#successful experiment

Smoked wild turkey

Trolling for a wild turkey recipe, I happened upon one that I believe will be my go-to in the future: smoked wild turkey breast with lemon-orange butter sauce.

I got more that 3 pounds of breast meat from a turkey I shot last week. So far, I’ve only done slow-cooker recipes with wild turkey. I wanted to try something new and stumbled upon a winner.

The recipe is a little vague on quantities. For the brine, I used enough water to cover the meat, one cup of kosher salt, one cup of brown sugar, the juice from one lemon and a few cloves of garlic, plus the “aromatics” suggested.

One caveat: The recipe says the meat should stay in the smoker for two hours; mine was thoroughly done in 70 minutes. Use a meat thermometer and be sure to monitor the progress.

Chicken and broccoli over rice with rye-whiskey peanut sauce. Phenomenal cooking from my partner. The whiskey was used to deglaze the cast iron after the chicken was done, and then those juices became part of the peanut sauce. A successful experiment!

Remember that out-of-left-field recipe from food52 for roasted pasta I posted yesterday?

Down in the comments, a microwave method for roasting/toasting the spaghetti was mentioned (1 lb for 3 minutes on high; watch carefully). I bought a box of thin spaghetti on sale last night to experiment with, and roasted some in the microwave before I went to bed. Within 2 minutes, the 4 oz. sample had browned up nicely from the ends toward the center, and smelled deliciously nutty.

This morning, as I was making tea for elevenses, as per recommendations, I put that roasted/toasted pasta in a gallon zip bag with filtered water, evacuated the air, and let it hydrate for an hour and a half. Then I cooked it in salted boiling water for a minute, tossed it with Marcella Hazan's Tomato, Butter, and Onion Sauce, and had lunch.

This roasted spaghetti experiment really worked. Deeper, nutty flavor perfect for Fall. I recommend it to you.

This method is also recommended for small shaped pastas that will go in soups as it will help them maintain their shape and texture.

There is also some unconfirmed talk that it may lower the glycemic index of pasta, if that's a concern for you. This needs, however, to be investigated.