So what is this Thanksgiving about ? Well besides whatever Wikipedia says, it's about gorging yourself as much as you can with turkey. As turkey is pretty hard to eat in large quantities without dying of thirst, it becomes about all the dishes you eat with the turkey in order to be able to gorge yourself. This year was my first real traditional T-day, and M prepared a masterpiece for me to feel like a true local :).
So we drove north with a car full of food and after a restful night we woke up and started a day of marathon cooking (pretty much 6 hours of preparation). You'll be able to follow this marathon in images and I'll publish the recipes that we all thought were perfect and could not be improved. For the rest we'll be trying other recipes next year.
We started the day with the preparation of the cranberry sauce (recipe courtesy of New Seasons, improved by us by forgetting to put some ingredients).
-1 cup (1/4 l) apple juice (not from concentrate)
-3/4 cup sugar (was 1c)
-12 oz (350g) of fresh cranberries
In a medium sauce pan, bring the apple juice to boil. Allow to simmer, stiring occasionally, until berries start to "pop" (about 10-12 minutes). Stir in sugar to taste. Remove from heat and allow to cool.
The nice thing is that the pectin of the apples help giving a really nice texture to it once it cools down. 1 cup of sugar would have been too much for us. It tasted really good, but having fresh cranberries definitely made a big difference.
We then starting preparing the stuffing. The first part was to boil chestnuts.
Small break to feed the cat, he's eating turkey too today !
Greg after an unsuccessful cranberry sauce tasting... The shirt said yummy!
Peeling chestnuts took us almost 1 hour with 6 hands. They definitely didn't want to end up being stuffed in a turkey's rear end.
I know it doesn't look like that much...
We had 3 turkeys, 1 to be eaten and 2 for company. Those 2 became the best friends ever.
We had an apple pie planned for desert, so here we are peeling and slicing some granny smith.
M's preparing the dough for the pie crust.
-1 recipe pastry for a 9 inch double crust pie
-1/2 cup unsalted butter (one glass)
-3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
-1/4 cup water
-1/2 cup white sugar
-1/2 cup packed brown sugar
-4 Granny Smith apples - peeled, cored and sliced (recipe called for 8, we used 4)
Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). Melt the butter in a saucepan. Stir in flour to form a paste. Add water, white sugar and brown sugar, and bring to a boil. Reduce temperature and let simmer. Place the bottom crust in your pan. Fill with apples, mounded slightly. Cover with a lattice work of crust. Gently pour the sugar and butter liquid over the crust. Pour slowly so that it does not run off. Bake 15 minutes in the preheated oven. Reduce the temperature to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Continue baking for 40 minutes, until apples are soft. We found the baking in 2 times hard at first then cooler and longer to give the best crusts. We added a little cinnamon between the layers of apple just because... (it tastes better as long as there's not too much).
M braiding some crust on top of the pie.
Pretty! Pouring some sauce inside the pie.
Looking through the window. Quiet neighborhood, everybody's preparing turkey !
Chopping herbs for the stuffing. The little machine worked great and survived me slamming it like crazy. Made in Switzerland, maybe that was it.
More herbs. I discovered savory (apparently related to Za'atar that I enjoyed so much in Israel), it has quite an interesting smell and taste.
Seems like the pie is ready to free the oven.
Cooling down with the cranberry sauce.
Removing the turkey from the brining bag where it marinated for the last 15 hours.
Stuffing it.
No giblets, just the neck for the gravy.
In the oven. Notice all the desperate attempts at keeping it juicy, after marinating it for half a day we bake it inside a special bag to keep it moist... hopefully.
Yams ready to be baked. Wait, aren't we forgetting something ?
Preparing green beans for the casserole.
Cooking the green bean casserole. These were absolutely fantastic. This was probably the best dish of the evening. I strongly recommend the recipe.
For the topping:
- 2 medium onions, thinly sliced
- 1/4 cup flour
- 2 tablespoons bread crumbs (hammering on the remains of unused stuffing bred totally works)
- 1 teaspoon non iodized salt
- Nonstick cooking spray (I can't believe I'm saying that, but it's probably the best way to oil a pan without using crazy amounts).
For beans and sauce:
- 2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon kosher salt, divided
- 1 pound fresh green beans, rinsed and trimmed
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 12 ounces mushrooms, trimmed and cut in 2 (champignons de Paris)
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
- 2 tablespoons flour
- 1 cup chicken broth
- 1 cup half-and-half (mi-creme mi-lait)
Preheat the oven to 475 degrees F. Combine the onions, flour, bread crumbs and salt in a large mixing bowl and toss to combine. Coat a sheet pan with nonstick cooking spray and evenly spread the onions on the pan. Place the pan on the middle rack of the oven and bake until golden brown, approximately 15 minutes (the recipe called for 30 minutes and we had a nice pile of carbon after less than that so retried and watched it closely). Toss the onions 2 to 3 times during cooking. Once done, remove from the oven and set aside until ready to use. Turn the oven down to 400 degrees F.
While the onions are cooking, prepare the beans. Bring a gallon of water and 2 tablespoons of salt to a boil in an 8-quart saucepan. Add the beans and blanch for 5 minutes. Drain in a colander and immediately plunge the beans into a large bowl of ice water to stop the cooking. Drain and set aside.
Melt the butter in a 12-inch cast iron skillet set over medium-high heat. Add the mushrooms, 1 teaspoon salt and pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, until the mushrooms begin to give up some of their liquid, approximately 4 to 5 minutes. Add the garlic and nutmeg and continue to cook for another 1 to 2 minutes. Sprinkle the flour over the mixture and stir to combine. Cook for 1 minute. Add the broth and simmer for 1 minute. Decrease the heat to medium-low and add the half-and-half. Cook until the mixture thickens, stirring occasionally, approximately 6 to 8 minutes.
Remove from the heat and stir in 1/4 of the onions and all of the green beans. Top with the remaining onions. Place into the oven and bake until bubbly, approximately 15 minutes. Remove and serve immediately.
The dishwasher worked really hard. In his own words, we've used every single piece of cookware I own... And he washed them all at least once !
Preparing some mashed potatoes, just in case the rest is not filling enough.
That's what we were forgetting for the yams !!!
Yes, Marshmallows. I was dubious but it worked better than I expected at first.
Turkey's ready !
It was missing a little broil.
Table is ready. In order from the bottom left corner: Biscuits, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, gravy, stuffed turkey, candied yams, mashed potatoes and some additional stuffing.
Proud !
Time to gorge ourselves !
Done...
Mmm, there's still some desert, but the turkeys have an eye on it.
If the next morning you feel like a little turkey sandwitch, that's how it can look like (it apparently tastes better than it looks though).
That was sooo hard!!!!!
