#327 Turkey and Hazelnut Soup

There doesn’t seem to be any history to speak of with this recipe, it seems it is just a way to use up the turkey carcass after Christmas or Thanksgiving, perhaps conceived by Jane Grigson herself. In my case, it was a way of using the huge amount of turkey stock I had in the freezer from the boiled turkey recipe. We don’t like waste here in Grigson Towers, so any way of putting any leftovers such as cooking liquors and carcasses are well-received.
It does use some nice wintertime ingredients: hazelnuts are usually in good supply along with the brazils, walnuts and almonds; there’s the fine herb chervil which I have tried and failed to grow myself. They’re a hardy plant and good for growing in autumn and winter. Unless it is me attempting cultivation. It is obviously in season now as I have seen them twice for sale over the last months or so.

This recipe gives calls for raw turkey breast, though some shredded left over leg meat from the roast would do perfectly as a substitute. Likewise, if hazelnuts are not to hand you can use chopped toasted almonds or chestnuts.

This recipe is for 4 to 6 people.

Bring 1 ½ pints of turkey stock to a boil with 8 ounces of raw minced turkey breast. Let it simmer for 3 or 4 minutes. Liquidise the soup and pass it through a sieve back into the pan after you have rinsed it. Jane does not mention what to do with all that turkey breast that won’t pass through the sieve – and there was plenty of it. It seemed a waste so I put some back in as it was still nice and tender.

Take a large egg yolk and 4 ounces of cream (weight, not volume) and whisk them together before adding a ladleful of hot soup to it. Pour in the stock mixture into the pan and stir over a medium heat until the soup thickens. Don’t let the soup boil, unless you want scrambled egg in it. Take the soup off the heat and add some chopped, fresh chervil (dried is allowed if you can’t get fresh), ½ a teaspoon of paprika, 3 ounces of chopped grilled or roasted hazelnuts and 2 ounces of butter. Lastly, season with salt and black pepper.

#327 Turkey and Hazelnut Soup. This soup was okay; inoffensive and homely, but rather bland. I imagine that I would like it if I were convalescing after a bout of the ‘flu. Not a bad soup, but certainly not an amazing one either. Next time I have some turkey stock, I shall make a risotto. 5.5/10

#277 Hazelnut Stuffing for Poultry and Lamb

I mentioned in the last post that people don’t make their own gravy anymore, well the same goes for stuffing. I have to admit, I don’t often make stuffing for roast poultry normally, though I have for the blog before. Every time I do, it comes out delicious and is always better than even the poshest pre-made supermarket pap. So I thought I was well overdue making some (which I think is also called dressing in the USA, non..?).

This one, I thought looked interesting – with its earthy hazelnuts and piquant-sweet preserved ginger; just the thing for a climate that is never really wintry. After all, the main reason that I haven’t cooked more food like this in Houston is because it is so bloody hot all the time and I don’t necessarily want roast meats. Anyways, this one seemed good and light and reasonably summery.

Griggers makes a point of highlighting the quality of hazelnut required for the recipe – pre-roasted and chopped hazelnuts are fine, she says, but you really want some slow roasted whole Italian ones from Avellino near Vesuvius, where they have been grown since Roman times. I’ll just pop over and fetch some. I couldn’t get those of course, but I did get Roman ones, so that pretty good I reckon, bearing in mind where I am!

Julian of Norwich with Hazelnut. For some reason.

If you want to be truly old-school, you can use cobnuts, which can still be found growing around the southern counties of England, in particular Kent. FYI: cobnuts were the original nut used in the game of conkers before the horse chestnut was introduced into Britain.

Stuffing is the easiest thing in the world to make. To start chop a large onions and soften it in two ounces of butter – keep it on a medium heat with a lid to prevent to browning. Once cooked, add the following ingredients in the following order: four ounces of fresh breadcrumbs; two ounces of toasted, chopped hazelnuts; four knobs of preserved ginger*, chopped; grated rind of half a lemon; the juice of a lemon; one large beaten egg; salt and pepper; and two tablespoons of chopped parsley. Now you can use the stuffing for whatever you like. If this is for turkey, you may need to double, or even treble the amounts given here.

If you are using it to stuff a bird, make sure you weigh it after it has been stuffed so you can include the extra weight in the cooking time. Also, it is best to stuff the neck end rather than the cavity, as the stuffing doesn’t go stodgy; just loosen the skin and stuff it in, securing it all by folding the neck skin under the bird. Any left can go into the cavity – but only pack it loosely.

*If you can’t get preserved ginger then use ginger preserve (i.e. ginger jam), or miss it out entirely and replace it with the chopped liver of the bird(s) and a heaped teaspoon of thyme.

#277 Hazelnut Stuffing for Poultry and Lamb. Absolutely delicious and definitely the best stuffing so far in the book! It was sweet and earthy and the nuts had gone wonderfully soft and translucent, giving out their flavours into the rest of the mixture. The lemon and ginger lifted it all very well and stopped it from being too heavy. This is going into my everyday repertoire. 9/10.

#79 Carrot and Hazelnut Cake

Right. I promise that October shall be much more eventful in the world of The Grigson than September. It was my turn to do the cake for Evolution Group at University, so I’ve been given a good kick up the arse.

A favourite of the group is carrot cake, and there is a recipe in English Food – though it’s very different to the American carrot cake. It’s made without using fat, like a Genoese spoge to make it light and has the added bonus of having hazelnuts in it. Couldn’t resist not sandwiching it with American-style cream cheese filling.

FYI: Carrots have been used for desserts quite a lot in England. Mrs. Beeton had a sweet, chewy carrot tart in her book; it was revived as mock apricot tart during rationing in the Second World War, if I remember rightly (not that I was in WWII, you understand).

Separate four eggs and add to the yolks to the bowl of a food mixer along with 4 ounces of caster sugar. Whisk them together until pale and frothy. This takes a while so meanwhile finely grate 4 ounces of carrots and blitz 2 ounces of toasted hazelnuts in a food processor (or, heaven-forbid, chop them by hand!). Fold these into the eggy mixture along with 4 ounces of sifted, plain flour. Next, whisk the egg whites until stiff. Slaken the mixture by stirring in a third of the whites and then fold in the rest. Spoon the mixture into two greased and papered 9 inch cake tins and bake at 190ºC for anywhere between 15 and 25 minutes. They’re ready when the sponge springs back pressed lightly. Cool on wire racks.

To make the filling, beat together 8 ounces of full-fat soft cheese with 5 ounces of softened unsalted butter, once incorporated, beat in 4 tablespoons of icing sugar and a teaspoon of vanilla extract. Use this to sandwich the cakes together. Dust the whole thing with icing sugar, if you please.

#79 Carrot and Hazelnut Cake – 8/10. A success. Every seemed to like it. Much less dense than a typical carrot cake. I could only have a tiny wee sliver since I’m meant to be on a carb-free week this week, but I had to taste it for the blog, didn’t I!?