Here’s a super easy leftover idea (part of our Leftover Week series), that most non-homebrewers don’t have the equipment for — carbonated cranberry relish.

Carbonated Cranberry Relish

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Like Pop Rocks, but made from cranberry relish.

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Chicken-fried stuffing balls.

Continuing with Leftover Week, today I present a leftover recipe I came up with this week. The idea is to take bread stuffing, work in a little turkey meat, roll them in flour and fry them. The savory stuffing is coated in a crispy fried coating.

Pilgrim Oysters

by Chris Colby

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Chicken-fried stuffing balls, with turkey meat

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It’s Leftover Week here at Beer and Wine Journal and here are two things you should make from your turkey every year, stock and gravy. Stock is easy to make and you can easily make turkey noodle soup from the stock or use it for cooking.

Gravy is also straightforward, but one thing complicates it these days — brined turkeys. If you make gravy from the pan drippings of the brined turkey, it’s going to be very salty. Below I present a recipe that dials down the sodium levels.

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Two turkeys, ready to be roasted and turned into Thanksgiving dinner and leftovers for the foreseeable future.

For our readers in the United States, it’s the week after Thanksgiving. And for many, Thanksgiving would not be Thankgiving unless they cooked a gigantic, mutant turkey so big that even their entire assembled family could not finish it one sitting. And so, the few days (or even the week) after Thanksgiving is a time for leftovers.

This week on Beer and Wine Journal, in addition to the usual stuff, we’ll be presenting some great leftover recipes. And, to go along with that theme, I’ll present a series on making a second beer from your grain bed, using parti-gyle-like techniques.

Today’s recipe is for turkey BLTs. These are super easy to make, but ridiculously delicious. Enjoy!

Other recipes in Leftover Week were turkey stock and pan gravy, Pilgrim oysters (chicken-fried stuffing balls), carbonated cranboozy relish and turkey noodle soup. 

Turkey BLT

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The name Turkey BLT leaves nothing to the imagination.

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If you like crispy turkey skin, this method is the way to go.

Happy Thanksgiving a few days early from Beer and Wine Journal. We hope everyone gets to enjoy the holiday in the company of the people that are important to them. Every once in awhile, we publish a story on food and today we just thought we’d remind you of a story I posted awhile back on smoked turkey. This method (setting the turkey on a Foster’s can, in the manner of beer can chicken) works for roasting turkey in the oven as well as smoking it in a smoker.

Smoked Turkey Recipe

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A smoked 12-lb. bird waiting to be carved.

I’m a turkey fiend (as opposed to a fiendish turkey). I wish Thanksgiving was held once a month. I make turkey once every month or so and my specialty is smoked turkey. My smoked turkey turns out nicely every time in part because of the cooking method I use — setting the turkey on a beer can “throne” à la beer can chicken and barbecuing it upright. This crisps the skin all around the bird but leaves the meat inside juicy.

I do some things differently than many BBQ cooks. First and foremost, I don’t smoke the bird “slo and lo.” I smoke closer to oven roasting temperatures because I think the pink meat that comes from smoking at around 225 °F (107 °C) tastes slimy. Even though I like beef rare, poultry cooked in the same manner simply tastes undercooked to me. I like the taste of roasted turkey meat — Maillard reactions are good! — so I cook at a temperature that yields white (fully cooked) meat. Also, to me one of the best things about turkey is a nice, crispy skin. Smoking the bird at 225 °F (107 °C) yields whitish, rubbery skin. Likewise, some cooks spice their brine and even inject spices into the turkey. I like the spices to be associated with the skin, so I don’t usually add spices to the brine or inject them under the skin or into the meat.

You can take this recipe and adapt it for roasting in the oven or using your own favorite brines or spice rubs. Enjoy!

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This fried chicken was brined in lambic (a sour wheat beer) before frying.

Fried chicken is one of my favorite foods. And beer is my favorite beverage. One way to bring these two together is by brining your chicken in beer prior to frying it. Today I’ll give a quick primer on making great fried chicken, with the focus on overcoming the major hurdle to frying chicken in this day and age. Tomorrow, I’ll give the full recipe and procedure.

Most fried chicken recipes involve soaking the bird in something before frying it. Buttermilk is probably the most common marinade, followed by a vinegar and salt brine. I use a vinegar and salt brine often, and I wondered if replacing some of the water with beer would make a difference. I decided to try it out with a hefe-weizen (a wheat beer) and a gueuze (a sour wheat beer).

The biggest problem people encounter when frying chicken these days is getting it to cook through without burning the outside. Or sometimes they cook the outside to perfection while leaving the inside nearly raw. [Read more…]