A while back I posted that I had scored these turkey wings and got some advice here from the cooks. I ended up bagging them up and freezing them as we went through a period of ice, snow and arctic temps. When the weather warmed up recently I decided to go for it.
My head was spinning a bit on brining, ratios, etc., so I decided to step out into the web further and see what people are doing. I decided this simple brine and smoke on YouTube (that was a clickable link) would be my basis. But I didn’t want to use a sweetener so I left it out.
These were two whole large turkey wings…and man, I wouldn’t want to have quarreled with that turkey…I was calling them pterodactyl wings. When just the two wings were nearly 4lbs, how big did that turkey have to be?!
I went with a brine of 3 tbls Kosher salt and 1 tbls chicken bouillon to a quart of water (the ratio she was using in that video). Heated in the microwave a bit to dissolve the salt. Did this ahead of time. I saw so many videos and recipes where people were using ice cubes to cool down their brine and thought, why not just do this ahead of time so it’s not hot?
The cook in the video brined and smoked the wings whole. I knew the flats would cook faster than the drums and the tips are useless for meat at least, so I decided to break them down. Man, these were tough to break down, I had to use a cleaver, my chefs knife just could not breach the joints.
In the video she pierced the skin and showed a needler like the one I have. That needler would not piece the skin it was so tough. So I used this old fondu fork to perforate the skin.
Bagged them up with the brine and into an old catch pan and into the fridge overnight
In the morning I packed my pastrami rub on them and let them sit open air in the fridge until the afternoon.
Smoked them as 275 and figured they need to be cooked like chicken thighs, at least 180. They cooked pretty fast, I want to think an hour or so? I forgot to write that down. Don’t they look great?
Well, they were tough as heck. I had a flat and a drum for dinner and could barely gnaw the meat off of them. Flavor was great though.
I thought, "now what the heck am I going to do with the other two pieces?". I was thinking collards but then in another thread here while helping me sort out some pastrami, Chopsaw and Thirdeye brought up the concept of finishing pastrami in a pressure cooker. My light bulb went on and that’s what I did to the two tough turkey wing portions.
I was able to easily pull the meat off, but I didn’t write down how long I pressure cooked them for. I don’t plan on doing this again anyway!
Yielded about a half pound of meat.
I started looking around and found several food items that were past their prime and or needed eating-up. Had part of a bag of shredded cheddar and knew more cheese would be better so I pulled out a bag of pepper Jack.
Had the bottom of a bag of tortilla chips, some old low carb pasta I had been wondering what I was going to do with, an old large jalapeno that needed using and a can of cream of celery soup my wife bought then never made the recipe she was going to do. Some onion and garlic and I had me the makings of a casserole.
Cooked the pasta and sautéed the pepper, onion and garlic (garlic at the end then pull off the heat)
In to the bowl with the turkey meat
Crushed the leftover chips in to the bowl. I had just printed a chicken casserole recipe using layers of corn chips that gave me the inspiration. I did not follow a recipe on this though, I “winged it”
Mixed it up with the cheddar and some of the Jack
I put the soup in a Pyrex bowl, threw in the bottom of a carton of heavy cream and the bottom of a container of sour cream (this was truly an “empty the fridge and pantry” dish) and “house seasonings”, all eyeballed. Microwaved and whisked it all well.
And into a 9x9 casserole pan
Baked about a half hour at 350, covered with foil, then about 15 minutes uncovered till it got a little browned
Topped with the rest of the pepper Jack and back in the oven just long enough to melt it. I have learned that browning cheese on a casserole just makes it harder to cut and eat cleanly. Kind of depends on the type of cheese, I still like to brown mozzarella a bit.
After responsibly resting, we had a great dinner. The casserole turned out excellent, just winging it with stuff that needed to be used up.
The red stuff is Texas Pete. Like the Franks commercial says, “I put that $#!t on everything!”
A journey of redemption. Total fail on the turkey wings, but ended up with “good eats” in the end! Not a fancy plating, but in the end I made good food from what was tough turkey and a bunch of random stuff that needed to be used-up
My head was spinning a bit on brining, ratios, etc., so I decided to step out into the web further and see what people are doing. I decided this simple brine and smoke on YouTube (that was a clickable link) would be my basis. But I didn’t want to use a sweetener so I left it out.
These were two whole large turkey wings…and man, I wouldn’t want to have quarreled with that turkey…I was calling them pterodactyl wings. When just the two wings were nearly 4lbs, how big did that turkey have to be?!
I went with a brine of 3 tbls Kosher salt and 1 tbls chicken bouillon to a quart of water (the ratio she was using in that video). Heated in the microwave a bit to dissolve the salt. Did this ahead of time. I saw so many videos and recipes where people were using ice cubes to cool down their brine and thought, why not just do this ahead of time so it’s not hot?
The cook in the video brined and smoked the wings whole. I knew the flats would cook faster than the drums and the tips are useless for meat at least, so I decided to break them down. Man, these were tough to break down, I had to use a cleaver, my chefs knife just could not breach the joints.
In the video she pierced the skin and showed a needler like the one I have. That needler would not piece the skin it was so tough. So I used this old fondu fork to perforate the skin.
Bagged them up with the brine and into an old catch pan and into the fridge overnight
In the morning I packed my pastrami rub on them and let them sit open air in the fridge until the afternoon.
Smoked them as 275 and figured they need to be cooked like chicken thighs, at least 180. They cooked pretty fast, I want to think an hour or so? I forgot to write that down. Don’t they look great?
Well, they were tough as heck. I had a flat and a drum for dinner and could barely gnaw the meat off of them. Flavor was great though.
I thought, "now what the heck am I going to do with the other two pieces?". I was thinking collards but then in another thread here while helping me sort out some pastrami, Chopsaw and Thirdeye brought up the concept of finishing pastrami in a pressure cooker. My light bulb went on and that’s what I did to the two tough turkey wing portions.
I was able to easily pull the meat off, but I didn’t write down how long I pressure cooked them for. I don’t plan on doing this again anyway!
Yielded about a half pound of meat.
I started looking around and found several food items that were past their prime and or needed eating-up. Had part of a bag of shredded cheddar and knew more cheese would be better so I pulled out a bag of pepper Jack.
Had the bottom of a bag of tortilla chips, some old low carb pasta I had been wondering what I was going to do with, an old large jalapeno that needed using and a can of cream of celery soup my wife bought then never made the recipe she was going to do. Some onion and garlic and I had me the makings of a casserole.
Cooked the pasta and sautéed the pepper, onion and garlic (garlic at the end then pull off the heat)
In to the bowl with the turkey meat
Crushed the leftover chips in to the bowl. I had just printed a chicken casserole recipe using layers of corn chips that gave me the inspiration. I did not follow a recipe on this though, I “winged it”
Mixed it up with the cheddar and some of the Jack
I put the soup in a Pyrex bowl, threw in the bottom of a carton of heavy cream and the bottom of a container of sour cream (this was truly an “empty the fridge and pantry” dish) and “house seasonings”, all eyeballed. Microwaved and whisked it all well.
And into a 9x9 casserole pan
Baked about a half hour at 350, covered with foil, then about 15 minutes uncovered till it got a little browned
Topped with the rest of the pepper Jack and back in the oven just long enough to melt it. I have learned that browning cheese on a casserole just makes it harder to cut and eat cleanly. Kind of depends on the type of cheese, I still like to brown mozzarella a bit.
After responsibly resting, we had a great dinner. The casserole turned out excellent, just winging it with stuff that needed to be used up.
The red stuff is Texas Pete. Like the Franks commercial says, “I put that $#!t on everything!”
A journey of redemption. Total fail on the turkey wings, but ended up with “good eats” in the end! Not a fancy plating, but in the end I made good food from what was tough turkey and a bunch of random stuff that needed to be used-up
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