Thanksgiving, Past and Future

This year’s Thanksgiving was, modesty aside, The Best Ever. Naturally I attribute that to two key factors - excellent food, for which I was partially responsible - and a healthy amount of Moet et Chandon White Star and Evolution from the Sokol Blosser vineyard in Oregon - for which I was fully responsible for. Family gatherings can be tense in the best of situation, but loosening everyone up, albeit in a reasonably civilized way, ensured that the final prep, dinner, conversation, desert, and subsequent card games all flowed smoothly if not a little hazily.

This year was the second time in my life that I made the turkey. Now cooking in my house is very daunting as everyone is an amazing cook and thus, a spot on critic. So rather then completely winging it (no pun intended) I decided to stick as closely to a recipe as possible. Naturally, that didn’t fully happen and what turned out was an improvisation of two recipes. One was for the actual brining, which I shall forever do before roasting any poultry, the second for roasting the turkey. I found both on epicurious.com, which has always proved reliable in my experience and usually has very helpful user comments.

The first step, after we bought the 13.15lb (5.9 kg) monster was to wash it thoroughly and remove giblets and organs. I then found a pot large enough to put the bird in so that it would completely submerged in the brine, plunked it in, and improvised the following brine recipe.

Rather then adding a whole three pounds of kosher salt, I added approximately 1 1/2 cups, and while we didn’t have marjoram, I used fresh rosemary instead. This was done the day before to let the Turkey soak overnight, and the whole concoction looked something like this:

The hardest past was probably washing the bird after the brine, because you really do want to do it thoroughly, but it is a large, slippery, unwieldy thing.

As to the actual bird, I decided to improvise on the Porcini Mushroom Turkey with mushroom gravy recipe with fresh baby portobello mushrooms instead of dried porcini.

What that meant was that I boiled approximately 8 ounces of the mushrooms (cleaned and sliced) and using maybe 1/4 of that for the mushroom butter that went under the skin and the rest for the gravy. Thinking back on it, 1 1/2 sticks of butter under and over the turkey’s skin is a bit much, but it made the meat unbelievably juicy.

For the actual bird, my mother had brought homemade chicken stock from her cafe, and I had saved the mushroom broth, so I combined both of those to put in the roasting pan with the bird and the fresh herbs. Luckily there had been a farmer’s market at the Corner Brewery the week before and one of the vendors and been kind enough to give me a ridiculous amount of fresh rosemary, thyme, and sage (alas no parsley or we would have had us a good old Simon and Garfunkel moment) for only five dollars.

There was extra butter, so in addition to putting it under the skin (a very intimate process not for the squeamish) and in the cavity (ditto), I put it over the skin as well instead of the olive oil the original recipe called for.

So as the bird was ‘doing its thing’ roasting in a separate roaster oven we have, I started the prep for the gravy. Again, I substituted fresh portobello’s and used regular onions for shallots. I started the gravy with a blend of the chicken and mushroom stock, and added some pan drippings later once the bird was out and tenting. The sauce was way too much for the 5 of us, however I refrigerated one part, and froze a good 2 cups of it for future use. The part initially saved was used with the last of the turkey breast, sauteed mushrooms, and extra fresh herbs to create a sort of post-Thanksgiving Fettucini Alfredo. I don’t usually much care for cream sauces, but given this had more broth and white wine in it then actual cream, it was surprisingly light and yet still onctueux.

I was told by no less than my father, one of the kindest people I know but with a highly sophisticated palate, that it was the best turkey he had ever eaten, and my mother, who has even more discerning taste buds, seconded this. It was pretty damn good, and though time consuming, surprisingly easy to make. In the future, I would roast it in a conventional oven as I think it lets the skin brown more and maybe try it with a mix of mushrooms to add even more woodsiness and richness to the flavor.

Also on the dinner menu was the wild-rice and chestnut stuffing my mother makes’ every year (unbelievably good, also time consuming but fairly straightforward). I had my dad send me the recipe the first year I cooked Thanksgiving dinner by myself, but have been unable to locate the .pdf file or the recipe online. As suggested by the title, the stuffing involves loads of wild rice and roasted chestnuts, is cooked with chicken broth and celery, flavored with fresh thyme and the rest I will leave to your imaginations. Because the bird was brined we did not stuff it, but baked the cooked stuffing.

Other sides were roasted Brussels sprouts (the only way I eat them), mashed yams, and a lovely cranberry-orange sauce whose recipe was from a girl who works at my mom’s. I’m not a huge fan of cranberry sauce, usually finding them far too sweet, but this one had no added sugar and fresh orange rind, so it had a lovely citrusy, aromatic bitterness.

For desert I made a maple-pumpkin pie, with the best crust recipe I’ve ever found, all from November’s edition of Real Simple.

I made the crust the day before and was really hesitant about rolling out. All previous crusts I’ve used have been with the “pat-in” method, and I’m really no baker. However with my mother’s help, we rolled it out evenly and it turned out flaky, not too sweet, and buttery. I think I’m going to use the recipe next time I make my caramelized onion quiche.

So as I get ready to go back to Berlin (where ironically, I cooked my first Thanksgiving dinner by myself) my brother and I are planning to have a late Thanksgiving dinner for him and some of our friends. It will also be a Festivus celebration (dorks that we are). I suspect we will substitute 2 roast chickens for the turkey as it is hard to find a reasonable sized one, and I will bring canned pumpkin, ready roasted chestnuts, maple syrup and other ingredients from the States. I also suspect we won’t make all the trimmings, but definitely the stuffing and one other veg. Either way, it should be a good time and a fantastic trip.

Food for Thought

I do not usually proselytize, but the article by Nicholas Kristof, "Cancer from the Kitchen" in last week's Times and this Yahoo features piece on toxins in food really got me thinking about focusing on all things organic and local to the extent possible.

Not easy or cheap to do, but perhaps necessary not only for environmental sustainability but also to preserve one's own health. At my mother's restaurant she tries to buy as much as possible from our local farmers' market and butchers. In a country where we are used to eating whatever produce we want, whenever we want it (strawberries in winter, sure! apples and oranges all year round, of course!) it is challenging to get accustomed to the idea that food in season might provide more limited options, but much better tasting ones.

For you local folk, Concrete Media had a great guide on how to be a locavore, a term I find a bit affected but a damn good concept not only for health and environmental reasons, but also to support our faltering economy. Plus the idea of having milk delivered in glass bottles is just so charmingly old-fashioned. . .

Some images from Ann Arbor's lovely farmers' market, Wednesdays and Saturdays :

Housewives, continued and Fall Tulips

I just realized that I wanted to include one tip that I discovered this weekend, thanks to my mother. We had bought tulips (first of the year and my favorite flower for any of you who might care to know...) the day before Thanksgiving and I was worried that they were looking as though they might not last one, much less a few days days.

Well, they are still going strong, as are the Irises I bought yesterday from good old Trader Joe’s. The secret is to put lots and lots of fresh cranberries in the vase along with the water. It not only looks very festive, but the flowers last. I suspect it has something to do with the sugar in the fruit feeding the cut flowers allowing them to last longer.

I also suspect that my inner 1950s housewife is not so inner. Though I would prefer to have more of an inner Julia Child, or, younger, hipper, less felony-convicted Martha Stewart.

Enfin, voila what it all looks like:

I on the other hand am going to go and listen to "Mother's Little Helper" by the Stones to excorcise some of these cheesy ghosts haunting my psyche.

Thanksgiving, dinner parties and the return of my inner 1950s housewife

The past week has been wonderfully busy. Every day involved cooking in some capacity, and Thanksgiving was an exceptionally fun dinner where the Turkey turned out moist (secret to come in a later post), the libations flowed (due in no small part, ahem, to my generous shopping and servings), and everyone in my small family relaxed around the table. Every family has its tensions, weak spots that tend to give way when we all get together but given that this is the only holiday I'll spend at home this year, I'm so glad we were all able to relax into the meal, enjoying each other’s company without the baggage of having to pretend to.

The week also brought out my inner 1950s housewife - while she doesn’t come out very often, she is there, and likes to cook. And bake. A lot. So while there is a lot to share, for the moment, we are both just still exhausted especially given that I had two deadlines for Tuesday and have been surviving on coffee and minimal sleep.

However, I read this lovely article in the Times about neighbors and cooking, and thought I would share this. Sadly in our current community our neighbors, while lovely, all do tend to keep to themselves. So while we all use our back decks for grilling, we very rarely tend to do it together, much less organize elaborate ‘cook-offs.’ Perhaps it is for the best, though given the diversity of our court (Chinese, Bangladeshi, Danish, Latvian, and of course Turkish that I know of) I could imagine it would make for a very enlightening culinary evening. Perhaps something to mull over. In the mean time, here is the article:

“Neighborly Stuffed Cabbage” to be published in the print edition of the paper on December 3.

A la prochaine!