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Sicilian Stuffed Turkey Recipe- Delicato Cookbook

WINE TIPS, CONT (from South Italian Stuffed Turkey)

SHOULD WINE BE SERVED IN ORDER?

If you are serving several wines with your meal, you may want to follow the traditional rule: white before red, young before old, light before robust, and dry before sweet.

In this fashion you advance from delicately flavored foods and wines to more complex, abundantly flavored ones. The dessert wines -- sweet sherries, ports, late harvest, or fruit wines -- are sweeter and heavier and go well at the meal’s conclusion.

SHOULD YOU DECANT?

It is said that a good wine deserves decanting, and an ordinary wine requires it. Decanting is done for two reasons: to improve the appearance of a wine, and to bring out taste, aroma and bouquet. Older red wines (over ten years old) are often decanted to remove sediment, the microscopic particles of grapes that gradually settle to the bottom of the bottle during long storage. Young wines and white wines seldom have noticeable sediment, but their appearance can be enhanced by serving them in an attractive decanter.


---Dorothy Indelicato

Delicato Family Recipe:

Turkey:

  • 20-pound turkey
  • ½ cup California dry red wine
  • 1 cup California dry white wine
  • 6 garlic cloves
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • 4 celery ribs, chopped
  • 1 medium-sized onion, chopped
  • 4 potatoes, peeled and quartered
    •

    Dressing:

  • 2 pounds ground beef
  • 4 eggs
  • 2 cups rice, steamed with salt, butter and parsley
  • 1 large onion, coarsely chopped
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • 4 tablespoons fresh minced garlic
  • 1 cup fresh parsley
  • 2 cups California Zinfandel wine
  • 1 cup grated Romano cheese

    • In large bowl combine beef, eggs, cooked steamed rice, onion, salt, pepper, garlic, parsley, red wine and cheese. Mix well. Stuff turkey with dressing. Place turkey in covered roaster and pour white wine over bird. Sprinkle with garlic salt and pepper to taste.
    Put the roaster in unheated 500° oven for 20 minutes. Turn down heat to 400° and roast for 4 hours without removing the lid. Check turkey, opening lid away from you to avoid the steam which has generated during cooking.
    Add celery, onions and potatoes and cook covered for an additional 30 minutes.

    Wine Suggestion: California Chardonnay

     

     

    Family Turkey

    In America, turkey is traditionally served on Thanksgiving or Christmas, but our family had it on all special occasions, including Easter.
    Mom fixed it the way she learned in the old country. When she added the potatoes, carrots and onions to the juice near the end of the cooking, we knew it was almost time to eat.
    My sister Frances, or Francy as we call her, still prepares it the way she remembers Mom cooking it. We include all three recipes in the book for you. My wife, sister, and sister-in-law each have their own special way of cooking the dressing. All are delicious!
    We have never served any one wine with the turkey dinner, but instead put out a selection of wines and let everyone drink his favorite.

    –Vincent Indelicato

     

    Delicato Family Sicily