Melinda's Thanksgiving Leftovers Soup
This sweet, sour, and hot soup combines many of the foods we love about Thanksgiving.
This sweet, sour, and hot soup combines many of the foods we love about Thanksgiving.
- 3 cups water
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 large sweet onion diced
- 1 cup mashed potatoes
- ground cayenne pepper to taste
- 1 cooked turkey (bones only - all meat removed)
- 2 cups apple brandy or cream sherry
- 8 cups no salt chicken broth
- 8 fresh sage leaves
- 2 sweet onions quartered
- 2 whole green apples quartered
- 2 whole oranges quartered
- four cups fresh cranberries
- once broth is strained we will cook and/add these
- 10 celery sticks sliced into little half-moons
- 4 to 6 cups bite size turkey meat
- 4 cups sweet potato casserole (use a less sweet version)
- green beans from casserole or plain add to taste i
- salt, pepper to taste
- apple cider vinegar to taste
- brown sugar if needed, to taste
- Carbohydrate 2.43044407327586 g
- Cholesterol 0.2625 mg
- Fat 0.0978611422413793 g
- Fiber 0.26965667950696 g
- Protein 0.271577650862069 g
- Saturated Fat 0.0445992887931034 g
- Serving Size 1 1 Serving (58g)
- Sodium 41.4437995704681 mg
- Sugar 2.1607873937689 g
- Trans Fat 0.0249558836206896 g
- Calories 12 calories
Step-by-step
- place all broth ingredients in large heavy pot. Bring to a boil and then reduce to simmer covered for 2 hours.
- Uncover to cook off alcohol for 30 minutes
- remove large bones and chunks and then strain off remainder of small chunks-straining broth into bowl - discard all that was strained out. Set bowl of broth aside - strain any fat using fat separator in batches and set broth aside.
- Heat the same pan to med high and swirl olive oil 3 times around pan
- place 1 finely chopped large sweet onion and 8 sliced celery sticks and sauté till crisp/done then
- pour in 1/4 of the broth. Slowly add the sweet potatoes and the mashed potatoes while whisking. In the end add all of the potatoes. Add more broth unless you have the consistency you desire (can save any remaining broth by freezing.
- Add salt, pepper and "heat" to taste
- This soup should be even on the sweet/sour/hot/salty. If shy on sweet - add brown sugar, if shy on sour, add vinegar, if shy on hot - add more cayenne pepper.
- Add cubed or shredded turkey and green beans if you have them
- combine and heat through.
Stretching a post-holiday pantry requires managing disparate starches without turning the pot into paste. Mashing sweet potato casserole and plain potatoes directly into the broth demands vigorous whisking; add the sturdier root vegetables gradually to prevent gummy lumps from forming at the bottom of the pot. Simmering the stripped turkey bones for two hours extracts enough gelatin to give the strained stock natural body, compensating for the lack of commercial thickeners. Uncovering the pot during the final thirty minutes allows the two cups of apple brandy or cream sherry to reduce cleanly, evaporating the harsh alcohol burn while leaving concentrated fruit sugars behind.
Fresh celery and onions sautéed separately introduce crucial cellular crunch to contrast the softened holiday leftovers. Adjusting the final balance relies on calibrating apple cider vinegar and brown sugar against the natural sweetness of the remaining cranberries and apples. Straining through a fat separator removes excess surface grease rendered from the carcass before the meat and green beans go into the pot to heat through.
