Weeknight Dinner: Turkey Noodle Soup
So it’s over. Thanksgiving dinner has been prepared and served and consumed and the leftovers have been distributed. The linens have been pre-treated and bundled into the hamper. With any luck, you’ve even made some headway on the dishes. If you had the energy, you settled in front of the tv last night with the last of the pumpkin pie and the season's first viewing of Miracle on 34th Street. About the last thing you want to think about today is dinner.
Maybe you don’t have to. For many, the day after Thanksgiving is one of activity from transportation hub to shopping district. Both the airport and the mall are destinations that, once your labors there are concluded, beg for a stop on the way home at a favorite dining spot. For us, this is the local diner. There is something centering about sliding into a booth and unfolding the gatelike menu in a place where they’ve fed you countless times before. On this day where rest and readjustment are already butting heads with activity and expectation, a gooey cheeseburger, a towering omelet, a short stack of buttery pancakes, a blue plate special is grounding, even normalizing. Just be sure to tip your server generously, for instead of taking today off they’ve been at work.
I have to admit that, in our urban home, we have spent our fair share of black Fridays among its bustle. We have made the requisite expedition to Macys to herald the shopping season and we have hidden from the very same thing in a movie house. One year with John’s visiting sister, we spent the day learning about feudal Japan at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and concluded the day in the wonderfully relaxing atmosphere of our favorite Japanese restaurant. But as the mantel of hosting Thanksgiving passed to us from Mama Diva, we found that we were disinclined (read wiped out) to do much out in the world, and we developed the practice of passing this special Friday in the best location there is: home. We pack up the china and stemware, making notes of any for which we will need to chase down replacements if yesterday’s festivities got out of hand. We polish and sequester the silver, knowing it will not be that long until it reappears on the Christmas table. I make a big breakfast to start the day but leftovers inevitably start sneaking out of the fridge.
What to do with Thanksgiving leftovers has been the turkey call of homekeepers since long before the advent of the magazine press or the world wide web. As far back as when kitchens were hearths, the motto of homekeepers has been waste not want not. Many preservation techniques and preparations that survive to this day are a result of this practice. These, of course, pre-date Thanksgiving and are also out of its cultural purview. But the same impulse that caused an Indian homekeeper to dry venison and caused an Elizabethan merchant to preserve fruit in brandy caused a San Francisco restaurateur to invent turkey tetrazzini. That chef had both a love of a certain operatic soprano and a refrigeration unit full of leftovers, and combined both with a cream sauce into passage onto the pages of culinary history.
The golden era of Thanksgiving leftover creativity and craziness was mid-twentieth century America. Sometimes this was of necessity, as from the depression era work collective to the World War II homefront both the turkey or the pan to cook it in could be in short supply. The imperative to stretch a meal did not dissipate with the advent of post-war consumerism, but even though the new prosperity didn’t reach everyone, it changed the American kitchen. Cooks from professional to practical, many of them caught between older days of want and newer ones of its absence, investigated new ways to marry thrift with expression. Abundance impelled creativity and new practices of daily living emerged.
My beloved and well-paged copy of the Fannie Farmer cookbook contains an entire section of suggestions for leftover turkey, from obligatory sandwiches to custardy timbales to saucy enchiladas. She suggests it as an ingredient in curry, pilaf, wild rice casserole and (my favorite) as a replacement for the ricotta filling in stuffed manicotti. This is just one of the ways in which Fannie was ahead of her time. Nowadays, a content area of what to do with leftover turkey is compulsory in every lifestyle entity that publishes about Thanksgiving.
Urban Home is no exception, and in our urban home, the favored use for leftover turkey -- after we've each gobbled a big slovenly turkey sandwich with havarti and mustard on white toast -- is turkey noodle soup. Soup grounds and centers by nature, for it takes us back to that hearth, but poultry soups seem especially to do that. The ingredients -- root vegetables, fowl, some broth, some seasonings -- are the essence of simplicity, and that distillation speaks to our souls.
Yes, there is something sacred in a bowl of turkey soup. The vegetables that flavor the broth flavored the turkey as it roasted; they grew deep in the coddling magic of soil even as the turkey roamed its surface. The wheat that went into the noodles grew its golden head in the last of the summer sunshine. Turkey reflects these flavors and then some, for roasted turkey has among the most complex flavor profiles there is. Turkey is abundance and soup is simplicity. What better dish is there to cuddle up with on this day that is either among the year's busiest or laziest, however you observe it?
TURKEY NOODLE SOUP
This recipe includes the directions for making your own turkey stock but don't worry if you don't have the turkey carcass; just use a good low sodium stock from the supermarket. Don't worry about how much leftover turkey meat you should have; however much you have is enough. You should have most of the ingredients for this soup left over from the week's cooking, but if not, they are simple to obtain during a quick trip to the grocery.
For the stock
1 turkey carcass
1 small yellow onion
2 dried bay leaves
For the soup
Pulled turkey meat
3 medium carrots
2 medium parsnips
2 ribs celery
1 small yellow onion
1 12-ounce bag wide egg noodles
Turkey stock
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 medium cloves garlic
1 dried bay leaf
2 teaspoons dried rubbed sage
2 teaspoons dried thyme
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Early in the day
1. Place a large stock pot on the stove top. Place the turkey carcass and 2 dried bay leaves in the stock pot.
2. Peel the onion and remove the stem and root ends. Use a sharp knife to slice the onion in half; halve each half. Add the quartered onion to the pot.
3. Fill the pot with clean, cold water until it covers the carcass. Cover the pot.
4. Turn the burner to low. Cook until very fragrant, approximately 6 hours.
5. Check the stock every 2 hours. Use a skimmer to remove and discard oily foam if any from the top of the simmering stock.
6. When ready to use, remove and discard the carcass. Use the skimmer to fish out the bay leaves and onion pieces. If you wish, pour the stock through a strainer before using.
One to one and a half hours before eating
1. Place a large soup pot on the stove top. Place the butter in the pot.
2. Peel the onion and remove the root and stem ends. Place the onion on the cutting board. Halve the onion from root to stem; halve each half. Cut each quarter into thin crescents. Cut across the crescents to form dice. Scrape the diced onion into the pot.
3. Rinse the celery and place the ribs lengthwise on the cutting board. Cut across the top and the bottom of the ribs to remove the calloused top and bottom of the stalks. Cut across the stalks to form crescents. Scraped the cut celery into the pot.
4. Use a peeler to peel each carrot and each parsnip. Working one at a time, cut off the top and bottom tip of each carrot and parsnip; do not use the large, tough top of the vegetables. Cut across each carrot and parsnip to form coins approximately ½ inch thick. Scrape the cut carrots and parsnips into the pot.
5. Sprinkle the vegetables with salt.
6. Turn the burner to medium. Use a silicon spatula to stir the vegetables together with the melting butter.
7. Once the vegetables have started to cook, place the lid askew on the pot. "Sweat" the vegetables, stirring frequently to keep them from sticking, for 5 minutes or until the carrots and parsnips start to soften and the mixture begins to release its fragrance.
8. While the vegetables are sweating, peel the garlic and remove the root end. Halve each clove; remove and discard any sprouting from the center.
9. After five minutes, remove the lid from the soup pot. Give the vegetables a stir.
10. Add the pulled turkey meat to the mixture in the pot. Sprinkle the mixture with salt. Stir the mixture together.
11. Slowly add enough stock to the pot to cover the turkey-vegetable mixture by two inches. Add the bay leaf and the peeled garlic cloves to the pot.
12. Cover the pot and cook the soup (no peeking) on medium-low for 40 minutes.
13. After 40 minutes, uncover the pot and check the soup. It should be very fragrant with soft vegetables.
14. Cut open the bag of egg noodles. Distribute two or three nice handfuls of noodles into the soup. Add the dried sage and thyme to the soup.
15. Recover the pot and cook until the noodles are cooked, approximately 10 more minutes.
16. Stir the soup well before serving. Garnish each bowl of soup with several grindings of fresh black pepper.
Maybe you don’t have to. For many, the day after Thanksgiving is one of activity from transportation hub to shopping district. Both the airport and the mall are destinations that, once your labors there are concluded, beg for a stop on the way home at a favorite dining spot. For us, this is the local diner. There is something centering about sliding into a booth and unfolding the gatelike menu in a place where they’ve fed you countless times before. On this day where rest and readjustment are already butting heads with activity and expectation, a gooey cheeseburger, a towering omelet, a short stack of buttery pancakes, a blue plate special is grounding, even normalizing. Just be sure to tip your server generously, for instead of taking today off they’ve been at work.
I have to admit that, in our urban home, we have spent our fair share of black Fridays among its bustle. We have made the requisite expedition to Macys to herald the shopping season and we have hidden from the very same thing in a movie house. One year with John’s visiting sister, we spent the day learning about feudal Japan at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and concluded the day in the wonderfully relaxing atmosphere of our favorite Japanese restaurant. But as the mantel of hosting Thanksgiving passed to us from Mama Diva, we found that we were disinclined (read wiped out) to do much out in the world, and we developed the practice of passing this special Friday in the best location there is: home. We pack up the china and stemware, making notes of any for which we will need to chase down replacements if yesterday’s festivities got out of hand. We polish and sequester the silver, knowing it will not be that long until it reappears on the Christmas table. I make a big breakfast to start the day but leftovers inevitably start sneaking out of the fridge.
What to do with Thanksgiving leftovers has been the turkey call of homekeepers since long before the advent of the magazine press or the world wide web. As far back as when kitchens were hearths, the motto of homekeepers has been waste not want not. Many preservation techniques and preparations that survive to this day are a result of this practice. These, of course, pre-date Thanksgiving and are also out of its cultural purview. But the same impulse that caused an Indian homekeeper to dry venison and caused an Elizabethan merchant to preserve fruit in brandy caused a San Francisco restaurateur to invent turkey tetrazzini. That chef had both a love of a certain operatic soprano and a refrigeration unit full of leftovers, and combined both with a cream sauce into passage onto the pages of culinary history.
The golden era of Thanksgiving leftover creativity and craziness was mid-twentieth century America. Sometimes this was of necessity, as from the depression era work collective to the World War II homefront both the turkey or the pan to cook it in could be in short supply. The imperative to stretch a meal did not dissipate with the advent of post-war consumerism, but even though the new prosperity didn’t reach everyone, it changed the American kitchen. Cooks from professional to practical, many of them caught between older days of want and newer ones of its absence, investigated new ways to marry thrift with expression. Abundance impelled creativity and new practices of daily living emerged.
My beloved and well-paged copy of the Fannie Farmer cookbook contains an entire section of suggestions for leftover turkey, from obligatory sandwiches to custardy timbales to saucy enchiladas. She suggests it as an ingredient in curry, pilaf, wild rice casserole and (my favorite) as a replacement for the ricotta filling in stuffed manicotti. This is just one of the ways in which Fannie was ahead of her time. Nowadays, a content area of what to do with leftover turkey is compulsory in every lifestyle entity that publishes about Thanksgiving.
Urban Home is no exception, and in our urban home, the favored use for leftover turkey -- after we've each gobbled a big slovenly turkey sandwich with havarti and mustard on white toast -- is turkey noodle soup. Soup grounds and centers by nature, for it takes us back to that hearth, but poultry soups seem especially to do that. The ingredients -- root vegetables, fowl, some broth, some seasonings -- are the essence of simplicity, and that distillation speaks to our souls.
Yes, there is something sacred in a bowl of turkey soup. The vegetables that flavor the broth flavored the turkey as it roasted; they grew deep in the coddling magic of soil even as the turkey roamed its surface. The wheat that went into the noodles grew its golden head in the last of the summer sunshine. Turkey reflects these flavors and then some, for roasted turkey has among the most complex flavor profiles there is. Turkey is abundance and soup is simplicity. What better dish is there to cuddle up with on this day that is either among the year's busiest or laziest, however you observe it?
TURKEY NOODLE SOUP
This recipe includes the directions for making your own turkey stock but don't worry if you don't have the turkey carcass; just use a good low sodium stock from the supermarket. Don't worry about how much leftover turkey meat you should have; however much you have is enough. You should have most of the ingredients for this soup left over from the week's cooking, but if not, they are simple to obtain during a quick trip to the grocery.
For the stock
1 turkey carcass
1 small yellow onion
2 dried bay leaves
For the soup
Pulled turkey meat
3 medium carrots
2 medium parsnips
2 ribs celery
1 small yellow onion
1 12-ounce bag wide egg noodles
Turkey stock
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 medium cloves garlic
1 dried bay leaf
2 teaspoons dried rubbed sage
2 teaspoons dried thyme
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Early in the day
1. Place a large stock pot on the stove top. Place the turkey carcass and 2 dried bay leaves in the stock pot.
2. Peel the onion and remove the stem and root ends. Use a sharp knife to slice the onion in half; halve each half. Add the quartered onion to the pot.
3. Fill the pot with clean, cold water until it covers the carcass. Cover the pot.
4. Turn the burner to low. Cook until very fragrant, approximately 6 hours.
5. Check the stock every 2 hours. Use a skimmer to remove and discard oily foam if any from the top of the simmering stock.
6. When ready to use, remove and discard the carcass. Use the skimmer to fish out the bay leaves and onion pieces. If you wish, pour the stock through a strainer before using.
One to one and a half hours before eating
1. Place a large soup pot on the stove top. Place the butter in the pot.
2. Peel the onion and remove the root and stem ends. Place the onion on the cutting board. Halve the onion from root to stem; halve each half. Cut each quarter into thin crescents. Cut across the crescents to form dice. Scrape the diced onion into the pot.
3. Rinse the celery and place the ribs lengthwise on the cutting board. Cut across the top and the bottom of the ribs to remove the calloused top and bottom of the stalks. Cut across the stalks to form crescents. Scraped the cut celery into the pot.
4. Use a peeler to peel each carrot and each parsnip. Working one at a time, cut off the top and bottom tip of each carrot and parsnip; do not use the large, tough top of the vegetables. Cut across each carrot and parsnip to form coins approximately ½ inch thick. Scrape the cut carrots and parsnips into the pot.
5. Sprinkle the vegetables with salt.
6. Turn the burner to medium. Use a silicon spatula to stir the vegetables together with the melting butter.
7. Once the vegetables have started to cook, place the lid askew on the pot. "Sweat" the vegetables, stirring frequently to keep them from sticking, for 5 minutes or until the carrots and parsnips start to soften and the mixture begins to release its fragrance.
8. While the vegetables are sweating, peel the garlic and remove the root end. Halve each clove; remove and discard any sprouting from the center.
9. After five minutes, remove the lid from the soup pot. Give the vegetables a stir.
10. Add the pulled turkey meat to the mixture in the pot. Sprinkle the mixture with salt. Stir the mixture together.
11. Slowly add enough stock to the pot to cover the turkey-vegetable mixture by two inches. Add the bay leaf and the peeled garlic cloves to the pot.
12. Cover the pot and cook the soup (no peeking) on medium-low for 40 minutes.
13. After 40 minutes, uncover the pot and check the soup. It should be very fragrant with soft vegetables.
14. Cut open the bag of egg noodles. Distribute two or three nice handfuls of noodles into the soup. Add the dried sage and thyme to the soup.
15. Recover the pot and cook until the noodles are cooked, approximately 10 more minutes.
16. Stir the soup well before serving. Garnish each bowl of soup with several grindings of fresh black pepper.
Love it! Thanks, Eric, for your scrumptious recipe, your love and knowledge of cult, of culture, of cuisine. Susan
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