I’m not going to take offense at the ‘he’ business because the writer also referred to ‘flower’ when discussing someone’s gravy recipe. This appears to be a “I trusted the spell checker” problem rather than any wish to poke a stick into your Aunt Toby’s eye. Perhaps one more reading would have done the trick, though you never know. When you write something yourself, it’s sometimes hard to pick up little details.

But, enough of patting oneself on the back. ahem. The photo at the top is a reminder to NOT throw the carcass of your Thanksgiving (or Christmas or any other for that matter) turkey out. Global warming aside, a good bowl of turkey soup is not to be sniffed at (unless one is taking in the glorious fragrance of same). I poked around in the closet here at KCE and I did write about that a year ago:
Make Turkey Soup

It’s easy on these big family holidays to get into this funk at the end of the meal where all you want to do is shovel the remnants into a garbage bag, haul it out to the curb, pour yourself a glass of something, stick your feet up on a cushion and watch nostalgic films. Not that Aunt Toby is against the pouring and putting the feet up part (her “feets” appreciate cushion propping as much as anyone’s), but do take the few moments to a) read the post and b) do the deed by the turkey leftovers so that in a couple of weeks when you want a quick dinner, you can go to the freezer, pull out the container of turkey soup, warm up some rolls or bread and voila! All set.

My only problem is that one of the things that I think really tops off the flavor is something that I never seem to have in the house, except at certain times of the year and that is green topped onions. But today, when I was cleaning up our onion storage down in the basement, I discovered that, as you see in the photograph, a couple of the onions had sprouted.

GREEN ONIONS(you have to imagine Cookie Monster saying that).

And considering that neither the DH nor Aunt Toby wanted a big heavy meal tonight and there seems to be a bit of a sniffle hovering about, Hot and Sour Soup it is. But I don’t have all the ingredients in the traditional recipe, so we are going to do Quick and Dirty Hot and Sour Soup. This is one of the real ‘clean out the fridge’ sorts of things – does it taste like the Hot and Sour Soup you get in the restaurant? No, I have to admit that it does not. But, it does embody the essence of Hot and Sour Soup: hot in temperature, hot in flavor, filling and chicken-y.

You’ll need:
2-3 cans of chicken stock. I use low sodium
2 eggs, beaten up
Mushrooms – if you have fresh, slice a big handful of those up thinly; if you don’t, canned will do.
A little cooking oil
Light soy sauce – 1-2 Tbls.
Ground Pepper – ½ tsp
Vinegar (regular white will do) – 2-3 Tbls
Some sort of cooked meat – I had cooked turkey in the fridge, so I used that – if you have cooked chicken or roast pork or something like that, use that. You can even use fresh uncooked, but just slice it thinly and cook it along with the mushrooms in the first step.
The tops of green onions, sliced into little rings.
Black sesame oil – 1 tbl. – this is really just a garnish that adds a smoky flavor to the soup; if you don’t have it, it will still taste good

Step 1: put a couple of tablespoons of oil into the bottom of a big pot – dutch oven will do – heat it up on medium and put in your sliced mushrooms to cook (and meat also if you are using fresh). Stir that around until you start to smell everything cooking. Add the chicken stock.

Step 2: Add the soy sauce, pepper and vinegar. Stir over moderate heat and bring to a simmer. If you are using cooked meat, add it here. Bring soup to a boil. Taste it – you really should be able to get a good kick from the pepper and vinegar – if not, add 1/8 teaspoon more of pepper and another tablespoon of vinegar.

Step 3: Beat up your eggs and finish off the soup — follow the directions in the little video:

Pour out into bowls and enjoy.

And you are really quite fed up with it sitting there and are about to unceremoniously throw the poor thing into the garbage, scraping out the roasting pan and letting it be done at that.

“Step away from the roaster, Sir (or Ma’am) and no one will get hurt.”

Now is the time to show some restraint and respect for the poor bird who “gave it up” for your family yesterday. We’re going to turn it into soup today! You will need: the turkey carcass and hopefully the pan that you cooked it in with all the lovely stuff still in it, plus a little salt or a can of chicken or turkey broth.

Take a big pan – like a Dutch Oven – and scrape what was in the roasting pan (veggies, jellied liquid and all) into the Dutch Oven.

Break up the carcass into pieces that will fit into the Dutch Oven and put enough water in the Dutch Oven to just about cover the pieces of the carcass. (Disclaimer, because I know someone out there will remind me about this: If your muni water system adds chemicals like fluoride, chlorine, etc. or if your tap water has “smells,” then you are going to want to use another source for your water, like spring water)

If you want to put more aromatic veggies in there like onions, garlic, and celery, chop them up and add them now.

Cover and bring to a boil and turn down the heat to simmer for a couple of hours. Then, pull out the bones and pull off any meat that has not fallen off.

NOW you can throw out the carcass.

Strain the liquid through a sieve into a bowl or another pot and put the sieve aside. Now, we need to chill the liquid and get off the extra fat. You can do this by putting it into your fridge, or, if you lack room and it’s winter time, cover the pot tightly and put it outside on the porch, deck or whatever in a secure place. This is your stock.

In the meantime, go through what you separated out and take out the meat. Frankly, at this point, the veggies have given up their best flavor to the stock and you can either do what you normally do with vegetable peels, or put them on the compost heap. Chop up the meat into a smallish dice.

Once the stock has chilled enough, uncover it. The fat will have risen to the top and made a cake, which you can break up into chunks and take out. If you like to use fat with flavor in it to cook other things, then you can wash these pieces off and store in a container in your refrigerator and use it as you wish. In Eastern European Jewish cooking, this stuff would be called Schmalz (that’s sort of an umbrella term and also includes goose fat and chicken fat). There will always be a little bit of the fat still in the stock; it will have plenty of flavor, believe me.

To finish up the soup, put back the meat and new veggies that you want into the soup (more onions, carrots, celery), plus anything like barley or rice. NOW taste the soup. If it doesn’t taste as strongly as you’d like, add a little salt to it, or add a can of chicken or turkey broth. You can cook rice or barley right in the soup as it heats up; if you have already cooked grains available as left overs, then the process just goes faster.

Heat up your soup again and simmer it until the veggies and grains are tender.

Serve and enjoy; refrigerate or freeze the leftovers!

(originally published at Oxdown Gazette)