Let's get this forum rolling.
I'd guess favs would be the food (or eating it) right? Over the years I've cooked an absolute metric ton of holiday foods from turkeys, ducks, geese, hams, briskets and beef rib roasts, standing pork roasts to latkes, gravies, mashes, purees, veggies ten ways of Sunday, noodle preprations like kugel, roast root veggies ie: squashes, tzimmes, to regional favs around my neck of the woods like tamales, red & green chile sauces, savory-sweet lengua empanadas etc.
For me it is two simple by-products.
1. Rendered braising/roasting fats
2. Bones
The fat - I love collecting and saving the rendered fats from roasted holiday meats for primarily roux making. If you dont have premade roux cubes of all sorts of different and deliciously nuanced animal fats in your freezer, why dont you? We all have enormous collections of computer crap piled high in our basements, so why not a modest set of rouxs in our freezers
To have this at your fingertips is awesome as it is the basis for so many fast and flavorful gravies, pan sauces, soups, stews, chowdahs etc. For example, each year the turkey fat collected from the family rst turkey is used in the roux for the tables gravies and hatch green chile sauce. The rest goes into blonde roux cubes for the winter season. Why waste your life away in a drive thru when you can throw down like a baller (yanno like great/grandma knew how to do) in your kitchen and eat in your underwear like a king in the comfort of your home.
Bones - Regardless of the animal, the bones are such an under rated part of what you bought. I'd venture a guess that most folks eat the turkey and throw out the bones/carcass/connective tissues. Instead, throw them back into the oven and roast them for another 30-40 minutes until theyre deep golden brown and then into a pot of cold water with the onion/celery/carrot/veggie/aromatic fruits & herb (ie: skins, peels, root ends, stems etc.) scrap you accumulated from preparing such a huge holiday meal. Simmer uncovered and 4-8 hours later, you'll have a flavorful stock for soups, demiglace, reductions, pan sauces etc. If you have an instapot its even easier - just throw all that stuff in the Ipot fill to the fill line and pressurecook for 30 or 40 minutes. Even easier, use just the bones and you get some fantastic broths out of this process that absolutely crush crappy store bught bases/broths/"stocks" etc. Anyhow I freeze this stuff in quart containers and pull it out when I want to cook something with ganas y' sabor. You know you've made something great when it goes into the fridge a velvety liquid and comes out the next day as jiggly roast meat jello. That right there is truly showing reverence to the animal you just consumed and gives thanks to its sacrifce in life to sustain yours.
eat well my technologically minded friends.
I'd guess favs would be the food (or eating it) right? Over the years I've cooked an absolute metric ton of holiday foods from turkeys, ducks, geese, hams, briskets and beef rib roasts, standing pork roasts to latkes, gravies, mashes, purees, veggies ten ways of Sunday, noodle preprations like kugel, roast root veggies ie: squashes, tzimmes, to regional favs around my neck of the woods like tamales, red & green chile sauces, savory-sweet lengua empanadas etc.
For me it is two simple by-products.
1. Rendered braising/roasting fats
2. Bones
The fat - I love collecting and saving the rendered fats from roasted holiday meats for primarily roux making. If you dont have premade roux cubes of all sorts of different and deliciously nuanced animal fats in your freezer, why dont you? We all have enormous collections of computer crap piled high in our basements, so why not a modest set of rouxs in our freezers
To have this at your fingertips is awesome as it is the basis for so many fast and flavorful gravies, pan sauces, soups, stews, chowdahs etc. For example, each year the turkey fat collected from the family rst turkey is used in the roux for the tables gravies and hatch green chile sauce. The rest goes into blonde roux cubes for the winter season. Why waste your life away in a drive thru when you can throw down like a baller (yanno like great/grandma knew how to do) in your kitchen and eat in your underwear like a king in the comfort of your home.Bones - Regardless of the animal, the bones are such an under rated part of what you bought. I'd venture a guess that most folks eat the turkey and throw out the bones/carcass/connective tissues. Instead, throw them back into the oven and roast them for another 30-40 minutes until theyre deep golden brown and then into a pot of cold water with the onion/celery/carrot/veggie/aromatic fruits & herb (ie: skins, peels, root ends, stems etc.) scrap you accumulated from preparing such a huge holiday meal. Simmer uncovered and 4-8 hours later, you'll have a flavorful stock for soups, demiglace, reductions, pan sauces etc. If you have an instapot its even easier - just throw all that stuff in the Ipot fill to the fill line and pressurecook for 30 or 40 minutes. Even easier, use just the bones and you get some fantastic broths out of this process that absolutely crush crappy store bught bases/broths/"stocks" etc. Anyhow I freeze this stuff in quart containers and pull it out when I want to cook something with ganas y' sabor. You know you've made something great when it goes into the fridge a velvety liquid and comes out the next day as jiggly roast meat jello. That right there is truly showing reverence to the animal you just consumed and gives thanks to its sacrifce in life to sustain yours.
eat well my technologically minded friends.
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