Deep Fried Turkey

The absolute best way to have turkey is deep fried!  I have roasted, barbecued, smoked and rotisserie cooked turkey with great success but the deep fried will always, in my opinion, be the best.  To the excitement of all my loving family, I served a deep fried turkey for Christmas dinner and paired the delightful fowl with some great side dishes.  Garlic red skin mashed potatoes, asparagus sauteed in butter and balsamic vinegar, glazed carrots slow cooked in chicken stock, homemade cranberry sauce topped with blueberries, a brazed artichoke heart salad with roasted pine nuts, grated Parmesan and a pesto vinaigrette and to-die-for fresh homemade braided French bread.  Everything was fresh and from scratch and incredible. Do yourself a favor, the next time you have a big dinner to cook take the time to work from scratch, it will pay off.  If I thought that this blog wasn't going to be way too long for anyone to take the time to read I would describe everything in great detail and put all my recipes up, but I will stick to the main attraction of the dinner-the amazing turkey!  Some people say that you should either brine or inject your bird. I say, why not both?  I brined my turkey for 32ish hours, turning the bird once about half way through.  My brine recipe goes like this:

4 cups water 

1 1/2 cups kosher salt

2 tbs black pepper corn

1 tbs fennel seed

2 tbs crushed bay leaf

2 tbs whole coriander seed

2 c Chardonnay 

2 tbs minced garlic 

2 tbs thyme 

1 tbs caraway seed

1 tbs savory

Pour all ingredients into a pot and bring to a boil stirring often.  Almost all the ingredients are dry so make sure that you remove from heat as soon as the brine mix comes to a boil.  We want to activate the dry seasonings not cook them down. We also want to make sure that all the salt has dissolved.  Let the mix cool down to room temperature.  Place your thawed cleaned turkey into the container of your choice, breast side down, and pour in brine then fill with ice water till turkey is completely submerged.

For my injection:

1/2 c Sauvignon Blanc

1 1/2 sticks butter

2 tbs minced fresh sage

2 tbs minced garlic

Simmer all ingredient together on low to medium heat for about 15 minutes to release all the full aromas and flavors of the sage then inject the turkey as much as possible.

Remove the turkey from the brine and place it in a clean sink for a couple hours (about 4 or so) before you fry your turkey to allow it to get to room temperature and to allow the bird to dry as much as possible.  Please never be dumb enough to drop a wet frozen turkey into a hot pot of oil. It can kill you! I suggest using peanut oil for frying and so do all the experts.  I always followed the rules of frying that stated 350-375 degrees, but when you drop your bird into the oil the temperature drops about 100 degrees. When that happens you have to crank up the heat and spend the 45 minutes that it takes to cook the turkey just to bring the oil back up to cooking temperature.  I did a little research and found some experts who tempt danger by bringing the temperature up to about 450- 475 degrees so when they drop in the turkey the oil drops down to just the right cooking temperature.  * Disclaimer- 440 degrees is about smoke point of peanut oil which is the most dangerous the oil can be so I, nor anybody, would never ever recommend that you try this at home.  I do have to say that when I tried this technique it worked beautifully, and now that I have mastered the technique I will be using it every time.  The turkey came out so amazing, the skin was crispy and full of flavor it was had to not eat it all before I was finished carving the turkey.  The white meat was so moist everyone choose the white meat over the dark meat.  It's pretty amazing when the white meat is actually more juice than dark meat.  There was a wonderful buttery flavor to meat and every couple of bites you would get a burst of sage and garlic.  This turkey was awe inspiring, I wish I had some left overs.  Needless to say my turkey this year turned better then any turkey I have ever cooked in the past.  Be adventurous, deep fry a turkey.  

Chinn Chinn Asian Bistro

It's not hard to find a good restaurant. Pretty much every town has one, but not every town has a great restaurant.  In a small town West of Kalamazoo called Mattawan resides a gift to gluttony.  Chinn Chinn Asian Bistro is one of those great restaurants that stands out among the many culinary creators in Southwest Michigan and one of my absolute favorites.  Chinn Chinn's is also my lovely wife's favorite place to eat.  She would be very unhappy with me if I went there and didn't bring her something home.  It's the perfect place to spend special occasions.  My wife and I have had many meaningful dinner dates with the great staff of Chinn Chinn's.  Everything I have ordered off Chinn Chinn's menu has been absolutely amazing. I have yet to get something I haven't absolutely loved.
Whether it be lunch or dinner, everything coming out of their kitchen is consistent and perfect.  Because this place is so great and so well loved you really need to get there about an hour earlier than you want to eat, maybe even earlier for dinner time.  They also allow you to order off menu, so if you want their absolutely incredible steak medallions in black bean Marsala sauce for lunch you can go ahead and ask for it.  Their steak medallions in black bean Marsala sauce is one of my favorite dishes of all time.  Recently I had lunch at Chinn Chinn's with some co-workers, which gave me the perfect opportunity to blog one of my favorite eateries ever.  Chinn Chinn's lunch menu is delightful in its simplicity: pick your meat, pick your sauce and pick two sides.  A menu that one would expect from a fast food style restaurant but done so incredibly well.  My boss started us out with a tasty Mongolian flat bread filled with wok, tossed vegetables and roasted pork, then covered with incredible sauce.  This flat bread appetizer could be eaten as a meal on it's own.

On this trip I ordered their beef with the Mongolian sauce and for the sides I went with sesame noodles and, of course, crab Rangoons.  I think it might be against the law to eat at an Asian style restaurant and not order crab Rangoons.  Chinn Chinn's makes the best crab Rangoons.  Their Mongolian beef is hands down best in town.  The meat is melt in your mouth succulent, and the sauce was exactly what the menu said it was going to be.  Every bite has an even flavor profile of garlic, black pepper, sweet and tangy BBQ and the slite heat from the blackened chilies.  If you live anywhere in the surrounding area you need to make your way to Chinn Chinn Asian Bistro.  When I have friends and family in town Chinn Chinn's is the place I take them too.  I have never heard anyone say anything negative about Chinn Chinn's and if I ever do, I think I will have to have some words with that person because Chinn Chinn's is the best!

http://www.chinnchinn.com/

Butternut Squash Soup

I was originally going to title this blog Butternut Squash Bisque, but when I started researching the dish I found that bisque is not quite what I thought it was.  A true French bisque is made from the stock of crustaceans like lobster, crab, shrimp and other crustacea like creatures.  Now days anything pureed and made with cream is called a bisque.  Wow, I'm starting to sound like Alton Brown.  I really enjoy researching the history of food. I think it is really important to know the true origins of a dish especially if you plan on being a great chef.  So what if I am starting to sound like a huge nerd, I'm okay with it.  

Squash is one of those ingredients that I think most people forget they can use or are even afraid to use. After all, it's not the easiest vegetable in the garden to work with.  Butternut squash soup is one of those dishes that I believe people really like, but are afraid they can't make.  If you think this is a difficult dish to make, it's not. It's actually pretty simple.  There's not too many different variations in all of the recipes I looked at.  I wanted to make my recipe stand out so I focused on the creamy aspect of the soup.  I wanted my soup to be as creamy and silky as I could get it with out making it too thick or take away from the consistency of the soup.  I decided to go with cream cheese which gave the dish the texture and creaminess that I wanted, and also a little cream cheese tang which added to the overall goodness of the dish.  I like to eat my butternut squash soup with a little more cream and nutmeg than what I put in the pot.  Nutmeg gives a great sweetness that works really well with the savoriness of the squash and the sweetness of the cream.  My recipe is enough to feed about 8 to 10 people.

Creamy Butternut Squash Soup:

2 medium butternut squash peeled and cubed

2 tbsp olive oil

4 tbsp butter

1 c diced sweet onion

1 1/2 c diced carrots

4 c vegetable stock

2 cups water

Kosher sea salt to taste

Fresh cracked black pepper to taste

Fresh grated nutmeg to taste 

1 c heavy cream

4 oz cream cheese

-Start with the oil, butter and onions in a large stock pot.  Cook on medium heat until tender.  Add squash, carrots, vegetable stock, salt, pepper and nutmeg.  Cook on medium high heat until squash is tender and turns from orange to yellow.  Puree soup in blender and pour back in to stock pot.  Turn heat down to low medium and whisk in heavy cream and cream cheese.  

Serve with some cream and a dash of nutmeg.

Don't be afraid of this recipe, it's really easy and delicious.  Squash takes longer to cook than you would think, but the time invested is well worth it.  It's December and it's cold outside.  Make some soup to warm yourself up.  I hope you enjoy this dish as much as I do.