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How to make turkey soup from scratch – and can it!
Our Thanksgiving bird was, once again, wonderful. We go to a lot of trouble to buy a high-quality bird (a Bourbon Red in our case), from a farmer we know. And we pay a lot, compared to that insipid supermarket stuff they call turkey – $87 for a 12 lb bird, to be precise.
I get as as much as I can out of that bird. It’s not just the money, either – it’s a matter of respect for resources. And one of the ways we stretch the use is to start a big pot of turkey soup while we’re cleaning up from dinner. Literally, I’ll break up the roasted carcass into a soup pot, add water, put the pot on a small hob and lowest flame, and start a simmer that will last nearly 24 hours. Here’s the pictorial.
Here's our bird out of a two-day buttermilk marinade. 12 lbs or thereabouts.
Three hours later, heat has worked its alchemy. Once dinner is over, I remove all the meat from the carcass and save for sandwiches, pot pie, etc. But I retain the carcass, too. While we're cleaning up, our tradition is to start making soup. Simply break up the carcass and put it in a soup pot full of water. Put it on a small hob, with a low flame, and start a simmer that will last about 18 hours.
Here's the stock after an 18 hour simmer. I did not add any meat - that's all what comes off the carcass (and there's more, as you'll see in the next photo.
Here are the bones pulled out of the stock pot. There is nothing left of them. In case you're wondering, these bones weigh 641 grams, or about 1.5 lbs of the 12 lb turkey weight. The pink plate is full of bits of skin and such that will go to the dogs (250 grams). So of a 12 lb bird, we're looking at 1.5 lb bones, 0.5 lb dog scraps, so that leaves about 10 lbs of usable turkey.
Here are the vegetables we'll add. The stalks are retained from bok choy we steamed last week. It's every bit as good as celery, and we have it around, why not use it? We also added lots of root veg which are on season now - rutabaga, carrot, turnip and Jerusalem artichoke (not pictured).
Here's the veg chopped. Add it to the soup, simmer for another 30 minutes or so. Ladle soup into sterilized jars (half solids, half broth), leaving 1" head space. Close jars tightly.
Put the jars in a pressure canner, add a few inches of water, and take it to 15 PSI.
Process at 15 PSI for 1 hour.
Yields about 20 servings of soup.
One awesome quart jar of soup for the pantry.
Note that you need lots of headspace – 1 inch, no kidding, if you want to assure all jars seal (one in this batch did not).
Costing notes: This turkey yielded about 30 individual meals, which is fairly unheard of for a bird this small. Total cost, then, is $2.90 per serving (that does not include dog food). The trick is to not waste any. We hope this post helps you do that.
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