Poultry

Deep Fried Version Egg Fu Yung: A deep fried omelet served with a sauce, Egg Fu Yung is a well known Chinese American restaurant dish, but in China omelets are not deep fried and are never served with a sauce. Here are both versions using the same ingredients, although the listing is arranged for the first version.

I’m not sure why this recipe is appended with “good luck” at the end, given that the handwriting is my grandmother’s. It’s an odd enough phenomenon that I included it in the title. I like that it can be either poultry or beef given that I eat far more of the former, but the latter is more traditional.

As a North American, turkey winds up being the main course for a lot of holiday events. And every time, I’m forced to reconcile the fact that it’s hard to get birds that are small with the fact that nobody seems to like leftover turkey. This cassoulet is my solution to the problem, and the majority of it can be made in advance, just waiting to receive the roughly 3 lbs of extra bird meat. It seems like a lot of work, but take a look at the number of servings... if you freeze them in smaller portions you have the protein part of truly delicious dinners set for many days, it's a lot less work/meal than it appears at the outset. I have structured it as a 2.5 step process, but, you can do it all together on the same day if you wish, it just takes a long time. The recipe uses a wide 8 quart stockpot, a skillet, a casserole dish, and an instapot specifically to get the beans done quickly, but you could cook the beans in advance conventionally (soak and just let to simmer most of the day or use a crock pot) or even (dare I say it) used canned beans, although the latter generally are a bit mushy. I am assuming you've basted your turkey with a bottle of wine, and that you don't thicken the basting juice with flour or cornstarch. This recipe makes an enormous amount, about 1.75 gallons. It is meant to be portioned out and frozen, as it freezes and reheats very well.

It's now 2019, and I first wrote this page over 20 years ago. I've made a lot of turkeys since then, and some of what I do has changed over the years. It's time for an update. I have switched over to a dry brined technique. It takes a little more planning because the bird needs to sit in the brine, but actually requires very little work. If, like me, you are forced by circumstance to buy frozen turkeys anyway (the only way I can get a good organic kosher turkey in my area), it represents no change because you can brine the bird as it defrosts in your refrigerator. This is a very surefire technique and does not require much skill, so don't be afraid to tackle a turkey for your holiday meal!

Note - crockpot Coq au Vin comes out messier than if you made it the conventional way in the oven... but it's also a lot less labor intensive. Often the chicken is falling off the bone - typical for crockpot recipes. You're trading presentation for ease of use... without affecting taste.

I made this recipe one Sunday when the shabbos dinner from the Friday before didn't come out so well (the chicken was gamey and a little dry). You would not know the nature of the chicken's first incarnation... so don't be afraid to use baked chicken that has a very different seasoning style - it will be overwhelmed by the curry. Also, the rice comes out very mushy, but it's good. Overall the dish reminds me of navratan korma in flavor.

This is a staple we often made for shabbat.

Let's face it. Ground turkey tastes terrible. It even smells bad when you try and make it as meatballs in sauce. However, high cholesterol has made me take a second look at ground turkey burgers, and I've come up with a fairly reliable way to do them. It's no small feat to make a decent tasting turkey burger, and I thought I'd pass along my recipe. For what it's worth, I'm putting down amounts, but I usually 'go by feel'.

The simplicity of the name comes from when my children were very little. I typically rotated through a handful of chicken dishes for shabbos and because of the turmeric in this recipe, this is how the three of them referred to this particular dish.