Above Average Turkey + Apple Walnut Gravy
Thanksgiving 2022. My first turkey.
Turkey is just chicken but worse. Within the ensemble of Thanksgiving food, the dry flavorless Turkey sits center stage, requiring an orchestra of supporting instruments to make it worth eating. It must be drizzled with gravy, and is often eaten in the form of leftover turkey sandwiches in the days following Thanksgiving. Because of this, Americans with all of their culinary ingenuity have devised many ways to cook a turk in the 400 years since the first Thanksgiving in 1621. Roasting, grilling, smoking, brining, deep-frying, braising, and spatchcocking. The future of turkey cooking is bright, too! With access to space becoming cheaper, do not discount the possibility of somebody sending an uncooked turkey into low earth orbit and attempting to cook it in the extreme heat of re-entry.
For me, however, its the Turkey in a bag. Baking in bags is highly underrated. It traps a significant amount of the moisture of whatever it is you’re baking, allowing the hot steam to assist in the cooking process rather than float out into the air. Usually this process is used for modest sized pieces of fish alongside some seasoned vegetables. There do exist, however, enormous oven bags for turkeys. This allows you to forgo the process of turkey basting, and creates a significantly more moist turkey to dine upon. Inside the bag, you can place vegetables like onions and carrots, which will cook alongside the bird and become used for the gravy later.
The gravy, by the way, should be as flavor-packed as possible. By simmering all of the leftover fruits and vegetables with some dry cider and chicken broth, you can get an exceptionally flavorful gravy that you’ll want to put on everything - not just your turkey and potatoes.
Above Average Turkey + Apple Walnut Gravy
Ingredients
Instructions
- Chop some carrots, an onion, a lemon, and an apple. Set aside.
- In a small bowl, combine soft butter, olive oil, lemon zest and juice, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and parsley.
- Remove the neck and giblets from your whole turkey because those are gross. Rinse the bird and pat dry.
- In a roasting pan or standalone turkey roaster, prepare a large oven bag. Place the whole turkey inside with the breasts facing upward. Stuff the inside and outside with the onion, lemon, carrot, and apple.
- Gently loosen the skin around the breast by sliding fingers underneath it. Take butter mixture and spread both underneath and on top of skin. Add 2 bay leaves.
- Seal the oven bag and cut 6 air vents.
- Bake at 375° F for 15 minutes for each pound the Turkey weighs. Because you are using an oven bag, basting is not necessary.
- When baked, remove fruits & vegetables and set them aside for gravy. Set aside the turkey juices as well.
- Chop turkey breast into slices, separate light meat and dark meat onto a large plate for serving.
- Over medium-high heat, add the lemon, apple, carrot, and onion, which will all be thoroughly cooked and soft by now. Add both wing tips and the parson's nose from the Turkey. Chop 2 fresh tomatoes and add to pot.
- Once the mixture begins to simmer, mash everything down with a fork or potato masher.
- Add the dry cider and let simmer uncovered for 10 - 20 minutes, until reduced/ Add the leftover Turkey juices, as well as the chicken broth. Simmer covered for another 10 - 20 minutes.
- Uncover. Strain the liquids from the solids. Add a sprig of fresh rosemary. Simmer for another 10 minutes and let cool. Add corn starch until it reaches desired viscosity.
- Crush some walnuts and place in the empty gravy boat. Pour gravy over the nuts. It is now ready to be poured onto Turkey and Mashed Potatoes.