{"id":30035,"date":"2009-11-26T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-11-26T02:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/WP-IMPORT\/2009\/11\/26\/the-fried-onions\/"},"modified":"2009-11-26T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-11-26T02:00:00","slug":"the-fried-onions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/the-fried-onions\/","title":{"rendered":"The Fried Onions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
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\"Fried<\/p>\n

I was out on the balcony, watching the fog come in, a whiskey in one hand and the iPod firmly screwed into my ears when it occurred to me I ought to get out the ingredients for everything to fix a very minimalist Thanksgiving dinner.
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Turkey breast, check, in the oven on low heat. Yukon gold potatoes for mashing. Sweet butter, check. Cornbread fixings all aligned on the counter. Fresh green beans, got \u2018em, whole milk, yep, can of mushroom soup- really should make a rou\u00e9 fresh, I thought and cut it with saut\u00e9ed onions and real hearty baby bella mushrooms, but what the hell- and the freaking French\u2019s fried onions.
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Where are the damned onions? The 1812 Overture was thundering in my ears as I ransacked the cupboards. I swear I saw the phantom can in the pantry but it must have been a ghost of green bean casseroles past.\u00a0
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Damn, it is the holiday road and the great search for an open store when I get up, in search of the onions.
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Last night I went back to the music and printed a couple notes of clarification, since if there was anything else I had forgotten, I definitely wanted to include it in the second-and-final last trip to the store.
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First, there is the matter of the cornbread. Listen up: I used butter in my recipe, but an alert reader- I will call her \u201cA,\u201d to protect Alison\u2019s privacy- rebuked me gently. I use extra virgin olive oil in all my cooking, and the nutty, slightly sweet taste did not strike me as appropriate for the cornbread. Hence, I default to butter.
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That is dumb, and inauthentic, to boot. \u201cA\u201d reminds me that her Tennessee inlaws told her nearly thirty years ago that: \u201cButter has a low smoke point. \u00a0Better to use Crisco (or lard if you are truly from the South). \u00a0You put it in the skillet in the oven and let it heat up. \u00a0When the oven is almost to the finished temp, you pour the liquid fat into the batter, stir and return to the pan. \u00a0
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Then bake. \u00a0
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Use thick pads for your hands when touching the 350-degree cast iron skillet, or else.\u201d
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From Front BC Mexico, south of San Diego, came another admonition. This is from a wonderful woman with many children and a somewhat acerbic manner derived from the same. I could see her looking at me across the miles and timezones with disappointment, but that is hardly unusual.
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She called the Rapidan recipe: \u201cone tradition, but we lazy folks love our Mrs. Cubbison\u2019s seasoned corn bread stuffing from the package, doctored in all sorts of ways . . . sausage, celery, poultry seasoning, onions, raisins (if the mood strikes), sometimes oysters (mostly if we’re on the east coast and can decent ones), butter, home-made turkey stock, apples, an occasional mushroom might wander in but most kids don’t care for them so they usually don’t get meandering rights (the mushrooms, not the kids), and whatever else is at hand and seems like it might make the stuffing a little more interesting. \u00a0And, of course, we cook the majority of it in the turkey ’cause nothing beats the taste of stuffing from the turkey. \u00a0The rest is cooked in the oven and is never as good.\u201d
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She was warming to the task, since none of this is worthy of anything without gravy. I was always of the giblet persuasion, boiling up most (but not all) of the contents of the little white plastic bag that comes in the cavity of the poor deceased bird, stripping the flesh in time off the neck and dicing it all up with the organs I could recognize once it was cooked. Then a white flour rou\u00e9 and the de-fatted drippings from the pan, gently stirred until thickened.
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My pal shared this, and since only this day of memory and anticipation would you spend this much time in the kitchen, I thought it worthy of passing along. There is never enough gravy left over, and on the off-chance that I ever do a whole bird again, this recipe is a keeper.
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Gravy, Greatest Ever
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4 turkey wings (about 3 -4 pounds)
2 medium onions, peeled and quartered
1 cup water
8 cups chicken broth
2 medium carrots, cut into chunks
2 medium ribs celery, with leaves, cut into chunks
4 sprigs fresh thyme or 1 teaspoon dried
\u00be cup all purpose flour
2 tablespoons butter
1 tsp freshly ground pepper
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Heat oven to 400?.\u00a0 Have ready a large roasting pan.
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Put wings in pan; add onions,.\u00a0 Roast 1 \u00bc hours or until wings are browned. \u00a0Watch ’em — they have a way of browning up pretty quickly.
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Put wings and onions in a 5- to 6-quart pot.\u00a0 Add water to roasting pan and stir to scrape up any brown bits on bottom.\u00a0 Add to pot.\u00a0
Add 6 cups broth, the carrots, celery and thyme.\u00a0 Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, 1 \u00bd hours.
Remove wings.\u00a0 When cool, pull off skin and meat.\u00a0 Save meat for another use.
Strain broth into a 3-quart saucepan.\u00a0 Discard vegetables; skim off fat (or refrigerate over night so fat will rise to top and come off easily).
(Whisk flour into remaining 2 cups broth in saucepan until blended and smooth.
Bring broth in saucepan to a gentle boil.\u00a0 Whisk in flour mixture and boil 4 to 5 minutes to thicken.\u00a0 Stir in butter and pepper.\u00a0 Serve.) \u00a0
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This part came from the original recipe, but we don’t do it, sounds icky.
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OR, make broth with all 8 cups of chicken stock, use drippings from pan \u2013 stir flour into them, then add broth. \u00a0This is what we do and it is divine.\u201d
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The only thing I can add to that is that you have to whisk the flour into the broth while it is cool- or fold it as a rou\u00e9. Otherwise, there is the real and immediate threat of lumps. I don\u2019t think there is any way to improve on that, and besides, I have to get out and look for some freaking French\u2019s fried onions.
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For all scattered around the wide world, have a good holiday. Think of those who are serving forward, and for whom a hot meal of any kind is a blessing. Let us be humble in the knowledge of their sacrifice, and thankful that we are not being shot at, or painfully alert to bombs on the holiday road.
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Eat and drink what you will, Friday will be soon enough to repent.
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Copyright 2009 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
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I was out on the balcony, watching the fog come in, a whiskey in one hand and the iPod firmly screwed into my ears when it occurred to me I ought to get out the ingredients for everything to fix a very minimalist Thanksgiving dinner. \u00a0 Turkey breast, check, in the oven on low heat. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-socotra"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30035\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}