Thanksgiving is less than a month away and many of us have started to think of our holiday menus. Many gardeners preserved their cabbage for winter in the form of sauerkraut. There are many delicious dishes you can cook with it or even eat it, as is, right out of a can. I would like to share a recipe, sauerkraut stuffed turkey, slavic style. This is a very easy to cook and delicious dish with a lovely sour note.
Ingredients.
For a 10 lb turkey one would need approximately 6 lb of sauerkraut.
1. Whole turkey (prepared for cooking)
2. Sauerkraut
3. Oil for greasing the roasting pan and aluminum foil.
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 F
1.If the turkey is store bought, defrost it and remove anything from the inside.
2. Stuff the turkey with the sauerkraut in the cavity. Make slits in different places, including legs, so you can stuff sauerkraut under the skin.
3. Grease the roasting pan, place the stuffed turkey in the pan then put sauerkraut around the turkey, the more you can fit in there the better.
4. Oil the top of the turkey and place aluminum foil over it, tucking the ends under the pan to create a seal.
5. Bake the turkey at 350 F for 5 hours. Check on it and if there is too much juice in the pan, do not seal the aluminum foil tight (let the vapor escape). Bake for another hour or two, depending on how big the turkey is. When the turkey is ready it should be soft and the meat should come off the bones easily.
The cooking time may take longer than the traditional turkey cooking, but the sauerkraut is very juicy and it will not let the turkey dry out.
6. A turkey prepared this way can be served with any traditional garnish.
Notes
If you are not sure that you will like the taste, but still want to try, you can do a pilot run with the turkey parts baked with sauerkraut in a pot. Put the turkey parts (legs, pieces of breasts) in the pot with the sauerkraut. Sauerkraut should cover the turkey almost completely. Bake it or simmer it on the stovetop until the turkey is completely cooked and the meat is easily coming off the bones. A turkey prepared this way will have almost the same taste as the sauerkraut stuffed turkey. You can also use this recipe for cooking ducks or geese.
Since you did not use neck and the innards of the turkey in the stuffing, you can use them to prepare a soup.
Turkey Sauerkraut Soup
This soup has a nice sour taste.
Ingredients
1. Turkey parts (neck, gizzard, liver, ends of wings)
2. Three cups of sauerkraut juice
3. 1 cup or more of sauerkraut
4. 3 small potatoes
5. 1 large carrot
6. 1 large whole onion
7. 1 cup of brown rice
8. ½ Tbsp of red crushed paper
9. Water, enough to make 2 and a half quarts of soup
Directions
1. Put the turkey parts, carrot, onion, sauerkraut juice, sauerkraut, and pepper in a 3 quart soup pan. Put enough water in the pan to make 2 quarts of broth and bring it to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer on low heat for one hour to an hour and a half, or until the turkey meat is fully cooked and coming off the bones easily.
2. Take the turkey parts out of the soup
3. Put into the broth the rice and potatoes (peeled and cut into small pieces). Bring it to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer the soup for another 20 to 30 minutes or until the potatoes and rice are fully cooked. In the mean time take the meat off the bones and put it back into the soup, put in more water to make 2 and ½ quarts of soup.
This soup can be served with sour cream.
This is really yummy!
ReplyDeleteThank you Robert
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