Kitchen Supper: Smoked Turkey Neck Soup
Do-able meals, recipes + strategies for inviting people into our lives.
I love a neck.
I remember my dad on Thanksgiving with his electric carving knife, cutting the bird in the kitchen while my mother served whiskey sours, and Lays chips and clam dip to guests.
And then when no one was around, he would chew around the bones and sinews for that dark dark dark meat, so dark its almost duck or ham. Almost. Eating a neck with your fingers, with your teeth ripping through it cave man-style, over the cutting board, while no one sees you, like you have this delectable secret all to yourself, is one of the best Thanksgiving traditions ever.
The great thing about necks is that even for a lack of meat, it is the best meat - dark, moist, oily, stringy and tender. So this soup, which didn’t even include buying a whole turkey - I bought a plastic-wrapped package of smoked turkey wings and necks for less than $10. I threw in some chicken feet I had stashed in the freezer and made a stock.
Lucy and Edie love comforting soups, so I threw this one together for when they get off work late from their restaurants tonight. What I love is that you use what’s at hand, just pile your way through the fridge, grabbing whatever feels good, whatever raises it’s hands in the crisper and lets you know it’s ready to go into the game.
This soup is a great base for a kitchen supper - an easy meal to invite someone over. Add a salad, a baguette, put your a pot of soup in the middle of the table. This is a hearty, low cost, low-action meal, that you can pull together from what you have, that will make people feel so so good, comforted and loved.
Or just make it for yourself so you feel loved and comforted, too.
For the Stock
Water
Smoked turkey necks, smoked turkey wings, chicken feet
Salt
Simmer on the stove for the better part of a day.
For the Soup
Use a skim to pull out bones and bits. (You can run it through a cheesecloth, but I’m not that anal.) I pulled all the meat off the necks and wings and added it back into the soup. (I gave the leftover bits of meat to the dogs.) Here’s what I added, but you do you, this soup is so versatile:
springs onions, about 4 big ones, sliced
two cans of beans, I used a Great Northern bean and a Pinto
two carrots, diced
two celery stalks, diced
dandelion greens (any greens will do nicely, they are so good set up against the smokiness)
cold basmati recipe, about a cup, leftover
Serve
Crunchy bread, a crisp Fall salad with a light mustardy vinaigrette, maybe a Chardonnay or pale ale. For the non-drinkers (me) maybe a cider or an herby iced black tea. (Celestial Seasonings has a lovely raspberry black tea made especially for iced tea.) Have fun.
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END NOTES: This is part of a now-free, but soon-to be-paid, Kitchen Suppers section. If you end up making any of the dishes here, tag me here or on IG, I’d love to see them.
Essays on Thursdays, but not this Thursday because it’s Thanksgiving! Join us every Sunday for a new, easy-enough recipe worthy of inviting people over.
Thank you, as always, for cooking with me. xo Kim