I’ll fix the recipe card at some point, and I’m missing some ingredients for this, like red wine, carrot, celery, sprigs of thyme and rosemary, but we’ll manage.
- In an oven-safe pan on med-high heat and enough neutral oil to cover the pan, sear the legs, skin side-down until borwned (approx 8 minutes).
Flip and cook for another 5 minutes.
Transfer the legs to a tray. - Build the base (mirepoix as expected)
Roughly chop some onions, celery, carrots, some smashed garlic cloves, 2x 3″ rosemary and thyme sprigs
Saute the veggies until well browned. Stir and scrape the browned bits left by the turkey. - Normally this is where we’d add 2 cups of dry red wine – nothing too sweet, and nothing with a strong flavour – the flavours of the wine will concentrate as it reduces.
Reduce the wine by half (eyeball this) - Add some chicken or turkey stock.
Place the turkey on top of the veg so the skin is above the liquid (exposed so it crisps).
Bring this to a simmer, then transfer to a 275F oven.
To get to IT of 165F will take about 2 hours. - The fun part!
Remove the turkey, and place on a tray
Pour all the braising stuff through a fine strainer, and save the liquid.
You might want to skim off some of the fat. A bit of oil on top is fine, giant blobs is not.
For every 2 cups of liquid, we’ll make a roux with 1 tbsp each butter and flour
Make sure the roux starts to brown a bit before slowly adding the liquid.
Whisk like mad to avoid clumps.
Bring to a boil, and let simmer for a few minutes to make sure the flour has absorbed all the liquid it can, and the gravy starts to thicken.
I’m going to make a side of rice, and maybe some mashed potatoes while the turkey is braising.
I might also make a dessert, like ice cream, or some sort of custard.
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