Turkey Day for Meee!
Though I don't blog much anymore, I wanted to keep track of my Thanksgiving meal for future reference next year.
Appetizers:
Mom got put in charge of this: Brie and honey/walnut mix on French bread, bacon-wrapped baked apple slices, prosciutto-wrapped breadsticks.
The first course:
Butternut squash risotto: This is a pretty standard dish for me, which I first had at Margeau’s, but it was seasonal and none of my family had ever tried it, so I figured it’d be a good edition to turkey day. Risotto done traditionally, with the addition of butternut squash, spinach and bleu cheese at the end.
The Turkey:
Herb butter turkey with wine gravy: I think this is the best turkey I’ve made so far (it’s probably only my third or fourth). Two days early, I made two sticks of compound butter - I used a mix of sage, lemon zest, garlic, rosemary, thyme and tarragon to flavor it. I put the butter under the skin of the turkey. Stuffed the turkey with assorted aromatics - some herbs, a lemon, an onion, an apple and some cinnamon. Coated the top of the skin with olive oil, salt and pepper.
The turkey ended up being high-heat roasted by default - I’d meant to do a half hour at 450 and the rest of the time at 350 due to oven-sharing concerns, but because my mom had to do bacon appetizers, it ended up spending about an hour in the 450/500 degree range. As a result, it only took about 2 hours to reach 185 degree internal temperature. The meat was moist, the skin was flavorful and crisp. Did a pretty traditional gravy, just adding white wine to the drippings, and doing a roux.
Stuffing
Bread: I wasn’t overwhelmed with any particular stuffing recipe I saw this year, so I improvised. Italian bread, carrot, mushroom, herbs, onion, garlic, a few chestnuts and a touch of prosciutto. I did it on the stovetop and finished it in the oven. I thought it was kind of meh, but it’s really good reheated.
Meaty-stuffed onions: Mandy did this - it’s a sausage based recipe, very good.
Potatoes
Mashed Potatoes with basil and caramelized onions: This was a recipe inspired by Becky’s take on something they served at Roberts. Really simple - just whipped mashed potatoes with milk, butter, basil and caramelized onions mixed in. I did the onions the night before, which was convenient. I ended up just having dad assemble them because I was too busy with other stuff, and he did a great job. Needs lots of salt and pepper.
Spanish potato casserole.: This did not turn out particularly well. I tend to have a little trouble with the cooking time on this (which comes from my Jose Andres tapas cookbook), and I wasn’t paying a lot of attention to it. But the potatoes didn’t crisp up quite right, and there was too much liquid in the bottom of the pan. It’s basically just a mix of onions, potatoes and wild mushrooms (I had great ones from the farmer’s market), with a little bay leaf and rosemary thrown in.
Vegetables:
Peas with mint and pearl onions: These were a hit, though I thought they could have been cooked a little longer. Simply done - frozen peas with pearl onions (I pre-cooked them quickly), chopped fresh mint and butter, done in the microwave.
Sauteed greens with lemon and garlic in olive oil. These were kind of eh - I definitely oversalted them, I couldn’t get the exact greens I wanted from the market, they cooked down more than I expected, etc. I liked them anyway, but they weren’t necessarily a crowd pleaser.
Rolls on the side
Canned cranberry sauce in honor of dad
Dessert:
Apple Pie and Pumpkin Pie (brought by Jen)
Chocolate Cake (brought by Priya).
The event: Priya and Jen came, and were great company. The biggest snag came early in the cooking process. My apartment at one point filled up with smoke - it started smelling funny early on. At first I thought it was the bacon mom was cooking for the appetizers. But those came out, the turkey looked fine, but smoke kept getting worse. Turns out someone had put a rolling pin in my broiler and it caught fire! Mom burned her hand pretty badly, which sucked (our family traditionally tends to get sick/injured on Turkey Day to the point of hospital visits, so this was nothing new). Ah well.
Also, game playing is usually a prominent thing, and we had a lot of fun with “Apples to Apples” and “Loaded Questions.” Though of course we got this question in LQ “I never have been able to ________.” Dad answers, “Reach Orgasm.” AND later has to clarify it isn’t true. Thanks, Dad.
Appetizers:
Mom got put in charge of this: Brie and honey/walnut mix on French bread, bacon-wrapped baked apple slices, prosciutto-wrapped breadsticks.
The first course:
Butternut squash risotto: This is a pretty standard dish for me, which I first had at Margeau’s, but it was seasonal and none of my family had ever tried it, so I figured it’d be a good edition to turkey day. Risotto done traditionally, with the addition of butternut squash, spinach and bleu cheese at the end.
The Turkey:
Herb butter turkey with wine gravy: I think this is the best turkey I’ve made so far (it’s probably only my third or fourth). Two days early, I made two sticks of compound butter - I used a mix of sage, lemon zest, garlic, rosemary, thyme and tarragon to flavor it. I put the butter under the skin of the turkey. Stuffed the turkey with assorted aromatics - some herbs, a lemon, an onion, an apple and some cinnamon. Coated the top of the skin with olive oil, salt and pepper.
The turkey ended up being high-heat roasted by default - I’d meant to do a half hour at 450 and the rest of the time at 350 due to oven-sharing concerns, but because my mom had to do bacon appetizers, it ended up spending about an hour in the 450/500 degree range. As a result, it only took about 2 hours to reach 185 degree internal temperature. The meat was moist, the skin was flavorful and crisp. Did a pretty traditional gravy, just adding white wine to the drippings, and doing a roux.
Stuffing
Bread: I wasn’t overwhelmed with any particular stuffing recipe I saw this year, so I improvised. Italian bread, carrot, mushroom, herbs, onion, garlic, a few chestnuts and a touch of prosciutto. I did it on the stovetop and finished it in the oven. I thought it was kind of meh, but it’s really good reheated.
Meaty-stuffed onions: Mandy did this - it’s a sausage based recipe, very good.
Potatoes
Mashed Potatoes with basil and caramelized onions: This was a recipe inspired by Becky’s take on something they served at Roberts. Really simple - just whipped mashed potatoes with milk, butter, basil and caramelized onions mixed in. I did the onions the night before, which was convenient. I ended up just having dad assemble them because I was too busy with other stuff, and he did a great job. Needs lots of salt and pepper.
Spanish potato casserole.: This did not turn out particularly well. I tend to have a little trouble with the cooking time on this (which comes from my Jose Andres tapas cookbook), and I wasn’t paying a lot of attention to it. But the potatoes didn’t crisp up quite right, and there was too much liquid in the bottom of the pan. It’s basically just a mix of onions, potatoes and wild mushrooms (I had great ones from the farmer’s market), with a little bay leaf and rosemary thrown in.
Vegetables:
Peas with mint and pearl onions: These were a hit, though I thought they could have been cooked a little longer. Simply done - frozen peas with pearl onions (I pre-cooked them quickly), chopped fresh mint and butter, done in the microwave.
Sauteed greens with lemon and garlic in olive oil. These were kind of eh - I definitely oversalted them, I couldn’t get the exact greens I wanted from the market, they cooked down more than I expected, etc. I liked them anyway, but they weren’t necessarily a crowd pleaser.
Rolls on the side
Canned cranberry sauce in honor of dad
Dessert:
Apple Pie and Pumpkin Pie (brought by Jen)
Chocolate Cake (brought by Priya).
The event: Priya and Jen came, and were great company. The biggest snag came early in the cooking process. My apartment at one point filled up with smoke - it started smelling funny early on. At first I thought it was the bacon mom was cooking for the appetizers. But those came out, the turkey looked fine, but smoke kept getting worse. Turns out someone had put a rolling pin in my broiler and it caught fire! Mom burned her hand pretty badly, which sucked (our family traditionally tends to get sick/injured on Turkey Day to the point of hospital visits, so this was nothing new). Ah well.
Also, game playing is usually a prominent thing, and we had a lot of fun with “Apples to Apples” and “Loaded Questions.” Though of course we got this question in LQ “I never have been able to ________.” Dad answers, “Reach Orgasm.” AND later has to clarify it isn’t true. Thanks, Dad.