TURKEY WITH CATALAN STUFFING
(adapted from Marimar Torres' The Spanish Table cookbook)
Introduce a touch of Barcelona to your traditional Thanksgiving dinner with this Iberian take on roast turkey. The Spanish Table stocks many of the ingredients in this recipe.
Basting Mixture:
2 tablespoons Course sea salt
½ teaspoon Saffron threads
8 cloves Garlic, minced
½ cup olive oil
1 Large orange, quartered
1 Lemon, quartered
½ cup Amontillado sherry
Stuffing (serves 8)
2 cups Chopped onions
1 cup Spanish pine nuts
1/2 cup raisins, re-hydrated
¾ pound pitted prunes
½ pound dried apricots
¼ cup olive oil
1 ½ pounds sliced Bilbao chorizo
4 cups Stale bread, cubed
One 12-14 pound Turkey
Pre heat oven to 450º
Put the salt and saffron in a mortar and use pestle to grind them together.
Add garlic, mash to paste and slowly add olive oil.
Using a brush, paint the turkey with this mixture.
Quarter the orange and lemon and slip them into the bird's cavity.
Put the turkey in a very large cazuela and pour sherry over it.
Roast in a hot oven (450º), basting every twenty to thirty minutes with the juices which collect in the bottom of the cazuela.
While turkey is baking, sauté the chorizo until cooked through. Drain the chorizo.
When turkey is done, remove it from the pan and set it aside to rest. Pour off the drippings and separate off the fat from the juices, reserving some fat if you intend to make gravy.
De-glaze the cazuela with ½ cup water, then add it to the de-fatted juices.
Put the raisins, prunes and apricots in a bowl and cover with some of the turkey juice to re-hydrate them.
Cook the onions in the de-glazed cazuela.
Toss the fruit, chorizo and onions with the other stuffing ingredients in a large mixing bowl.
Add enough of the juices from roasting pan to dampen the stuffing.
Any extra pan juices can be used if you make gravy.
Put stuffing in a cazuela and bake in a 400 degree oven, until heated through and surface is crisp.
After turkey has rested, carve and serve with stuffing.
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