A Rooklicious Thanksgiving Feast

This year's Thanksgiving was one of the best. It's truly one of my favorite holidays--good food, warm fires, conversation and laughter, and eating, eating, eating. I'm still full from Thursday.

Seriously.

This year we started off in the afternoon with bowls of mulligatawny soup, meat, cheese, crackers, shrimp, and veggies as the fragrance of roast turkey and mulled wine filled the air.

When dinner was served we indulged in fennel salad, cranberry sauce with pears and oranges, ambrosia, rosemary and garlic smanging mashed potatoes, brussels sprouts with walnuts and garlic, and stuffing muffins.  

The turkey was one of my best yet--I think I've really perfected my technique. The skin of the turkey was golden and crispy after being coated in butter, sage, rosemary, and thyme (cue singing now), and the flavors of apples, onions, garlic, celery, and carrots flavored the turkey from the inside out. I also made a killer gravy from the buttery drippings to accompany the turkey.

And of course no meal is complete without a nice glass of wine. Hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving this year. Cheers!

An Off-the-Hook-Rook Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is, of course, one of the best holidays of the year, especially for a foodie. Almost every holiday is an opportunity to cook copious amounts of food, but Thanksgiving revolves around it. Families and friends come together, create a mess in the kitchen, and cook enough food to feed an army. This year Thanksgiving dinner was definitely off the hook at the Rook house.

So what was on the menu? Tasty snacks, bread and butter, salad, soup, turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, brussel sprouts, cranberry relish, ambrosia, banana pudding, and raspberry bars. Yes.

The turkey was going to take about four hours to roast, so around noon I popped open a beer and prepared the guest of honor, cleaning it, patting the skin dry, coating it with my special combination of butter, sage, rosemary, and thyme, and stuffing it with apples, onions, garlic, herbs, carrots, and celery.

While I got the turkey ready, Tara put out a nice repast of cheese, crackers, olives, and cocktail shrimp. No Thanksgiving is complete without snacks to munch on throughout the day before the big meal.

 

This year we decided to break up the meal a little bit. When I took the turkey out the oven to rest for a while before carving it, we devoured a first course of bread and butter, soup, and salad. Tara baked the bread--it was fabulous. The bread was hearty, warm, and perfect for dipping into the amazing soup that Tara also made. 

The soup was a combination of vegetable stock, carrots, buttercup squash, butternut squash, apples, and a variety of spices. After allowing all the ingredients to cook through until soft, Tara pureed it and served it with just a little bit of sour cream on top. It had a hint of spiciness and lovely flavors that invoked the autumnal season.

My mom prepared the salad--a waldorf salad with a bed of romaine lettuce that was topped with green grapes, apples, celery, and walnuts. The light dressing she tossed it in was delicate and refreshing. Again, it was a perfect representation of fall flavors.

All in all, the bread, soup, and salad were a perfect way to pregame for the main course. We also opened up a delightful bottle of red wine to start off the meal.

Next up was all the traditional fixings for a Thanksgiving meal. The turkey turned out just the way I like it--the skin was nice and crispy and the meat was still moist. I carved it successfully and served it up, snacking a bit on pieces of skin along the way.

Sonya is the queen of mashed potatoes, and as usual she prepared a perfect dish of creamy mashed potatoes. She uses red potatoes and leaves the skin on, also adding some garlic and half-and-half to make it the right consistency. As always it was delicious.

Last year I made a cranberry relish with a recipe that my friend Melissa gave me, and it was so good that my mom requested I make it again this year. The recipe consists of bourbon, shallots, orange zest, sugar, black pepper, and cranberries--it's slightly sweet but still has a nice bite from the bourbon, shallots, and orange zest. This year we decided to try it with spiced rum since we already had some on hand and it added a little different flavor but was quite delightful.

Tara made the ambrosia salad this year. Ambrosia is kind of a 1950s' throwback, but we still make it every year. It's definitely a Rook tradition. Our ambrosia consists of mini marshmallows, shredded coconut,  sour cream, mandarin oranges, pineapple, and maraschino cherries. Somehow this year the maraschino cherries didn't make it in the ambrosia, but as always it was sweet in that way that only ridiculous doses of high-fructose corn syrup can create. An American classic.

We always make the stuffing (or dressing rather since we don't cook it in the turkey) using our Grandma's recipe. The recipe isn't written down anywhere, we just do it by intuition. The basics are bread, pork sausage, celery, onions, salt, pepper, and Bell's seasoning. This year I took over preparing the stuffing--tearing up chunks of wheat bread and mashing it together with the other ingredients until it was combined evenly. When it was done the top was lightly browned and crispy and the inside was soft, hearty, and perfectly seasoned. It might have been the best stuffing I've made yet.

We usually try out different vegetable sides every year, so my mom made a brussel sprouts dish using a recipe by Chef Ric Orlando. She opted for the balsamic roasted brussel sprouts, tossing the little strange vegetables in olive oil, garlic, shallots, balsamic vinegar, rosemary, salt, and pepper and then roasting them until tender. It was a lovely new addition to the more traditional aspects of our Thanksgiving dinner.

I had completely forgotten about gravy until I went to carve the turkey and saw the the gravy boat was sitting on the table. I was about to give up on the idea of making gravy but instead placed the giblets and turkey neck in a small sauce pan and covered it with water, allowing the water to come to a boil while I carved the turkey. I melted some butter and added flour to create a rue, removed the giblets from the water, and mixed it all together, hoping that it would reduce quickly. It didn't get as thick and flavorful as I would have liked it, but when it was close enough I poured it into the gravy boat and we were ready for dinner. 

After dinner we were so stuffed that there was nothing else Tara and I wanted to do except lie around and watch Labyrinth. After an hour and a half of David Bowie, psychedelic scenery, and wacky Jim Henson puppets, we emerged to find out parents noshing on dessert. Ever had banana pudding from Magnolia Bakery? If not, you need to try it. The pudding is nice and creamy with pieces of banana and Nilla wafers mixed throughout it. Covering the pudding was a layer of whipped topping. We were promised it would be phenomenal, and it definitely was. Tara also made some delicious raspberry bars. Normally we would have some sort of apple or pumpkin pie, but this year the pudding and raspberry bars were more than enough.

 

Thanksgiving is a great holiday for eating rich food, raising a toast, and giving thanks for all that we have in life. I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving as much as we did. Cheers!

The Perfect Turkey

Do you want to know the key to a cooking a perfect turkey? Butta. Of course we all know that butter makes everything better, so it makes sense that it would enhance the already delicious star of every Thanksgiving dinner. I take turkey very seriously. Come on, how many times a year does one actually cook a turkey? Just once a year, so it better be done right. 

First I take a stick of butter and let it come to room temperature so it's nice and soft. Then I take fresh sage, rosemary, and thyme, chop them up, and mix them in to the butter. While adding parsley would make it a more poetic recipe, I've been told that parsley doesn't actually work well with turkey, so I just stick to the three other herbs.

Then comes the fun part. Take the butter and smear it all over the turkey--really coat everything. Your hands will get messy, so my advice is to just enjoy it. Who doesn't love the feel of creamy butter all over your hands? Sexy. You should also lift the skin of the turkey and put some butter underneath the skin so that it can melt into the turkey breast and help to keep it moist. I save a little butter to put into the cavity as well.

My family prefers to cook the stuffing in a separate dish rather than in the cavity of the bird, but I still like to enhance the tastiness of the turkey by stuffing it with some savory items. I  chop up apples, onions, garlic, carrots, and celery, add some more sage, rosemary, thyme, and butter, and then stuff the bird with the mixture. The intention is not to eat this concoction but to allow the flavors to seep into the meat while it roasts in the oven. Delicious. And when it's all done, voila! The perfect turkey. The butter makes the skin extra golden and crispy and the flavors of the herbs and stuffing mixture give it that quintessential autumn loveliness that a Thanksgiving turkey should embody.   

Until next Thursday I'll be dreaming of golden, buttery skin and savory turkey meat--anticipating that moment when a foodie fantasy will become reality. Here's wishing everyone a happy, healthy, and, of course, tasty Thanksgiving. Cheers!

Song of the Week: Eat Me!

A Thanksgiving Feast

Every family has its own traditions for Thanksgiving. There are several dishes that usually make it to our family table each year. During the day we snack on cheese, crackers, and veggies, plus whatever tastes we steal off of dishes while we cook.

In recent years we’ve introduced a harvest-style salad with various combinations of field greens, raisins, craisins, nuts (usually almonds or walnuts), apples, and other delicious autumn-evoking ingredients.

We also always have bread or warm rolls with butter. Some years we have soup, such as the butternut-cider bisque I made last year for the occasion. The bisque is made with chicken (or vegetable) broth, butternut squash, carrots, celery, onions, and cider, and then finished with cream. As the soup simmers it fills the house with the scents of a satisfying Thanksgiving meal.

Other dishes that always make the table include ambrosia, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, and stuffing. The ambrosia is one of those classic 1950s-era dishes made with mini-marshmallows, shredded coconut, maraschino cherries, mandarin oranges, pineapple chunks, and sour cream. It may sound strange or even outdated, but I swear it’s very delicious and definitely loaded with sugar and nostalgia. Cranberry sauce always graces our table, and we tend to serve two versions—one from the can and one made from fresh cranberries. The mashed potatoes are usually made with roasted garlic and, of course, butter! They are tasty and creamy and a must have on any Thanksgiving table. Stuffing is also a classic dish, and we use my grandmother’s recipe for this annual holiday. Our version is composed of wheat bread, celery, Bell’s poultry seasoning, onions, sausage, salt, pepper, and chicken broth to keep it moist while cooking.

Of course we roast a classic turkey every year, but we have a couple of vegetarians in the family so we usually have a vegetarian option like faux turkey or chicken. I’ve taken over the turkey the last couple of years and determined how to make the perfect turkey. It involves butter, and lots of it! First take fresh herbs like sage, thyme, and rosemary and mince them. Then take a stick of butter (at room temperature so it’s soft) and mix the herbs in until they are evenly distributed in the creamy goodness. When it’s time to roast the turkey take the butter and rub in all over the skin. Then take some butter and lift the skin of the turkey and spread the butter between the flesh and the skin. As the turkey cooks the butter will melt into the meat, keeping it nice and moist and preventing it from drying out. Instead of filling the bird with stuffing, cook the stuffing in a separate dish and fill the cavity with sliced carrots, celery, onions, apples, and herbs to imbue the turkey with even more flavor. Then just roast the turkey as you normally would, let it rest, slice, and serve!

Dessert tends to change every year—there’s no one particular dessert we have, although we tend to have at least one pie. This year we’re serving apple-butter pumpkin pie, apple crisp, and cookies. We’ll also be making whipped cream with local cream from Meadowbrook Farms and sweetened with honey.

Whatever you and your family serve this year I hope you all have a happy and healthy Thanksgiving!