Truffle butter turkey with a brandy gravy was one of the main courses at this dinner we hosted a couple of weeks ago, the first “holiday” meal of the season. We also had two-inch thick prime rib steaks for those who preferred to have beef. When a meal is in progress and there are guests in the house, I almost always forget to photograph the main part of the meal… so you’ll have to suffer with bad or nonexistent photos. Up top, the turkey, with butter and black truffles inserted under the skin before roasting. It was covered with foil for at least half of the roasting time to prevent over browning.
The plated started was a green salad over a bed of thinly shaved octopus and I added some strips of prosciutto on top to give it this surf and turf kinda feel. I have made this octopus salad before, it’s in the archives.
I wasn’t paying enough attention to the roasting pan and burnt a bit of the drippings before hurriedly adding more stock to the pan, so when I went on to make the gravy, it had a slightly “charred” undertone, but with lots of brandy in the recipe anyway, it didn’t seem too distracting. The brandy gravy was a nice complement to the aromatic truffle turkey. Honestly, despite the amount of truffle butter I used, there were some parts that didn’t get enough of the truffle flavor.
Some of the purple basil that I used to garnish the turkey. The meal also included a wild + cultivated mushroom stuffing and some baby carrots and french beans. We finished that all off with the salted caramel apple pie (a la mode in some cases) with some whipped cream.
6 Responses
How about switching – porcini butter but truffle stuffing? I think you’ll get more bang for the buck.
Oh, you could also try literally injecting truffle jus into those parts which didn’t take. I once used a fresh turkey instead of the usual “Butterball” and knowing it would be dry if not treated, I filled up a syringe with stock, brandy and melted butter and shot the turkey all over but especially in the breasts. When it was carved, boy oh boy, the juices streaming out was truly unreal for turkey.
Boy oh boy!! All that and STEAK too!!
Yum yum looking turkey! We won’t have one until Thanksgiving day — honey suckle white turkey with oyster dressing.
Time to buy turkey and replicate this. thanks MM!
That octopus salad looks so fresh and succulent! I’ll definitely try replicating that soon. :)