The Tilsons

The legend of my mother’s turkey soup pervaded conversation in our house every time we had turkey.  A jeering comment from my dad - “I even tried Ketchup - nothing could make that soup edible.”  He said it in a loving way, like he really was trying to do anything to make his new wifes soup edible. After years of this, my brother or I would even chime in “You aren’t going to make Turkey soup are you?”

The story was that in the first years of their marriage, my mom found a turkey soup recipe, but neglected to follow the recipe entirely.  She made the whole thing, including simmering the carcass, adding all the vegetables and spices in two hours.  Apparently she also forgot to taste it.  She and my dad sat down to eat and nothing could bring it to life - not even ketchup.  Needless to say, she never, ever tried again.

For some reason, I have always felt the same fear of making turkey soup, it was like a curse.  I suppose it came down to the fact my mother couldn’t make it taste good, and I felt that if she couldn’t, then I wouldn’t be able to either!

Turkey is an interesting broth.  It is much lighter than chicken, but has its own special flavour.  There is a certain savoryness about it, less fatty than chicken I think.  This does make it harder to make a good tasting soup, I have found.  One year, during the first months of my engagement to Justin, my mom and I decided to through the carcass in some water for later soup making projects.  Then, a couple of months later, Justin was sick and all I had was the turkey broth to make him a soup.  (Can you hear the foreboding music?)  It tasted like crap, because I made it like I would have made a chicken soup.  It did not make him feel better.  I could feel the grip of the curse tightening around my wrists.

This year, with our new “freegan” mentality, we decided to take the turkey carcass home from Thanksgiving dinner and cook ‘er up.  I searched for a turkey stew recipe online, and amalgamated several to make a stew in a breadbowl that shut up both of the men in my house for 10 minutes while it all disappeared.  The curse has been lifted!  Here’s the Turkey Stew (or soup) Recipe:

1 turkey carcass, picked fairly clean (steal those leg bones back from the plates after dinner!)
1 Onion chopped
Water to cover
Drizzle of apple cider vinegar (to extract calcium from the bones into the soup)

2 Onions
1 t oil
2 C turkey (brown meat is best, but a mix works)
10 Mushrooms
1 large parsnip
4 medium carrots
1/4 of a bunch celery (I chop from the top down without detaching the celery from the root - this lets you take advantage of all the leaves while still having fresh celery to munch on later)
1 large head of broccoli
3 C of potatoes, chopped into 2 cm square pieces

1 T dried basil
1 bay leaf
1/8 - 1/4 C Sea Salt
1 T cracked pepper

1/3 C flour
1/4 C butter
pepper
1/2 C Mirin (Japanese cooking wine)

Directions:

1. Start in the morning, put the carcas, vinegar and chopped onion on to simmer (boiling at first and then letting lightly boil all day)
2. An hour before you want to eat, strain the carcas out and dispose of it (check out Composting a chicken)
3. Chop up onions and sautee until your eyes stop burning
4. Chop up all the veggies and turkey and toss them into the pot, toss in onions.
5. Cover the veggies with the broth (add more broth if you want to have soup instead of stew)
6. Add the spices (remember that these are to taste, your turkey and tastebuds might be different)
7. In the same pan you sauteed the onions, melt the butter and slowly add and mix in flour to create a roux.  Add some pepper and the mirin slowly.  Add some milk to get it to the point where it is a nice thick consistency.  slowly add some of the broth (from the veggie pot) until your roux is pourable.
8. Mix the roux in with the soup and let simmer until supper is ready.
9. I served them in little breads about the size of bowls, that had very hardcrusts.  By the end, you can eat the bowl too!  (One day soon we will have a bread recipe for you, but not yet)

** thanks C Wess Daniels for the photo - I just didn’t think this soup would be worth blogging about, so I neglected to take photos!