A Foleyisland Thanksgiving feast
Editor’s note:
This is going to take a while. Over the next couple weeks we’ll rebuild our 2010 Thanksgiving feast. Usually we just dig out our usual recipes, but we’ve never put them online. Almost all of the following include our traditional Thanksgiving feast. But this year we did our turkey different. So we’re going to start there, and edit the rest in when time allows.
Don is in charge of the Turkey, Gravy and Rice as well as the Green Beans, and since he writes all of this stuff on the blog, these are the first things we’ll cover. The girls handle the hard stuff, which include foods from our travels such as corn pudding from Tangier Islands and popovers from Mt. Desert Island. Of course, it wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without sweet potato pie or stuffing from the midwest. Once we include all of the other recipes, we’ll delete these notes!
Turkey
We have baked and smoked turkeys over the years, and the results have always…usually…been pretty good. The smoked turkey seemed to be ‘the way to go’ most recently.
Until this year. Earlier in the year Don got an Orion Cooker. We’ve used it a good deal this year and have been VERY impressed with its ability to really rock on everything from ribs, chicken to pork. It’s fast, full of flavor and really moist. We’ve covered the Orion Cooker in previous posts. But this was our first turkey, and this was the Thanksgiving Turkey. Sure, we also put one in the smoker…but that’s because we wanted lots of leftovers. The Orion Turkey would be our dinner.
The Orion Cooker
OK, Orion 101. You can buy it at ACE Hardware, you may need to order it. We did. It costs around $130. A 15lb bag of instant light charcoal fills the basin at the base, with a few at the top. The charcoal provides only heat, none of it gets near the meat. So this is 100% convection cooking. The second a purist hears ‘instant light’ they dismiss this thing. But they don’t get the point that the cooking area is sealed.
The unit sells with a cone-shape wire rig and hook to drop a chicken or turkey into the device. I had never used it before. Silly me. The rig is great.
We used a 13 LB turkey. You MIGHT be able to get away with a 15 LB, but I would stick with 12-13 LB.
To cook the turkey, clean out the usual stuff, neck and giblet pack. Save both if you want to make a great gravy (this will follow). For newbies, the neck will be in the cavity, the giblets will be in the flap under the neck.
We line the drip pan with foil, and place about two handfuls of small hickory chips between the pan and the outside. I’ve heard that apple chips work well too. DO NOT add fluid to the drip pan. This is not a smoker.
Put a BIG plate or platter on your counter. Put down the stainless steel turkey cone. With the neck-area up, push your turkey down onto the cone.
But here is the rub. (if you don’t know your Shakespeare, read on)
Seriously, here is my rub.
Don’s Turkey Rub for the Orion Cooker
1 Tbs Garlic Salt
1 Tbs Lowrey’s season salt
1 tsp Ground Pepper, we like peppercorn medley
1Tbs Paprika
1 Tbs Mustard powder
1 tsp celery salt
This will give you a lot of ‘rub’ and most will fall off. That’s OK. With your turkey on the stand, rub this all over.
With one grate on the lowest setting, lower the turkey into the cooker. The wings may touch. That’s OK.
Close the cooker and fire it up.
Here’s the thing with the cooker. It’s all about time. So if you put a 12 or 13 LB turkey in here, you are cooking it for 90 minutes and you’re done. Feel free to test the temperature of the meat when it’s done to make sure it’s at 165° and is safe…but most likely, it will be. I start the timer once all the coals are on fire.
The cooker has a saying “if you’re looking, it’s not cooking” and I’ve found this to be absolutely true. You cook by time. The coals are still plenty hot, and we think you could put in a couple chickens and cook them to take advantage of that bag of coal. They may not cook as quick, but checking the temps, we would guess an hour or so would have them done. This thing cooks quick.
So, that’s it for the turkey. Use the handle and pull it out. Best turkey we’ve ever had. And we’ve had some really good turkeys.
Giblet Gravy and Rice
To Don, the first flavor of Thanksgiving may be turkey, but the second is giblet gravy on rice. He grew up with a great giblet gravy, but never learned the recipe. But over the years he has come up with his own that replicates the taste.
Ingredients
Instant Brown Rice. We like the Publix brand.
Giblets and neck
2 packs of McCormick Turkey Gravy
Corn starch (about 1 TBS) as needed
When cleaning the turkey, remove the neck and giblet pack. Boil up a couple eggs (heat water to boil, put in the eggs for 20 minutes on a low boil, cool under running water and peel, slice thin and dice). We usually just put the neck and pack into the fridge until we get close to dinner. Don’t overcook the giblets and make them rubbery. About 40 minutes before serving, slice up the giblets. We usually use about half the liver, the whole heart and about half or a little more of the gizzard. Dice them so no individual flavor is too powerful.
Cook brown rice as directed. We use instant, so we cook ours about 1/2 an hour before dinner, it takes 15 minutes to cook and left covered, the additional 15 minutes makes it the texture we like.
Boil these with the neck in a couple cups of water for half an hour, low boil.
In a small saucepan, put in two cups of cold water and the two packs of turkey gravy. Stir and heat to a low boil. Keep stirring to avoid a skim on top. With a strainer, dump out the giblet pot and toss the neck. Put the giblets in the gravy. Add the diced eggs.
Usually a traditional turkey is done by now, or close, and we pull of chunks of dark meat and spoon off drippings for the gravy. With the Orion, it isn’t that easy. Sooo….
Keep the gravy under a low heat and stir so the flavors mix. If it seems thin, ad some corn starch. We usually put in about a full tablespoon. After you pull the turkey, get a ladle and grad some drippings and put them in the gravy. Stir and add starch as needed. If you have time, grab some dark meat, cut it up and add it to the gravy.
And that’s it. Put the gravy in a bowl with a ladle or into a gravy server. A gravy server with a lip may keep all the good stuff from flowing through.
Green Beans
You need to have something green on the table, and nothing goes better with turkey, rice, creamed corn and sweet potatoes than our traditional green beans.
Ingredients:
1 pile of green beans
1/4 sweet onion, diced. Usually we have some pre-diced onion in the freezer.
1/4 red bell pepper, diced. Usually we have red bell pepper pre-diced in the freezer.
1 pack of Jamon (ham) seasoning, or a chicken bullion cube (broken up, use Knorrs)
2 Tbs diced ham or bacon (optional) we include this if we have some laying around.
Dash of poultry seasoning
Instructions
Snap the ends off the beans. Wash them.
In a pressure cooker (top not on yet), heat up 1 cup of water (filtered, if possible) with your red bell pepper, onion, poultry seasoning and seasoning choice (Jamon or bullion). Put in beans and ‘shwoosh’ around to coat.
Close cooker and when it’s at it’s release (hssssss) temp, drop it to medium temp and cook for 8 minutes. Take off heat and open up the pressure release to bring it down. We’ve found if you cook your beans more than 8 minutes, they’re too soft. You may find that 6 minutes is fine. We take our weight off the cooker AND release the pressure using the valve both at the same time so cooking stops just after 8 minutes
Sweet Potato Casserole
One sweet potato per person plus a few for leftovers is the average. This year, we did 8 sweet potatoes.
8 Sweet Potatoes
1 stick Unsalted Butter
1/4 C white sugar (original recipe calls for a whole cup)
Splash of milk/cream/half-n-half
Topping:
Pecans, chopped (about a cup)
Corn Flakes, crushed (about a cup)
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1 stick of unsalted butter, room temp
Peel and cube the potatoes. Boil until fork tender. Drain water and put potatoes back in pot. Add a stick of butter, white sugar, and milk. Mix with hand mixer. If it needs to be creamier, add milk to make up the difference. Place potato mixture in a greased backing dish(es).
NOTE: We like our potatoes “shallow” in the dish so the topping to potato ratio is good. Also, the original recipe called for MORE sugar, but the sweet potatoes are sweet already and we don’t want everyone to die of diabetes.
Bake in 350-degree oven for 30 minutes or so.
While the potatoes are baking, combine the pecans, corn flakes, brown sugar and butter to make the topping. It should be ‘crumbly’.
After the potatoes have baked, at the topping and turn the oven to 425-degrees for 15 minutes to brown off the topping.