For years now, I’ve been following a recipe I found online to make a maple-glaze for when I roast a turkey, however I’ve been tweaking it every year to suit my taste.  What I’ve come up with is a sweet and robust flavour for the turkey and gravy.  Once you try it, you won’t be able to go back to a prepackaged store bought brown gravy anymore!

For this recipe, I’m not going Asian at all (gasp! I know!  that’s a shocker for me too!)  We have to crack open the pantry of all of the not-so-common herbs and spices, as well as use all the classic veggies that I don’t normally eat.  Yes, this means no gai lan, or bok choy.

Ingredients:

• Turkey
• 1.5 cups Maple Syrup
• 1 cup White wine
• 1 bottle of Beer
• 1 cup Pineapple Juice
• 1 cup butter
• Big scoops of:
  • Marjoram
  • Thyme
  • Basil
  • Or use a pre-mixed Italian seasoning which has those ingredients in them
• Lemon Zest from 1 lemon
• 12 Carrots
• 2 Bunches Celery
• 3 Onions
• 2 Garlic
• 4 cups chicken stock

This is a multi-part, multi-day recipe.  On the night before you want to roast the turkey, you must make the glaze.  It takes a few hours to cool in the fridge, so its easier to make ahead of time.

Drunken Maple Glaze

Grab your liquids and add them to a large sauce pan.  The best part of having a wedding?  All of the leftover wine! We’ve been using up all of the wine slowly since Jax an I got married.  These bottles come in super handy!  Don’t have wine or beer? use cider?  don’t have cider? use apple juice.

Measure out your seasonings, and grate the zest off of an entire lemon. Get the butter ready by cutting them into small chunks

Add them all into your sauce pan, and bring to a boil.

Reduce the heat to medium, and then let it reduce for about 45 mins.

Let it cool, and then put it in the fridge overnight, or until it becomes semi-solid.

Turkey

Now we can get the turkey ready!

Grab your turkey, wash it, and then pat it dry

Prepare the bed of vegetables in your roasting pan.

Chop up the celery, carrots, and onions into coarse large chunks.  Peel the skin off of the garlic, and throw them in whole.

Ensure you add the neck and giblets from the turkey!  This gives it great flavour!  Sprinkle some of the same seasonings used in the glaze all over the mixture.  Add in about a cup of chicken stock.

Place the bird on top of the veggies (or a rack if you have one) and bring out the glaze.

If you have a syringe, now is an excellent time to get it!  I fill up the syringe and inject the mixture into the breast, and legs.

Rub some more glaze over the entire turkey.  Leave about 1/3 of the mixture for gravy.

Foil the legs and wings, and roast in your oven for the appropriate time (until every part of the turkey reaches 165 F)

It should be a nice golden brown when you take it out

Ta da! there you have it!  Maple glazed turkey!

But wait! there’s more!  What about all of those veggies?  We do NOT eat them just like that.  Instead, we make it into a super rich soup!  grab all of the roasted veggies, and the giblets, and puree the crap out of them.

The amount of veggies I added fit perfectly into the jar

Add about 1-2 cups of the drippings to the veggies.

When it is complete, it should be super smooth and silky.

Ta da! there you have it, a second dish to serve with your meal!

But wait, there’s even more!

Remember the rest of the glaze that you reserved? it’s time to make that into gravy, which is the BEST PART of this recipe!

Strain the fat and oil away from the drippings, and add the rest into the gravy saucepan.  Bring to a boil.  Add in 3 more cups of chicken stock, and some flour to thicken it up.

THIS is the whole reason to spend all that time making a glaze!

Ta da! there you have it! Drunken Maple gravy!

… But WAIT! There’s even more!  One of the many great things about roasting a turkey, is that you can use the entire bird, carcass and all.

After done carving the turkey, reserve the bones for soup stock!

Throw all of the bones into a large stock pot, fill with water, and simmer for hours and hours.

You now are prepared for your next meal, whatever it may be (turkey congee perhaps?)

… But wait! There’s … nothing more now 🙂  Serve your turkey with all the fixin’s, and have a wonderful holiday meal!