I made turkey soup once years ago, from the Thanksgiving Carcass. Good, but I overdid the noodles. How about posting some pointers on turkey soup, as I think I might make another attempt. Note that I am not married to noodles. I can use them, or not. I’m open to just about anything.
Step 1: Put the carcass in a stock pot and add water…
… add fresh vegetables: carrots, onions, celery, parsnip, a few crushed garlic cloves, whole pepper corns, a little chicken or turkey stock concentrate (I like Better than Bouillon). Let simmer for a few hours or all day to extract all the flavour from the carcass bones. But take the vegetables out after a couple of hours when they’ve given their best.
When it’s nearly time for soup say T-30 minutes, remove the bones and throw back the meat, add some Spaetzle (german style noodles). Or make dumplings and throw in to cook in the broth. Add fresh dill and/or parsley just before serving. Enjoy.
What QuickSilver said, except I’m not sure about the parsnips – they have a strong flavor.
I just simmer the carcass with some chicken bouillon, strain it, and add just a few veggies – carrots and mushrooms and turnips – and a can of crushed tomatoes. And dried noodles, but not very many.
I almost always make noodles separate from the soup and stews (unless it’s a dumpling soup). So, if you do that, you can more easily regulate how many noodles to put in a bowl, plus you don’t get the gummy cloudy mess you sometimes do when you cook noodles in the broth together. I just find it a lot easier to deal with. It’s also just the way I’m used to soups. My mother makes a clear broth, cooks the noodles separately, and then ladles the broth over the noodles in the bowl. You get a beautiful, clear bowl of noodle soup that way.
This sounds like a turkey/vegetable stock. Can do that, but what I was thinking was that I’d make a straight turkey stock and cook vegetables in it (and leftover meat) later. I don’t have any turkey bullion or turkey concentrate, so all of the turkey flavour will have to come from the carcass.
How does this sound? Make the stock. When I’m ready to make actual soup, slice up some carrots and celery, cube some potatoes, chop an onion, crush some garlic, chop some leftover deadbird, put it all in the pot, add the stock, and simmer until the vegetables are tender.
And dumplings. How do I make dumplings?
Bisquick has a dumpling recipe on the box. I usually add some dried parsley and chives. I usually pat out the dough on a floured surface and cut it into small pieces, smaller than the recipe calls for. I’ve also heard that you can cut up canned biscuits and drop them into the stock.
Basically, a dumpling is biscuit dough that’s simmered in liquid rather than baked. For some reason, I’m not really that fond of biscuits, but I LOVE dumplings.
I think the soup you’re planning on will be very good as well. If you plan on leaving the vegetables in it, your way is best because the vegetables will still have remaining flavour and texture.
Easy dumplings:
1 cup milk or stock
1/2 cup butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 fresh ground pepper
1 cup all-purpose flour
3 eggs
Fresh chopped or dried herbs (whatever you like/have).
Make dumplings:
Bring the milk or stock and butter to a boil, add salt and pepper. Remove from heat and immediately add flour stirring until dough leaves the sides of the pan. Incorporate the eggs, 1 at a time, forming a sticky dough. Add the herbs last if fresh, add them first if they are dried.
Drop teaspoon sized dumpling mixture into simmering pot of soup and cook for 8 to 10 minutes.
My only suggestion is to remove the meat from the carcass that you want to be part of the soup, prior to making the stock. I find that the meat gets stringy and has no flavor if it boils away all day in the stock.
After your done with the carcass, just stain it. Add your meat, veg, and noodles. Ready to go! I also like the idea of cooking the noodles separately. I have ruined many a soup by having the noodles suck up too much liquid.
That’s what I meant about using leftover meat. I strip as much meat as I can from the bones, much of it perfect for soup. (But I’ve been using it for turkey salad sandwiches.)
Basically what you want to do is take the bones, skin (if there’s any left) and wings and other inedible parts of the carcass and simmer them for a couple of hours with some aromatic vegetables like onions, celery, carrots and a little bit of garlic. Remove the solids.
Then, season with salt until it tastes right for soup.
Add your other ingredients in order of cooking time- i.e. things like carrots are relatively long cooking, while your meat just really needs to be warmed up in the broth. If adding onions to the soup, I’d saute them until translucent in a pan first.
Adjust the seasoning with salt, vinegar and fish sauce if you’ve got it.
Simmer the mess until everything’s cooked and heated through. Enjoy with crusty bread or biscuits.
Same recipe applies for ham, BTW. Just substitute the ham bone and leftover funky non-meat bits for turkey carcass. Watch the salt though.
There’s always skin left. The skin on the bottom isn’t crispy brown and delicious like the skin on the breast. So it doesn’t get eaten – unless I broil it a bit.
You should be making a ton of stock to save from any decent sized turkey carcass, unless you’re making soup for 5 or 6 people. I usually cook the smallest turkey I can find, which ends up being about 12 - 13 lbs. That makes a lot of stock. Plus, if you’re just making stock first, you cool it overnight and skim the excess fat off the top the next day.
Just don’t put too much water in-- much easier to add water later than to boil it down. I find adding the right amount of salt during the simmering process to be important. Then strain everything at the end because the vegetables will be mostly mush. I use carrots, celery and onions. I like it to turn just slightly jelatenous the next day-- not so much that you can’t liquify it with a few quick stirs of a large spoon.
I still think noodles are the best, and the suggestion of making the noodles separately is a good one.
God, I love turkey soup!!
This is the correct answer. I prefer rice and do it the same way, since neither the noodles nor the rice really adds anything to the soup stock, and on day two you have a pot full of soggy, unpleasant starch. I would also suggest buying some fresh herbs and putting them in the bowl with the noodles (or rice or whatever), then ladling the hot soup over all. Huge burst of aroma and flavor from the herbs this way.
Gonna go ahead and third this- definitely making noodles and rice separately is the way to go. The only starch/carb I cook together with soup is potatoes, which seem to not absorb all the stock overnght when you refrigerate the leftovers.
And if you want a change of pace from noodles, rice is really good with turkey soup.
You have to start with a good stone. Everything else comes after.
Nothing beats egg noodles in turkey soup. Rice is OK, barley ain’t bad, but egg noodles are awesome.
I have that story on my The Storyteller DVD. 
But then I won’t have any noodles for stroganoff, whenever I make it again! :eek:
I do a variation of this soup: http://www.food.com/recipe/jane-brody-turkey-carcass-soup-267907
Soup varies, depending on what veggies I have around and herbs. I like the step of sautéing the veggie with some flour (you made broth first, then use some for the soup). The flour thickens the soup slightly for a nice mouthfeel.
The previous suggestion was for making the stock, not the soup. In my experience, if you roast the stripped carcass and skin in a shallow pan in a medium oven, until the carcass has browned well, the stock becomes a bit stronger and darker).
The aromatics (herbs and veggies) you use along with the carcass will all be strained out, then you add the fresh veggies for the soup you will serve.
The noodles and rice cooking separately are excellent suggestions, but barley needs to cook in the stock, so you will need to remove any left over to avoid the soggy, gummy mush.
Bon appetit! and Happy Thanksgiving!
Instead of noodles, how about matso balls?