My partner and I celebrated our anniversary recently and our gift to each other was a Bradley smoker, so for Thanksgiving we decided to divide and conquer. We smoked the legs and wings and boned, stuffed and rolled the breast. It was a whole lot of fun making up the brine, smoking the meat with a blend of cherry and mesquite, the smells wafting into the kitchen every time we opened the door. I made a risotto, chestnut and fennel stuffing for the boned breast and slow cooked it in the webber, turned out juicy and crispy and was the perfect foil to the smoked leg meat!
Hosted a whole big group of friends and it was an awesome day, lots of food, wine and conversation flowing. The wine of the evening was definitely the Praxis Viognier, it worked perfectly with the smoked turkey and the breast, especially with the chestnut stuffing. Our friend Kathy made the observation “the winemaker really understands Viognier and what the grape can express” , now this might sound like a whole lot of hoohaa, except Kathy teaches wine and food affinity classes at a college level and knows a thing or two about wine. And of course you had all the non-expert opinions around the table who echoed the sentiment by emptying the bottle!
The next day hubby and I decided to make a soup with the combination of the smoked and breast meat and left over veggies. It was terrific fun, chopping and talking, and we opened another bottle of the Praxis Viognier to keep us company, the wine is such a versatile little number, it was our aperitif and our dinner wine for the day. The soup bubbled, we played scrabble, then sat down to absolute wintery comfort food perfection!
Turkey vegetable soup
2# turkey meat cut into small dice
Whatever veggies you have will do. We used:
Carrot
Celeriac
Onion
Fennel
Mushroom sliced thin
Cauliflower cut into florets
Beans sliced on the bias into bite size pieces Broccoli cut into florets
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 tsp ground cumin
1/4 cup white wine
6 cups turkey stock or chicken stock
Bouquet garni of fresh thyme, bay , tarragon (the French )
Dice the onion,carrot, celeriac, fennel and sauté in a good size pot until soft, add the cumin and continue to sauté adding the sliced mushrooms, season with salt and pepper When mushrooms are cooked and slightly brown deglaze the pan with wine Add the stock, bouquet garni, and turkey meat and simmer for 20 minutes Add the cauliflower , broccoli and beans and simmer until tender
Warm the bowls and serve