This conundrum comes up every year in the old Cynical household. My folks, southerners both, insist that when the thanksgiving turkey is served, the gravy accompanying it should be chock full of various organ bits. For example, tiny chunks of turkey hearts, livers, gizzards, and the like.
I find this abominable.
I am of the school where gravy is gravy, and organ meats should be tossed out for the cats to eat. Yuck.
So, I bring it to you. What do you prefer in your thanksgiving gravy? Laden with chunky turkey guts, or smooth and free of organs?
For those of you who are undoubtedly thinking it, I’ve got your organ meat RIGHT HERE.
I’m with you, Mr. C. At the very most, you could use the offal to make the stock that you use to make the gravy. But chopping it up and adding it to the gravy is yukky, as far as I’m concerned. Give it to the cats.
Let me tell you, sonny, back when I was a kid, during the war, we ate whatever was put on the table, and we were glad to get it. Sometimes mom had to put the feet and feathers in the gravy to make sure there was enough for everybody, and if we complained, we got the back of dad’s hand.
The problem with the young generation is that you’re all soft and spoiled.
Smooth, please. I use the neck, gizzard and heart in the stock for the gravy, but no chunks, thanks. I was always under the impression that you shouldn’t use the liver in gravy making as it can make the gravy bitter. Anybody know?
Oh, it all finds its way into the dinner one way or the other, as long as I’M in the kitchen.
I’m fond of lumpy chunky turkey guts in MY gravy, and if you don’t like it, feel free to pick 'em out. Or don’t dip your gravy from the bottom of the boat, where the lumpy chunky turkey guts will sink.
I usually toss the liver into the roasting pan 20 minutes or so before the bird’s done, and then we all fight over it at dinnertime.
The neck and tail meat is picked off the bones and goes in the dressing. There must also be cornbread in the dressing.
Pecan pie is also a requirement for the meal. That’s pronounced “pa con” not “pee can” by the way.
We grow em down South so we know how to pronounce em.
You are all Philistines except for Eve, who happens to know What’s What. The various icky organ bits go into the meat grinder and then into the stuffing. Stuffing without the icky bits? Hell, why don’t we just get rid of pumpkin pie too? It’s this kind of thinking that leaves us vulnerable to the Godless Communists.
But I’m with Mr. C on the gravy thing, though. I can’t stand to see chunks of who knows what floating in there.
This is another turkey part that I have a problem with.
In fact, I am disinterested in any part of the turkey, save for the sweet sweet breast. I have tried, in the past, simply buying the breast as a standalone product, but was dissatisfied with the results.
I have come to the conclusion that the entire turkey is nothing more than a life support system for the breast, and a convenient method of properly cooking and flavoring said breast.
Anyone who puts stuffing inside the turkey’s hollowed out gut hollow is a Phillistine. Yuck! I just can’t subscribe to it, folks. I don’t want anything to do with things that come from the inside of a turkey.
My favorite method of serving stuffing is to seperate the skin from the meat, and insert the stuffing there. It keeps the meat from overcooking, crisps the skin nicely, and infuses the flavor of the stuffing into the breast.
If someone could make a cork of sorts, the kind that would go where the turkey’s ass should be, I would buy it. I hate to look at the delicious breast meat, only to have the sight ruined by a gaping hole directly into the carcass. Gross. Gag me with a wishbone.
Giblets are essential for the making of a full flavored gravy. If giblets are correctly cooked they have a good flavor and texture. It is a matter of personal preference as to where they appear, (i.e., gravy, stuffing or cat’s dish). Drop by my recipe thread for an excellent gravy recipe. I make mine smooth, but am tempted to have some bits in it at times. The best bits of all are the ones scraped from the roasting pan after the bird is cooked.
Cher3, you are absolutely correct about avoiding the use of livers in any gravy, they “darken” the flavor in the most horrid way.
Alla youse drop by my recipe thread and contribute something, mmm’kay?
Well, I’m personally partial to good ol’ Bourgeois Middle American Small Town Republican Stuffing…onion, celery, sage, and chopped-up stale bread, all moistened with some of that turkey stock. It really EXPANDS in the stomach. You KNOW you’ve had Thanksgiving, by god!
My wife and her mother both like stuffing made out of chestnuts and ground beef and wild rice and other nasty crunchy things.
Over the past few years, we’ve experimented with cornbread, with oysters, with rice, and many of the other things that differing factions from Bangor to Baja insist is the ONLY true way to make Thanksgiving stuffing.
In any case, you put the giblet gravy ON the stuffing, and voila…giblets in the stuffing.
And where do they call it “dressing,” again? The Southeastern U.S.?
" . . . I am disinterested in any part of the turkey, save for the sweet sweet breast . . . I have come to the conclusion that the entire turkey is nothing more than a life support system for the breast."
—Typical man.
Oysters? Rice? Chestnuts? Jee-zus, remind me to steer clear of the Ukulele household this T’giving!
The giblets go in both the gravy and the dressing, including the liver. I like the taste of liver! I also put chopped boiled egg in my giblet gravy. I am from Texas, and I call it “dressing”.
How do y’all pronounce “giblet”? I say jiblet, some say giblet, with a hard “g”. (I think it’s just Yankees that say “giblet”, but I’ve been wrong once or twice in my life.)
Zenster, your recipe thread is getting too long to search, and I’m a lazy bitch. Is there a recipe for oyster stuffing in there? As you know, I am an oyster-a-holic, and the only remaining oyster dish I haven’t tried is oyster stuffing. I know I can find recipes in my old Joy of Cooking, but they’re not as interesting as Doper recipes.
And by the way: Diced tender giblets, including liver, in the stuffing, not the gravy.
Chopped and in the gravy has always been the tradition in our house. ‘course not all of them make it. I’ve been known to walk by the coolin’ bits and grab a gizzard at times. The liver is usually smooshed to a paste and whisked into the gravy. One man’s bitter is another man’s robust.