Thanksgiving is nice, because it's one of the two great overeating holidays (Easter of course, being the other one. Convenient that they're separated by about six months). I think the main difference is that Thanksgiving gets its own traditional song.
I did most of the prep work yesterday, so I only had to do a few easy-ish things today to get everything ready. I still haven't made dessert, mostly because I'm so full that I don't really want to consider eating anything else right now. I think I might be ok just skipping dessert today, and making it tomorrow instead. We'll see how I feel later.
Turkey. The base recipe is this one from Alton Brown. Since it seems like that recipe is different than what I remember, I'm going to copy my version:
Brine:
- Turkey (duh)
- Cup of salt (kosher, whatever. I used sea salt this year and that worked fine.)
- 1/2 C brown sugar
- Two cartons of chicken stock (this is different than Alton)
- 1 Tbs peppercorns
- Allspice/ginger (I didn't measure, I just chucked some in. Now that I mention it, I didn't measure the pepper either)
- Bag of ice
- Enough water to cover
You should probably combine everything (except the turkey and ice) and boil it. I didn't bother this year, because that just means you have to wait for it to cool down. Just dump it all in the cooler, and ignore it for "overnight." I woke up late, so I guess this was probably something like 18 hours.
Aromatics:
- An apple, quartered
- Cinnamon sticks (I used two)
- Half an onion (conveniently I had half left over from making stuffing last night)
- Rosemary
- Sage (I forgot this this year)
- Water
Nuke everything for a bit, dump the water, and cram the rest into the turkey, already in place (breast up) in the roasting pan. Then take like a tablespoon of butter and another of bacon grease (because, hey, why not?), nuke that, and use a brush to coat the turkey.
Actual cooking:
Did you preheat the oven to 500? Oops. You should do that. While you're waiting for that (sorry), take a piece of foil, and fold it diagonally into a right triangle. Put the right angle of the triangle on the back end of the breast, and then push it down to form a cool aluminum breast plate for the turkey. Once it's formed, pull it off, and set aside.
Eventually, the oven will be at temperature, and you put the turkey in for a half hour. Mine smoked a bit towards the end, but that's ok. After the half hour is up, turn the temperature down to 350, and put the breast plate on the turkey (you might need to wait a bit on the breast plate, depending on how brown the skin is there. You can see that mine is a bit light, so I probably should have waited a bit more). Stab the turkey with a probe thermometer, and cook until it reads 160. Pull it out, tent with foil, and let rest until everything else is ready.
Gravy (mostly utensils and not ingredients)
- Gravy separator
- One of those shakers they use for cheese at pizza places
- Flour to put in the shaker
- A pan that has just had a turkey roasted in it, but with the turkey removed
- Probably will need more stock, chicken isn't bad if you can't find turkey (I can't)
Drain everything from the pan into the gravy separator, and wait until it splits into stock (at the bottom) and fat (at the top). Pour out the stock into a bowl, and then add some of the fat back into pan, and turn up the stove. Use the shaker of flour to slowly add flour into the fat, and use a fork to mix until you get a roux. How much of each? Yes. That much. Wait, not so much! A bit more flour now...ok...more maybe? Yeah, about there.
Yeah, I don't have instructions here. You just have to kind of do it freehand. It'll be ok. You probably don't want to use all the fat. I ended up using about half of it for the gravy up there. Make sure you scrape up all the stuff that's stuck to the bottom of the pan. That's all tasty deliciousness, and you want it in the gravy. Once you get a roux that looks pretty good, add the stock you removed earlier, and mix with the fork until it's incorporated. At this point, I tasted, and decided that it was a bit too thick, so I diluted it with the chicken stock. That's it.
You don't need to add anything else, probably. My gravy was maybe a touch salty, but that's not much of a problem. I don't really understand how gravy could possibly be considered something difficult to make. All you have to do is keep stirring with the fork, and everything will be fine.
That picture also shows the fully deconstructed turkey. I'm going to have leftovers forever. I put both breasts, the wings, and a thigh into the freezer. I was then able to fill a plastic tub with a thigh and all the bits that I cut off that weren't "primal" cuts (or whatever you call them on birds).
Finally, side dish #1 is in there too. Twice baked potato. I'm not sure this really needs much of a recipe. Bake a potato. Cut it in half about an hour later, and scoop out all the guts, trying to keep a shell intact. Turn those guts into mashed potatoes using cream and butter, and then mix in some shredded cheddar cheese. Finally, stuff the mashed potatoes back into the shell, and bake again for another half hour or so (I put all the sides in once I took the turkey out, and they were declared "done" when I was ready to eat and had the gravy done).
Side dishes 2 and 3. I came up with the idea of cooking all the sides in ramekins this year, so I wouldn't have to worry about an entire casserole dish coming up to temperature. This sped up the cooking for the sides significantly.
Green Bean Casserole: See yesterday's post.
Sweet Potatoes:
- Sweet potato, put into the oven at the same time as the first baking of the twice baked potato, and baked as well. I wrapped it in foil.
- Maple syrup. Like a splash or so. I don't really measure anything, it seems.
- Cider. I used this one I didn't really like before, because it's still in the fridge. How much? Some.
Mash the sweet potato, then mix with the syrup and cider, and put it in the ramekin to bake again. Again, about a half hour on the second bake.
Stuffing: See yesterday's post as well. I splashed some chicken stock over it to make sure it was moist. "Is that a tiny little springform pan?" Yes. Yes it is. I thought it'd be a great idea, because then I'd get a nice stuffing cake to use as the base for the turkey and gravy. "Where do you even get one of those? And did you buy it just for this?" The kitchen store at the mall has them, and I didn't buy it for this. I bought it for something I never even made.
One thing to remember: grease the springform pan, because that stuffing is going to fight you when it's time to plate.
Mac and cheese: Covered yesterday. The secret I didn't mention was that I splashed white truffle oil in the mix, so it had a great flavor. It was super dry, so I should have mixed in some milk first. I guess that's what I get for trying hard not to make it soupy like the original I had almost a month ago.
And I wasn't really planning on making mac and cheese at all, but then I saw this news story, and due to the wonders of the internet, have the video to play:
Way to be a racist shitbag, Pat Robertson.
 |
| Everything all together. In harmony, Pat. |
Other than the over dry mac, everything was delicious.
Crap, I forgot that I bought Beaujolais Nouveau just for this. It's perfectly timed for Thanksgiving, and matches turkey well. Oh well, it'll be there for leftovers, I guess.
While eating, I finally had a chance to sit down and watch this:
Three years ago, I went to visit Julie and Colby for Thanksgiving. I remember getting up early to check on the turkey, and then watched the Macy's Day Parade, which had this brilliant moment:
Yes, that's the official Cartoon Network float Rick-Rolling an entire nation. Unfortunately, no one else was awake, so they missed it (until now). After that, we spent the day cooking, and I think a bunch of people came over, and it was delicious, etc. I'd hoped to be able to see Destination Imagination that evening (which explains why the float was Foster's themed). However, instead, I fell asleep due to waking up early to work on the turkey.
Sadness.
However, for New Years Day this year, Cartoon Network showed a bunch of their movies, and I was able to record it with my DVR. So today, finally, three years later, I've finally seen the movie.
Ok, today's batch of random links:
- Squirrel!
- Did you know that Governor Sam Brownback of Kansas sucks? Seriously, he blows a lot.
- This is a wonderful idea, and should have been done long ago.
- Here's an interesting story on heritage turkeys. This was the one that I got, which reading the story and the marketing crap, it sounds like mine really wasn't a heritage turkey. Oh well, it was at least humanely raised and all that, and it tasted better than previous turkeys. Ideally, I'd be able to find a locally raised heritage turkey, but given that I live in the middle of the ocean, that's probably not a reasonable thing to look for.
nap time.....
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