Perfect Christmas turkey?

This year I was cooking a small Christmas dinner, just for 7. 

Last year, I did duck breasts with a port and fig glaze, which was glorious, but this year, I wanted to remind myself of home a bit, so decided to do a turkey. 

I had planned to do my prosciutto and leek stuffing, but when I heard that one of the guests doesn't eat pork, did a bit of a rearrangement. So it was roast turkey with a leek and chestnut stuffing instead. I also decided to try brining for the first time. 

I used a modified Nigella recipe for the brine: 

1 turkey (3 kilos) 

1 cup sea salt 

1 cup brown sugar 

1/2 cup honey 

1/2 cup vinegar 

2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce 

1 tablespoon allspice berries 

2 tablespoons black peppercorns 

2 cloves garlic, peeled and lightly smashed 

I mixed the brining ingredients, and, putting the turkey into a plastic food bag, poured the brine over it and sealed it. I kept the turkey in the fridge overnight. 

The stuffing was pretty straight forward. 

4 small cleaned leaks, sliced and then sweated in butter until soft 

1 loaf of white bread, a little stale, torn up into small pieces 

sage 

oregano 

500g cooked chestnuts 

3 eggs 

Mix the ingredients together and stuff into the bird. Easy eh? 

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Put a piece of baking paper on top of the bird in a deep oven tray, then cover the whole thing with foil and seal in. Bake for 30 minutes at the higher temperature then drop the temperature down to 180 degrees. Total roasting time is an hour per kilo. 

I took off the paper and foil about 45 minutes before the time was up to allow the skin to brown. Rest a little before carving. I was a bit cynical about whether brining really would make a difference, but some research came up with some scientific reasoning, and now having done it, I can confirm that it really does make for a moist and tender bird. 

The only negative is that I thought that the meat did end up a little salty and I can imagine my parents chucking a fit about the evils of salting food. (They keep no salt in the house at all... I can live with that but for two things: boiled eggs and gravy) None of the dinner guests found the bird salty I should add!

Photo courtesy of Ed

Coquelet with couscous and mushroom stuffing

I stumbled across a food event somewhere, which was a sort of paddock to plate affair. Cook up your dish, but show the before and after shots.

I found a little coquelet for sale at the markets, just the right size for dinner for one (well actually it made two dinners for one) being just 500g. As a single woman living alone, its not often I get to have a roast, so I snapped this up. I just adore my chickens stuffed (in some countries its called "dressed" which is up there with scones being called "biscuits" for weird descriptions) and it is something I miss very much living in Europe where beasts are roasted a naturale. But I didn't have any bread in the house, so what do I stuff the bird with? Ahah! Couscous... why not!?

So in fact, as I have lost where the paddock to plate food event is happening, this actually became an entry in "Culinarty"'s first foodblog event for an original recipe. Mind you, I could enter just about every dish I cook into this one, as I tend to be a bit of an original when it comes to cooking!

I am afraid I can't offer much in the way of guidance on quantities, as I did it all by eye. The stuffing was pretty straightforward though: make up a half cup of couscous with hot stock, some oregano and some broken up dried mushrooms (bolets and shitakes in this case). Allow to cool and mix in an egg. Stuff inside your bird, then roast. I actually had some extra left of the stuffing and put it into a butterfly cake mould to make this terribly cute stuffing extra.

I served the cooked coquelet with snow peas and potatoes au gratin and discovered that no matter how I arranged things, this meal refused to photograph beautifully. Still, it tasted great, and I guess that is what counts! The couscous stuffing was really very good - I had wondered whether the texture would be odd, but it was tasty and texturally interesting but not too interesting, if you know what I mean.

I decided too to go on to smugly celebrate my all round inventiveness and have added a label to the recipes I put up on the web, marking those which are my own original inventions. So you can go to the list of keywords and choose "Original" to make a collection of Kiriel originals.

Chicken, basil & prosciutto sausage rolls

I had a Tupperware party on the weekend; a good excuse to get together with the girls and drink champagne.... and a good excuse to cook party food!

So...

Chicken, Basil & Prosciutto Sausage Rolls (original recipe by Kiriel)

200g chicken breast fillet
150g prosciutto
1 onion
6-7 basil leaves
pinch of salt and pepper
1 egg yolk
2 tablespoons sesame seeds
1 sheet of puff pastry (around 30x40cm)

Put the oven on to warm up to 180 degrees.

Roughly chop the onion, chicken and proscuitto. Put into a food processor with the basil leaves and blend until combined.

Cut the sheet of puff pastry in half lengthways. Take half the filling and place in a sort of sausage along the long edge of one piece of the pastry. Brush the opposite edge with water and then fold the pastry over to make a roll. Place seam side down. Repeat with the other piece of pastry.

Cut the rolls in 3cm lengths. Brush the tops with egg yolk and sprinkle with sesame seeds. bake for about 15 minutes until golden brown. Serve warm. (These can happily be made the day before and reheated in the oven)

Duck with fig and port sauce

Duck with fig and port sauce (original recipe by Kiriel)

1 large duck breast
Olive oil
1/4 tsp thyme
Freshly ground pepper

1/2 tblspn good olive oil
1 cup home made stock
1 tblspn butter
1/2 cup Port
6 dried figs quartered
1 tablespoon fig syrup

Rub the duck breast with thyme and pepper.

Heat butter and oil in large fry pan over a medium heat. Season duck breasts with salt; add to pan skin side down and cook 4 minutes.

Turn and cook about 3 minutes longer - this will be medium-rare. Move the meat on to a plate and cover with foil to keep warm.

Pour off the excess fat from the pan, leaving just a little behind. Add the stock, Port, figs and fig syrup. Increase heat and boil until liquid is reduced to a thick luscious sauce, scraping up any brown bits off the pan as you go.

Thinly slice the duck breast. Arrange and then spoon the sauce over before serving. Serves 2.

This photo of my cooking wsa taken by the lovely and talented Rosa.

Stuffed chicken leg

Wanting to make sure that I had not lost the knack of deboning chicken legs, tonight I made mushroom-stuffed chicken legs, served with a light redwine sauce and mushroom wildrice.

Mushroom stuffing
2 slices of stale bread
2 eggs
salt
pepper
2 large mushrooms
herbs to taste

Finely chop the mushrooms and put in a bowl. Break/crumble the bread into the bowl. Season and then add the eggs and combine. Stuff into the cavity of the chicken leg, then place them into a baking dish and bake for about 20 minutes in a preheated moderate oven. If there is left overs, you can put it in a twist of foil and pop it in the pan with the legs to cook.


Now I get to find out whether anyone is reading my blog! I can do step by step instructions on how to debone a chicken leg; let me know if you want me to!

Chicken soup for the soul... and everything else

ouI was sitting at my computer tonight thinking "what on earth can I post up on the foodblog today? I haven't cooked anything".

Somehow I had successfully overlooked the fact that I had just made a big pot of chicken soup for a friend of mine who has a nasty cold. How is that for domestic blindness? Anyway, here is Aunty Kiriel's quick, tasty and nutritious chicken soup recipe, which is a sure fire cure for colds and flus.

1/2 a pre-cooked bbq chicken
2 carrots, sliced thinly
1 zucchini, sliced (actually I tend to use broccoli stems, but there wasnt any broccoli in the shop)
1 onion, finely chopped
2 chicken stock cubes
250 grams mushrooms, quartered
100gms mangetout/snow peas 'topped and tailed'
2 litres of water

Strip the chicken off its bones. Put the bones (removing the cartilege) in a pot. Fill with water and bring to the boil. I also add the ends of carrots to the pot and any other vegetable ends that might be handy. Simmer for 45 minutes to make stock, adding any herbs you fancy (basil and oregano are my favourites).

Fry the onion on a medium heat in a separate pot with a little olive oil until it goes a little golden, add the chopped mushrooms. Brown the mushrooms a little. Strain the stock into this pot, discarding the solids.

Add the sliced carrots and the chicken meat, and bring the pot to a simmer. About 15 minutes later, add the sliced zucchini, and one stock cube. Taste, and add a second stock cube if needed.

Add the mangetout a minute before serving, so that it is still bright green and crisp.