Turkey

A “stoup” is what I call a soup that is almost as thick as a stew. This one can be prepared as a vegetarian entrée as well by omitting the ham.

Serve with a green tossed salad.

This is a fun spin on traditional roasted turkey. It cooks evenly, slices beautifully, and cooks much more quickly than the whole bird. We’ve even used it on Turkey Day with great success. The Jaccard is a spring-loaded meat tenderizer that has fifteen, sixteen, or forty-eight blades, depending on the model you purchase. It creates tiny, evenly spaced holes throughout the flesh, shortening the muscle fibers. This allows seasonings to penetrate to the interior of the meat, speeds the cooking time, and helps it cook more evenly. It may seem counterintuitive, but it actually works very well. You can skip this step if you don’t have a Jaccard, but we really recommend keeping one in your kitchen. It’s a very handy tool to have around.

This risotto recipe from Natan Holchaker, a retired dentist and food hobbyist in Bordeaux, includes smoked goose breast. If you cannot find a kosher version, substitute smoked turkey breast.

This is a recipe that Natan Holchaker, an avid cook, makes in Bordeaux. In a take on the classic frisée and lardons, Natan uses duck instead of the prohibited pork. I have found that in France even the most secular French Jews avoid pork, substituting smoked duck instead. You can also substitute turkey bacon or kosher beef fry (akin to pastrami).

Chappali kebabs, popular throughout much of Pakistan but originating near its borders with Afghanistan, are beef patties shallow-fried in the fat rendered from the tail of a fat-tailed sheep. If you can imagine a juicy, spicy hamburger cooked in roast beef drippings, you get a general idea: delicious but iffy on the health front. So over the years, I have come up with my own version, a turkey kebab. I serve these kebabs with Thin Raw Onion Rings and the local Peshawari Red Pepper Chutney. You may even put this kebab in a hamburger bun, along with the onion rings and either a good squirt of lemon juice or some tomato ketchup.

This dish may also be made with ground lamb, or, for that matter, with ground beef. When using turkey, make sure your butcher includes both light and dark meat. White meat alone will be very dry. In Hyderabad, in the very center of South India, this keema (the Indian word for ground meat) is typically served at Sunday brunches with khichri (the dish of rice and split peas from which the British kedgeree was derived; see Rice with Moong Dal, page 213), pappadom for crunch, and pickles for pizzazz. Store-bought Indian pickles such as mango, lemon, or chili will do, but if you prefer, a sweeter preserved chutney would be just fine.

Before cooking, the meat-spice mixture requires a rest in the refrigerator to bring all the flavors together and to give the kebabs their requisite melt-in-the-mouth tenderness. If you cannot get a baking pan of just this size, something a bit smaller or a bit larger will do. (You could also use a 6-inch-square cake tin and cut the kebabs into rectangles—in which case, bake for only 30 minutes.) Serve these pâté-like kebabs with drinks, offering flatbread pieces or crackers to eat them with, or serve them as part of a meal with vegetables or salads. They need an accompanying chutney, such as the Peshawari Red Pepper Chutney, page 243, or the Bengali-Style Tomato Chutney, page 244.

In the Middle East, turkeys range freely and are small and tough, more like game birds, so they are usually stewed, which makes the flesh tender and moist. In America, roasting is best for the birds.

Roast the tomatoes, peppers, and garlic right along with the meat loaf to make the sauce.

Roast turkey is synonymous with autumn holiday celebrations. Because of the dangers of bacterial contamination, I prefer to bake bread-based turkey stuffing separately and stuff the turkey with garlic and herbs. Recipes for a variety of tasty glazes follow below. Check the guidelines chart for roasting time and temperature depending on the size of the turkey you are cooking. With turkeys up to 14 pounds, you can bake two or three accompaniment dishes—I suggest Creamy Garlic Potatoes (page 144) or Sweet Potatoes or Yams Roasted with Orange (page 145)—on the very bottom rack of the oven.

A spectacular gravy begins with pan drippings, but the true flavor base comes from a good stock. The real selling point of this stock is that you can make it way in advance of Thanksgiving. And any leftovers of the stock will enhance the soups and sauces that follow the big feast.

For all those who can't wait to nibble at the skin when the turkey comes out of the oven, these cracklings are for you. You won't believe how insanely delicious they are as the star of this salad. Don't be surprised if you start buying turkey thighs on a regular basis, just to make cracklings.

Agave nectar, a product of the agave plant better known as the source of tequila, blends beautifully with Old World Spanish sherry for a gentle sweet-and-sour glaze and luscious gravy. Because agave nectar has a low glycemic index, it's the new darling of the health-conscious crowd who are trying to lower their sugar intake. Although making the brown turkey stock for the gravy is an extra step, it can be done weeks ahead and frozen, and it's the secret behind a truly memorable gravy.

Turkey drumsticks do not take kindly to the dry heat of an oven, which causes the meat to tighten up around the bone and tendons. But treat those same drumsticks to a long, slow, moist braise in barbecue sauce, and the meat falls off the bones, revealing tough tendons so numerous, you won't believe it.

When stripped of their skin and bones, turkey thighs can look a bit, well, naked. But once they're slathered with a spice paste pungent with garlic, chili powder, and cumin, and then grilled, you'll think you're eating the most tender turkey steak ever, cooked well done, of course. And that, right there, is the beauty of turkey thighs: They can handle the heat, and even if the thermometer goes beyond the ideal of 170°F, the thigh meat will still be juicy and delicious.