scatter the vegetables, turkey neck, giblets, garlic in the base of a low sided roasting pan. Lightly sprinkle the vegetable etc, with a little olive oil. Rub one tablespoon of the olive oil into the skin of the turkey. Season the turkey generously, on all sides - including the bottom with the salt, pepper and poultry seasoning. Place the turkey on top of the vegetables in the roasting pan. Drape the bacon or fat back over the top of the turkey. Combine the remaining olive oil, chicken broth and wine in a bowl.

Place the turkey in your oven or smoker and roast for 30 to 45 minutes. Baste the turkey with about 1/2 of the olive oil/broth/wine mixture. Baste the turkey again after 15 minutes with the remaining olive oil/broth/wine mixture. After this time, baste the turkey every 20 minutes in the oven or every 30 minutes in the smoker, using the accumulated pan juices. Total roasting time for this bird will vary, but after about 1 1/2 hours, remove the bacon or fat back from the turkey. Crumble it up and place in the roasting pan. Continue to cook until the turkey reads 165 degrees in the thickest part of the breast.

Remove the turkey from the pan, place on a carving board, tent with tinfoil and let it rest.

Run the pan drippings and roasted vegetables through a mesh strainer, placed over a large mixing bowl, saving the juices. Be sure to press hard with the back of a spoon on the vegetables and garlic so that all juices are released into the bowl. Discard the solids. Discard the turkey neck and giblets. (Some people will chop these and add it to the gravy, but my family doesn't like it that way.) Degrease the broth.

For the gravy:
Deglaze the roasting pan over a low flame on the stove top with a little bit of white wine or broth. In the roasting pan, melt the butter. When it foams, whisk in the flour and cook, stirring often with allowing the flour to brown, for about 5 minutes. combine the pan juices with enough of the chicken broth to equal about 6 cups. Slowly whisk the broth mixture into the flour and butter. Bring the gravy to a simmer and cook, partially covered, stirring occasionally for about 20 minutes, or until the gravy is thickened slightly. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

This gravy will have some bits of vegetables in it. You may want to strain it one more time before serving, but I personally like it that way. Carve the turkey and serve it accompanied by the gravy. Enjoy.

BBQ Recipes: How to Smoke a Turkey

For those of you who heard my Food Talk premier on WOR yesterday, know that I shard the microphone with my friend Josh Ozersky, the editor of Grub Street. Mike Colameco, the host of Food Talk, mentioned that Josh, along with Robbie Richter of Hill Country BBQ, had just posted a quick clip on smoking turkeys. Here it is, copied right off the Grub Street site. Take it away boys....

Mr. Cutlets's Crash Course: Turkey

With Thanksgiving fast approaching, not a few readers have written in to ask for advice about turkeys. Though we would never consider abandoning the big bird, we've had it grilled, boiled, deep-fried, stuffed with a duck, and just about any other way you can name — usually with little improvement to show for it. But smoking seems to be the one technique that brings turkey to the next level, and so we turned to our old pal Robbie Richter, pitmaster at Hill Country BBQ. We grabbed a turkey, a big syringe, a few other supplies, and headed out to Rego Park to Robbie's mother's house to do the backyard turkey thing par excellence. The results are here to see; the list of ingredients is available after the jump.

For the Rub:
1/2 cup kosher salt
1/2 cup black pepper
1 tablespoon cayenne pepper

For the Mop:
6 oz. clear apple juice
6. oz lager beer
2 tablespoons infused schmaltz or duck fat

BBQ Equipment: The Big Easy

Ok, I know that The Big Easy is not really a cooker used to produce barbeque.

Ok, I know that this blog is supposed to be about barbecue.

Ok, but I hope you know that this blog is really about me and my adventures in outdoor cooking.

And one of the things I like to cook outside is deep-fried turkey.



I mentioned earlier that the fine folks at Charbroil were sending me a new model of deep-fryer, the Big Easy that cooks with out oil.

So, in those terms, The Big Easy deserves some attention on this blog.

On Sunday my brother and I put together my Big Easy and cooked up two 7 pound chickens in about one hour. I'll write a more detailed review for you all tomorrow, but let me tell you this... The Big Easy works as advertised.

BBQ Equipment: The Big Easy

A couple of weeks ago I attended Charbroil's 2008 product roll out at New York City's Bryant Park. This year's event was a little more low key than last, but Charbroil showed some great new gas and charcoal grills. I'll talk about the gas grills in another post, but let it be known that Charbroil has heard from their users and responded accordingly. The new gas grill technology and designs are impressive.

Being a charcoal/wood guy at heart, the Charbroil CB500x Portable Charcoal Grill caught my eye. (Yeah, Charbroil needs to hire someone to come up with better names for their grills. Remember the Double Door Smoker? Name them something catchy and easy to remember. I needed to search the Charbroil website to find the name of this grill. Totally unmemorable.)

From what I understand, this is not a new design but a reintroduction of one of Charbroil's classics. This portable table top grill is well built and can accommodate a rotisserie which is really a nice feature. I doubt Charbroil's claim that you can indirect grill and smoke on this little guy, it's just too small, but I'd be willing to give it a try.

The star of this year's show is The Big Easy. The Big Easy is Charbroil's version of the turkey fryer but without the oil. No oil you say? How does that work?

Well, I'll let Charbroil explain it. "Just like a turkey fryer, minus the boiling, hot oil and visits from your local firefighters. It’s faster than a smoker, grill or conventional oven, and can cook most large cuts of meat in about eight to 10 minutes per pound. And since it cooks from the outside-in with infrared heat, the meat stays moist on the inside and crispy on the outside."

"Cooking occurs inside The Big Easy’s cylindrical, double-walled heating chamber, powered by a fully enclosed propane burner. The turkey or other meat is placed inside a drop-in basket that is lowered into the chamber and cooked with evenly distributed Infrared radiant heat."

Crispy and moist without oil? Yeah. It works. I sampled turkey that was cooked in The Big Easy at Bryant Park that day and it was damn good. You can get a detailed run down on the food at Bryant Park from CB over at Sizzle on the Grill.

Charbroil just dropped a Big Easy on my front porch. I'm looking forward putting this bad boy through its paces. Living in the big city, I don't usually fry my turkeys for the simple reason I don't have an easy way to dispose of the used cooking oil. Charbroil has solved that issue for me. I'll be reporting back soon.