Some recent recipes

 

Homemade potato chips

Look no snow or skiing - just some recipes I tried this Fall.  Homemade potato chips, a roasted deboned turkey with stuffing, and corned elk with boiled vegetables.

Potato Chips:

I made the potato chips in the distant past and ever since Stuey has been asking me to make them again.  And they lived up to their distant memory!  For for this recipe I used a mandolin to thinly slice a few potatoes.  I then rinse them a few times in cold water and then lay them out on a towel to dry.  In the meantime I fill a wok with peanut, avocado, or grapeseed oil (something that can withstand high heat).  Olive or canola oil does NOT work.  Canola makes the chips taste fishy while olive oil burns.  I get the oil very hot and test it with one chip.  No sizzle then not hot enough!

Then I put a handful of chips at a time into the very hot oil and let them bubble away.  I have a metal strainer with a handle and tongs to mix them around.  When the chips are ready they stop bubbling madly and start to turn brown.  That's when you take them out and put on a towel.  Then sprinkle with salt or ranch dressing powder.  And eat them while the next batch cooks.  The kids love this recipe.  Afterwards I save the oil and use it for cooking.

Roasted Deboned Turkey:

I will not go into great detail on this one - basically I deboned the turkey with a sharp knife (I looked up on internet how to do this - snip out backbone and work your way around keeping close to the carcass).  Then I stuffed it with hot stuffing and tied it back up.  I figured the stuffing both acts as a 'form' to make it look like a turkey roast and also acts to cook the turkey from within.  Best of all I can use the carcass to make stock that I later use to make gravy.  Then I roast the turkey at fairly low heat (250 degrees) until it got up to around 130 in the middle of the breast.  Then I turned it up to brown the skin for the last part and removed it when the breast was around 160.  I poked and tested numerous places to make sure the turkey was done. 

Then I used the roasting pan to make gravy - the turkey might well be the best one I have cooked in my life!

Corned elk:

Another one I will not go into great detail on.  I used the Julia Child recipe that Cooks Illustrated also advocates.  No nitrates and pink color for this corned elk. I use a double ziplock bag full of salt and the various spices and then put the elk in there and mix it all up.  Then into the fridge it goes with a heavy weight on top.  I use nesting La Crueset pots with the meat in between the two bottoms.  I turn the meat daily.

Once the meat is corned I cooked it in water at a low boil all day.  At the very end I added cabbage, carrots and potatoes.  Then I served up.  I kept some juice to help keep the corned elk moist. Super simple and super good.  I ate mine with some hot English mustard on the side.

Patrick 

 

My deboned stuffed Thanksgiving Turkey

Corned elk and boiled vegetables - New England dinner