DarrellBlackHawk
Assistant Cook
- Joined
- Dec 31, 2006
- Messages
- 2
Hello to all,
I first want to apologize for what will be a long post - so thank you in advance for bearing with me.
I cooked a Turkey on Christmas; last Monday, and have a few questions related to making stock – or should I say, stock that won’t kill me/us.
I made just about every mistake imaginable, but the Turkey still came out delicious.
(I can actually cook fairly well and have made Turkey probably 15 times in my life.)
First, I left the Turkey out too long before cooking.
[The Turkey still had some thawing out to do. I cleaned the sink thoroughly, filled it with water, salted the water, and let the Turkey sit submerged in the water until it finished thawing. This was an exercise in creativityJ.] After it finally thawed out fully, I took it out of the water, patted it dry, and placed it on a platter near the stove.
It wasn't until about 4 hours later that the Turkey made it into the oven.
My understanding is that food safety dictates not leaving it out for more than 2 hours before cooking – I wasn’t about to waste a $28 organic TurkeyJ.
(Made a great cornbread, sausage, with oyster stuffing though)
I found that my oven has some temperature differentials - top and sides cooked well, but some parts weren't done well enough - stayed away from those.
(Cooking time at 325F on this 12 lb Turkey with stuffing was about 4.5 hours.)
I finally ate about 10:30 at night with my girlfriend – we were just at home having fun watching me make a fool of myself in the kitchen. By the way, I’m the one who cooks most of the time; or should I say all of the time.
Now for the scary part…
Broke up the carcass on Thursday evening and filled a large pot with water, the carcass, and some seasoning (I didn’t want onions or anything else at this point – that would come later). I brought the morass to a boil, simmered, and placed the whole thing with carcass into the refrigerator – still fairly hot I might add – since I was tired and needed rest before work the next morning.
On Friday night, I pulled it out of the refrigerator again and boy was it a gelatinous sight! Lots of congealed fat surrounding the Turkey bits. I added some more water and heated up the whole thing again. After it was good and hot, I removed all the parts and strained the liquid. Simmered some more and tasted it – heaven forbid! It tasted great and I’m still alive! I put it back into the refrigerator. I was starting to feel like an idiot at this point or more like Steve McQueen in the 1958 cult classic - The Blob. Help! It's after me!
Once again I took it out this morning (Sunday 12/31/2006) (still gelatinous sans carcass) – about 3:20 am PST – and brought it to a slow boil and then to a simmer. It’s simmering now at 4:35 am PST and looks and smells great! Not sure about tasting it this timeJ.
I read recently that you can heat and re-heat stock a number of times like this, but I’m unsure of the validity of that statement.
Outside of going out & getting a microscope to look for deadly bacteria, do you think I should pursue this crazy task any further, or just chalk it up to a fun exercise in futility?
By the way, I bought a nice organic chicken yesterday afternoon to make soup with; regardless of what happens to this (almost) stock.
Thanks for making it all the way through this.
Darrell
I first want to apologize for what will be a long post - so thank you in advance for bearing with me.
I cooked a Turkey on Christmas; last Monday, and have a few questions related to making stock – or should I say, stock that won’t kill me/us.
I made just about every mistake imaginable, but the Turkey still came out delicious.
(I can actually cook fairly well and have made Turkey probably 15 times in my life.)
First, I left the Turkey out too long before cooking.
[The Turkey still had some thawing out to do. I cleaned the sink thoroughly, filled it with water, salted the water, and let the Turkey sit submerged in the water until it finished thawing. This was an exercise in creativityJ.] After it finally thawed out fully, I took it out of the water, patted it dry, and placed it on a platter near the stove.
It wasn't until about 4 hours later that the Turkey made it into the oven.
My understanding is that food safety dictates not leaving it out for more than 2 hours before cooking – I wasn’t about to waste a $28 organic TurkeyJ.
(Made a great cornbread, sausage, with oyster stuffing though)
I found that my oven has some temperature differentials - top and sides cooked well, but some parts weren't done well enough - stayed away from those.
(Cooking time at 325F on this 12 lb Turkey with stuffing was about 4.5 hours.)
I finally ate about 10:30 at night with my girlfriend – we were just at home having fun watching me make a fool of myself in the kitchen. By the way, I’m the one who cooks most of the time; or should I say all of the time.
Now for the scary part…
Broke up the carcass on Thursday evening and filled a large pot with water, the carcass, and some seasoning (I didn’t want onions or anything else at this point – that would come later). I brought the morass to a boil, simmered, and placed the whole thing with carcass into the refrigerator – still fairly hot I might add – since I was tired and needed rest before work the next morning.
On Friday night, I pulled it out of the refrigerator again and boy was it a gelatinous sight! Lots of congealed fat surrounding the Turkey bits. I added some more water and heated up the whole thing again. After it was good and hot, I removed all the parts and strained the liquid. Simmered some more and tasted it – heaven forbid! It tasted great and I’m still alive! I put it back into the refrigerator. I was starting to feel like an idiot at this point or more like Steve McQueen in the 1958 cult classic - The Blob. Help! It's after me!
Once again I took it out this morning (Sunday 12/31/2006) (still gelatinous sans carcass) – about 3:20 am PST – and brought it to a slow boil and then to a simmer. It’s simmering now at 4:35 am PST and looks and smells great! Not sure about tasting it this timeJ.
I read recently that you can heat and re-heat stock a number of times like this, but I’m unsure of the validity of that statement.
Outside of going out & getting a microscope to look for deadly bacteria, do you think I should pursue this crazy task any further, or just chalk it up to a fun exercise in futility?
By the way, I bought a nice organic chicken yesterday afternoon to make soup with; regardless of what happens to this (almost) stock.
Thanks for making it all the way through this.
Darrell
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