Growing up, we evolved a family tradition of having roast turkey etc on Christmas Eve, and going out for Chinese food on Christmas day. Now that I'm an adult with children of my own, we've evolved a tradition of having the big holiday dinner on Boxing Day. On Christmas day we eat chocolates from the stockings until we all feel sick and no one wants a big meal after that.
We've been doing goose at Christmas for quite a few years now. The first time we went crazy with a roast goose with two different kinds of stuffing (actual stuffing, one type in the body, another in the neck). In recent years the goose dinner was scaled back to just be roast breast on the bone, with the legs going into a confit, to be used many months later. This year we're changing the menu again.
Boxing Day: smoked turkey, chestnut dressing, green bean casserole, garlic cheddar mash
New Year's Day: goose breast reubens
Picked up a turkey and two geese from the butcher and spent a lot of time yesterday doing prep work. First, the turkey: removed the legs, back, and wings. The breast on the bone went into a brine. Boxing Day will see the brined breast and the unbrined legs visit the inside of the smoker for many hours. I roasted the back and wings and then made stock from them, which will go into the roasted chestnut stuffing later, topped up as needed from the strategic reserve of turkey stock in the freezer.
Next came the two geese. Geese have bone structures very differnt from chicken, and also have a thick layer of fat under the thick skin, which makes it less simple to break down than a chicken or a turkey. A sharp, flexible boning knife helps a lot. I removed the legs, cut out breast filets, and then trimmed off all the remaining fat. The fat all got rendered for use later to confit the legs. The breast filets will go into a brine on Christmas Day, then will get smoked on Boxing Day, along with the turkey. The legs have been thoroughly pasted with salt, garlic, bay leaves, and fresh thyme. They will relax under the salt rub for a couple days, then get poached in the rendered goose fat Christmas night. On Boxing Day they'll go into a jar.
A plus of all the prepwork was freeing up enough space in the fridge to get all the other supplies tucked in there. Unfortunately it's been too warm to use the outdoor porch area as an external storage for the perishables. But I did manage to get everything in. I have a paralyzing fear of running ou tof butter, so there's plenty of that. And green beans and mushrooms and milk etc. etc. etc. I wish I knew why I'd ordered 1.4 kg of cheddar cheese. I assume it seemed like a good idea at the time.
With the turkey stock on the stovetop and the rub for the confit flying about the butcher block, the house smells of bay leaf with some thyme in addition to the fir tree in the front room. Must be the holidays!
3 comments:
do you enjoy the butchering? or is it only a necessity to get the bird "how you like it"?
It sounds Very labor intensive, and time consuming. If you enjoy it, all the more power to you. If it is more of a chore, have you considered having the butcher do it for you?
It all sounds delicious.
Taking the legs off a goose and cutting the breasts off the bone takes only a few minutes, working slowly. Maybe less than 15 minutes total to do it for 2 geese. That's taking my time. Could have cut that in half if I'd hurried.
I don't mind doing it.
Breaking down the turkey was v. quick. It's much more like a chicken and easy to take apart.
Post a Comment