Turkey soup

I may have mentioned in a previous post that my girlfriend's mother bought a ginormous prehistoric turkey monster for Christmas.  Four of us had a lovely roast, sandwiches the next day, several portions for the cat and - best of all - I got the bones!

The main carcass wouldn't actually fit in my biggest pan, but I chucked the rest in with a couple of shallots, some cloves of garlic, bay leaves, a bouquet garni, a sprinkle of thyme, salt and pepper, and three litres of water.  Leave on a low heat for a few hours, then leave to cool.

I do appreciate that it doesn't look terribly appetising at this point.

Cook up whatever veg you have laying about - I used parsnips, carrots and sprouts.  Roasted, just to add flavour, but feel free to boil if you'd rather.

Now comes the labour intensive bit.  When it's cool enough to handle, you need to separate everything into parts - liquid into tupperwares to freeze and use later as stock, meat and the edible bits of onion and garlic into a blender, and the bouquet garni, garlic and onion skins, bay leaves and bones into the bin.  I worked by laying out a workstation and separating everything into the relevant places.

By the time you've finished stripping the monster turkey, the veg will be cooked so throw that into the blender, press the "go" button and add stock little-by-little until you're satisfied with the texture. 

It looks like a bit of a beige mush, but it tastes absolutely delicious.

The quantities here made three large portions of soup and about a litre of stock, which I have plans for.  Not bad for a carcass and some spare veg that most people probably would have thrown in the bin!

This mini-series of leftovers recipes has been deliberately vague on quantities, techniques and even which ingredients to use.  This is deliberate - I don't want anyone to go out and buy ingredients to make these things, I just want to put across the philosophy of buying the best ingredients you can afford and then making the absolute most of them.  Don't throw anything away but the bones, and even then only after you've boiled them into stock!