Turkey drumstick FAIL

Turkey drumsticks round 2. As excited as I am to try these Ron Swanson-style turkey legs, their long cooking time pushed them out of my schedule for the moment. 

I decided to try this recipe instead, swayed by its promise of 30 minutes of cooking time. I invested a short amount of time the night before to make the brine, letting the turkey legs marinate while I was at work, and then a quick pop into a hot oven before their final stop on my dinner plate.

But I should have realized that there are no shortcuts when cooking large pieces of poultry. I added some cooking time (20 minutes at 300 instead of 10, an extra 10 minutes in the residual heat after I turned off the oven), but still wound up with underdone turkey legs. I trust my source of meat so I think I'll be fine, but this would have been a dinner-party disaster.

Though this was not my most successful kitchen endeavor, there are still a few lessons to be gleaned from the experience.

Lesson 1: Either turkey legs and turkey drumsticks are two entirely different things, or my turkey comes from the biggest turkeys in the Chicago area. If you have some chicken legs or normal-sized turkey legs, I think this recipe would work nicely. My colossal drumsticks look much bigger than those featured in the recipe. They barely fit into my 8x8 inch pan when I was brining them.

Lesson 2: I'm not perfect, and occasionally I cook things that don't turn out that well. I won't skip over these failures here, but I won't go through all my methods and adjustments in detail. Lots of spices would work well in this dish and I used things I happened to have around.

Lesson 3: I assumed that Montreal Seasoning was the same as Old Bay (it was not), and then discovered that my Old Bay was shockingly old and barely had any flavor at all. Spices really do lose their potency over time, so go through your pantry periodically and get rid of things that won't add good flavors to your cooking.

Lesson 4: Don't try to eat undercooked poultry. Even if you don't get sick, you'll be wary about it and won't really enjoy your meal. I salvaged these drumsticks by cutting the meat off the bone and finishing it in a hot pan. 

I served some of the meat with some Spanish-style spinach (a dish that I discovered in a set of tapas recipe cards that my mom gave me) and roasted string beans, and some of it in a lunch salad.

Spanish spinach

Time: ~15 minutes
Servings: 1 entree-sized portion, 2 smaller sides

Ingredients
1 apple, diced (peeled if you like)
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup nuts, chopped (I had cashews, but any nuts will work)
2 large handfuls spinach (regular or baby; baby will cook faster)

Method
1. Coat a pan with olive oil and heat over medium-high heat. When the oil is hot, add the apples to the pan. Stir occasionally and cook until the apples are slightly browned, about 3-5 minutes.

2. Add the raisins to the pan, stirring frequently for about 30 seconds.

3. Add the nuts to the pan, stirring frequently for another 30 seconds.

4. Fold the spinach into the mixture, stirring so that the apple, raisins, and nuts are not all at the bottom of the pan. Cook until the spinach is wilted. If you use regular spinach instead of baby spinach, you might want to cover the pan so that it steams a bit.

Serve alongside meat, fish, eggs, or a grilled cheese sandwich!