Wild Turkey Time

Photo by Holly Heyser

Well, it looks like spring turkey season will pass me by — again — without me getting a chance to get into the field. Thank God Holly got out this season, and was successful! Now we have a nice 13-pound turkey to eat.

But before you can eat it, you need to pluck it. Turkeys are hard to pluck. I suppose you could wet-pluck them like a pheasant, but you’d need a really big kettle of water. So we mostly dry-pluck them, which is a long, un-fun business. Fortunately for me, I was away when Holly shot her bird, so I didn’t have to help pluck. I just get to cook it. Schweeet…

We don’t shoot many turkeys — each one is a rare gift we don’t want to waste. So I am giving it the same “everything but the quack” treatment I give ducks and geese, only instead of a quack, this time it’s a gobble.

I started by breaking down the turkey, which is just like breaking down any game bird, or a chicken for that matter, only a lot larger.

I start by removing the feet, which I save, and then I remove the legs. Great huge meaty legs! Turkeys do more running than flying, so they will be tasty, but loaded with sinew; I’ll eventually confit them, or Holly will use them in a Mexican mole. After that go the wings, also gigantic. These will see the same fate as the legs.

That leaves the breast. A wild turkey breast is not like a domestic turkey’s: this is the main difference between the two, as a wild bird’s flavor is remarkably similar to one of those heritage turkeys you can buy. If you’ve only eaten Butterball, think “turkey” flavor, times ten. But I digress…

A wild turkey breast is really six cuts of meat, not four. Domestic turkey breast is wide, like Dolly Parton. Wild ones are more like Kate Moss, or whoever the waif du jour is these days.

 Both birds have large “tenders” on the inside part of the breast, which need to be pulled off. They are in fact tender, but they have a wicked tendon running through the center than needs to be dealt with before cooking; you can chew on one for days and it won’t break down.

Where wild turkeys differ from domestics is that the narrowness of the wild bird’s breast lends itself to slicing each half-breast in half again — it is exactly the same concept you use with fish: There is a thin “tail end” that is in fact closest to the tail on a turkey, too, and a wider, “center cut” that is up near the neck.

What do you do with those thin slices? Why make cutlets, of course.

Wild turkey cutlets, pounded a bit between wax paper with a rubber mallet or empty wine bottle, are every bit as tender as domestic chicken — and way more flavorful. I started with a simple wild turkey Marsala:

There’s nothing like a slab of breaded and fried meat, slathered with the sweet-rich Marsala wine and butter or olive oil. Holly and I devoured this dish in seconds; it was one of those “no talk, must eat” meals.

My recipe for turkey Marsala is bare bones: Pounded turkey cutlets, butter and olive oil, a simple breading, rosemary and lots of Marsala. I fry a little garlic in the oil beforehand for flavor, too.

Breasts are easy, though. After all, everyone loves breasts, right? Left with a carcass, I moved on to turkey broth. I have no real set recipe for turkey broth. Sometimes I roast the neck and carcass, sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I toss ginger in there, sometimes not. I always cook the bones and stray bits of meat a long time, though, and only follow up with veggies and spices in the last 90 minutes; I think this keeps the flavors cleaner.

Broth is also where the feet come in. There is a lot of collagen in the feet — once you hack at them with a cleaver to open it up to the water — and that collagen adds body to your broth. And yes, I washed them first.

What do you do with the broth? Well, it’s a great warm-up in winter, it freezes well and is perfect for soups and stews. Or, you could do what I did: Make a wild turkey risotto.

Photo by Holly A. Heyser

Again, my version is simple; I want the ingredients to shine. I use a good Carnaroli risotto rice I got from Scott at Sausage Debauchery, the turkey broth, fresh sage and good pecorino cheese. No meat. It’s not needed if your turkey broth is strong enough. A lot of the Italian seafood risottos have no visible fish in them, either — it’s the broth and the rice that make the risotto sublime.

On to the giblets. I normally save livers for my liver ravioli recipe, but last week at the International Association of Culinary Professionals conference I saw Chef Brad Farmerie of the New York restaurant Public demonstrate an odd, yet delicious, take on liver: a creme caramel.

Weird, huh? Chef Farmerie’s version actually tasted good: Definitely like a flan, but with savory, warm flavors and just a hint of liver. I actually thought it wasn’t livery enough. He served it with roasted grapes, crispy pancetta and some watercress.

I floundered around with the structure of this for a while, and then I emailed Farmerie, who was gracious enough to send me his recipe. Armed with this blueprint, I started work making my own version: Wild turkey liver creme caramel.

I switched out Farmerie’s Asian flavors (curry, soy sauce, kombu, five-spice powder), with Worcestershire sauce and French quatre epices. I traded his watercress for wild arugula, grapes for dried figs soaked in balsamic vinegar, pancetta for my homemade lardo, and Farmerie’s maple syrup in the caramel for some local dark honey.

Oh yeah: And I doubled the amount of liver. Looks pretty cool, eh? I think so. But it was pretty much an epic fail.

First, I have only large ramekins, so it took forever to set. And it’s a waaay too big portion. I don’t make caramel often, and it burnt a little; not a good flavor there. As for the custard itself, well, Holly almost gagged and even I thought it was pretty nasty.

I am guessing that because I used two eggs (I used a pair of small pheasant eggs, which I had lying around. Don’t ask… ) instead of the one large chicken egg, the flavor was too eggy. And doubling the liver was a real mistake. I wanted to use a whole turkey liver, which was almost double the amount Farmerie called for. Guess that much irony livery stuff really mangled the structure of the custard.

Oh well, I really liked the crispy lardo (duh!), and the balsamic-soaked figs and wild arugula were what I wanted, too. I also liked the background notes of the quatre epices and Worcestershire. So I do have something to build on.

When I finally get it right, I will let you all know…

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