I've made a lot of delicious turkey and rice soup using leftover Thanksgiving turkey carcasses. It is a robustly flavored soup with a normal amount of turkey and broth and rice, and a noticeably large amount of celery, onion and some garlic, and also some frozen peas and leftover broccoli, which all help to make a nice broth with complex flavors. Of course, I cheat by also using some chicken broth and some Better Than Bullion® roasted chicken flavoring, and a bit of salt and pepper. It is the resulting complex turkey broth flavors that set this soup apart from a typical milder chicken and rice soup.
I decided that the base flavor of the soup would be best if I used all of the leftover turkey, including meat, skin, fat and bone, as that produces the richest broth when those items are cooked together. It is then a simple matter later to discard the fat, bones and skin, and any cartilage, and retain only the meat and broth. I shred the turkey meat to have it later blend easily with all the other ingredients I put into the soup. When you chill that mixture you will notice the high gelatin content from the turkey is obvious, and that also is nice later for lightly thickening the soup broth.
Now you can have the pleasure of making and enjoying this very fine soup. You will be quite happy. This is genuine comfort food.
Ingredients: (makes about one gallon of soup, on three or four different occasions)
To process the turkey carcass:
Leftover Thanksgiving turkey carcass (from a 15 pound or larger turkey, with leftover drumsticks, thighs, wings, etc. and some breast meat)
3 quarts of water
1 tbsp. of sea salt (or less ... vary the amount to suit yourself)
1 tsp. of ground black pepper
To later make about a gallon of soup using one quart of the processed broth and turkey meat:
3 large celery stalks, diced
1 cup of frozen peas
1 medium size diced sweet onion
2 large fresh garlic cloves, sliced thinly
1 cup of diced cooked broccoli crown
1 1/2 quarts of packaged chicken broth (like College Inn® or Swansons®)
2 tbsp. of Roasted Chicken Flavor Better Than Bullion®
2 tsp. of sea salt
1/2 tsp. of ground black pepper
1 cup of uncooked basmati rice
Directions:
Process the turkey carcass:
Break up the turkey carcass bones and skin and meat into pieces small enough to fit easily into a two gallon pot, then simmer them in three quarts of lightly boiling water with the salt and the pepper for one hour, covered. Add additional water if necessary to allow all of the carcass parts to be fully submersed. Then let the pot contents cool to room temperature, covered.
Remove and discard the bones, skin, cartilage and fat.
Remove the turkey meat to a wood cutting board.
Shred the turkey meat with two forks and put it back into the soup pot.
Vacuum seal the turkey and broth in three or four one quart vacuum seal bags or three or four one quart Ziploc® freezer bags.
Put the sealed bags into the deep freeze until you are ready to use one of them.
That concludes the processing of the turkey carcass.
Now let's proceed to make one batch of the turkey and rice soup.
Thaw one frozen bag of shredded turkey and broth in the microwave oven and add that to a one gallon soup pot
Add the quart and one half of chicken broth and the Better Than Bullion® Roast Chicken flavoring to the soup pot.
Add all of the processed vegetables to the soup pot, along with the sea salt and pepper.
Stir the soup and bring it to a low boil on medium high heat. Boil on low heat for 15 minutes, then add the rice, and cook for another 15 minutes, stirring every five minutes.
Turn off the heat, cover the pot with a lid, and let the soup rest for 15 minutes.
Serve the soup hot. It is delicious right away.
Each guest can further add salt and pepper as desired.
It is nice to serve this soup with a warmed loaf of bread or rolls or saltine crackers, and butter.
Enjoy! This is great comfort food.