This weekend, I test-drove the recipe I'll use for the turkey this christmas. I did it with chicken for this attempt and it was simply amazing. So amazing that I'm going to share it :)
Chimay Bleue turkey pot
Ingredients:
- 1 turkey
- 1l of Chimay Bleue
- 250g block of bacon
- 250g button mushrooms (fresh, whole, small)
- 2 big onions
- 15 white pearl onions
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 2 big carrots
- 1 celery stick
- 50g butter
- 4 cloves
- 1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
- 1 branch of thyme
- 2 laurel leaves
- salt and pepper to taste
Preparation:
Cut (or ask your butcher to cut for you) the turkey in parts (wings, thigh, breast, ...)
Peel the garlic, carrots and big onions
Cube the carrots and the celery stick, quite small
Mince the big onions and the garlic
Cut the bacon block in slices (you'll cut those slices in match-stick size later on)
Put the turkey in a freezer bag, add the celery, carrots, garlic, onions and bacon
Cover with the beer
Add the laurel leaves, the thyme branch, the cinnamon, the cloves and salt to taste
Close the bag and leave in the fridge for 12 hours
Cooking:
Peel the white pearl onions
Clean the mushrooms, removing the soil without cutting the foot
Remove the turkey from the marinade and drain it
Remove the cloves from the marinade, throw them away
Filter out the marinade to separate the beer and the vegetables. Set both aside
Melt half the butter in a deep pot, on medium heat
Lightly brown the turkey, both sides, for 10 minutes on medium heat
Throw in the white pearl onions, mushrooms, solids from the marinade... let it sweat for 5 minutes
Pour the beer back on and let it cook for 1.5 to 2 hours on medium-low heat
Remove the chicken from the pot and keep it somewhere warm (in the oven, for example)
Fish out the bacon, the pearl onions and the mushrooms, keep aside.
Filter the rest to get rid of the remaining solids, pressing them to remove all the remaining juice, then throw them away.
Cook the juice on high heat until it starts thickening
Add the remaining 25g of butter
Slice bacon into large match-sticks
Throw the mushrooms, tiny onions and bacon back in
Cook one more minute, gently stirring
Serve with chips and either a glass of Chimay Bleue or a wine like "
Madiran Château Bouscassé Vieilles Vignes 2000".If you can't get Chimay Bleue in your shop, any dark strong tasty trappiste beer will do (Westmalle, Rochefort, ...). If you can't get trappiste beer, try a dark strong tasty stout instead.
The recipe won't work with a pils beer.
On this picture, you can see 3 generations of a pug family. In the front, fast asleep, you can see Momo. In the back, with a red harness, you can see her daughter Hanabi (our female pug). The biggest puppy, close to Momo, is Isami (one of our puppies, son of Hanabi and Hanzô) and the small one is one of Momo puppies (also with Hanzo).
This picture shows our 3 grown-up pugs: Hanabi, Mame and Hanzô. Hanzô is the first pug we got after getting married, he has the sweetest character you could dream of and we are now trying to find the breeder he came from to see his parents (we already found out he's coming from central Bohemia in Czech Republic). Mame was the weakest puppy of Momo's previous litter. He was tiny, skinny and had to stay at the vet for some time as a baby after respiratory problems. He's now the living proof of that Vet talent, as he is the strongest and liveliest pug ever seen by anyone we know. A normal pug should sleep around 16 hours a day, Mame wants to play 16 hours a day. Mame is also a sort of local star, he got featured in the cultural section of the regional newspaper after playing a role in an opera in 2006.
Here comes the result of Hanzô's first litters, 6 puppies alive out of 9 born from 2 females. 2 of our puppies got a nasty bacterial infection and couldn't be saved, one puppy from the other litter died for unknown reasons. The 4 top puppies are with Momo and the bottom 2 are with Hanabi.