How do you Battle the Cold Weather? Turkey Drumstick Osso Buco!

One of my all time favorite recipes for Fall/Winter! Perfect for a dinner party or a quiet meal at home and you can also change up the components of this recipe. 

Unlike baking which is very technical and chemical, you can add or subtract ingredients to this recipe. See some thoughts in the recipe below.

Well first off, to purchase Turkey drumsticks I have my two go to places.

1. Treasure Island on 3460 N Broadway St (between Cornelia Ave & Stratford Pl).
2. Paulina Meat market on 3501 N. Lincoln Avenue (corner of Lincoln & Cornelia).

For this recipe, you will want to have the last 3 inches of the drumstick cut off and removed for presentation. You can save the scraps to make soup so keep them and throw them in the freezer for later. The butcher at Treasure Island or Paulina can clean the legs up for you.

See the recipe below and I will put at the end ingredients I switched out and made this my own recipe. :)

Ingredients:

• 1/4-ounce dried porcine/morel/shiitake why not all 3? :)
• 1 cup red wine, such as merlot
• 4 (16 to 18-ounce) turkey drumsticks
• 1 teaspoon salt 
• 1/2 teaspoons ground black pepper 
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour 
• 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons olive oil 
• 1 cup diced onion 
• 2 sprigs of rosemary
• 1/2 cup diced carrot 
• 1/2 cup diced celery 
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste 
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic 
• 1 quart of chicken/duck/turkey stock
• 2 bay leaves 
• 3 sprigs fresh thyme 

Serving suggestion: Egg noodles/Polenta/twisty pasta

Directions

Season the turkey with the salt and pepper and coat evenly with the flour. Use a plastic bag such as a gallon freezer bag and throw in the dry ingredients and toss the turkey in it to properly coat the legs and keep the house clean.  

Place a wide-mouthed, straight-sided saute pan over medium heat. Add the 1/4 cup olive oil to the pan and once hot, sear the turkey in the pan until golden brown on all sides, about 8 minutes per side.

Remove the turkey from the pan, and pour off the fat from the pan. Use a paper towel to wipe the pan and return it to the stove. Add the remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil to the pan. Once the oil is hot, add the onions, carrots, celery and tomato paste to the pan and saute, stirring occasionally, until the diced carots, onion, celery, herbs and tomato paste are slightly caramelized, about 5 minutes.

Add the garlic to the pan and saute until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Deglaze the pan with the red wine. While the wine is reducing, add the mushrooms to the pan and continue to reduce the wine until it is nearly completely evaporated. Stir the stock into the pan and add the bay leaves and thyme.

Bring the stock to a boil and return the turkey to the pan. When the stock returns to a boil, reduce the heat to a simmer and cook the turkey, covered, until the meat is fork tender, about 2 1/2 hours, turning the turkey midway to ensure even cooking.

When you are about to serve I have in the past left one leg for presention for the plate and then the other legs I have gently removed the meat off the leg and placed back in the sauce and saved the bones for later.

If you use a dried mushroom, you can steep the mushroom in red wine or a stock and then add them to the recipe. I would let mushrooms soak for about 10 minutes and then straining them through cheese cloth or a strainer. Pat the mushrooms dry and set aside till it's  time to add to the recipe.

As for a wine selection to use for the recipe, I use merlot. However, I have had by accident had a little nebbiola left over and used that in my recipe and it was just as fragrant in the recipe and rich in flavor.

I also love to roast my own tomatoes with a little rosemary/oregano/olive oil and garlic in the oven for about 30 minutes in the oven. I use this in place of the paste. If you decide to use the tomato paste from a can, use a tsp of sugar. This will help remove the tinny taste that a can can leave in a recipe. Nice little trick.

For the stock I like to use as my base is Better Than Bouillon. They have a huge range of bouillon you can use including vegetarian for broth based recipes. Amazon is a fantastic place to check them out or Target seem's to have the best price out there and that is under $4 for a jar of it. I purchase mine from the Target in Uptown in the soup aisle.

Now one warning with this recipe, it will thicken the longer it cooks. I have watched the pot, so to speak, and was a little nervous but at the end when it was time to serve over the bed of pasta, it was perfect! If you like your sauce extra thick, add 2 tablespoons of flower and that will help the sauce.Cook time will run about 3 hours all together and about 30 minutes for prep, and that is part of the 3 hour total.