Two Thanksgiving Menus
2022
Two Thanksgiving Menus
With Three Possibilities for Birds to Roast
By Edward Behr
We’ve put together two options for Thanksgiving, one more traditional and one not, which is almost inevitably simpler because there’s no checklist of dishes to include. Here are the menus, which lead to the recipes. Don’t miss the turkey advice below the menus!
More Traditional
Turkey with Stuffing, Gravy, and Cranberry Sauce
Celery Root and Potato Purée
Spoonbread
Buttercup Squash
Sweet-and-Sour Onions
Brussels Sprouts with Chestnuts
Boston Lettuce with Roquefort and Walnuts
Pumpkin Pie
or Unsweetened Apple Pie with Maple Sauce
or Both
Not Traditional
Buttercup Squash Soup with Vin Jaune
Chicken Roasted in Butter with Sauternes Sauce
or Guinea Fowl with Green Peppercorns, Savoy Cabbage with Potato
Green Salad, Vinaigrette
Cook’s Notes
The recipes generally serve four and can be easily increased; as many as 14 people sit around our unusually expandable Thanksgiving table. (A side note: You can simplify the Roquefort and walnut salad by using just lettuce, no endive, skipping the chives and even the walnuts, and dressing with a plain vinaigrette of three to four parts olive oil to one of vinegar plus black pepper — let the salt come from the cheese.) You’ll see there’s no AoE recipe for roasting a Thanksgiving turkey, because there are straightforward recipes online, such as this one from Kitchn, and you may know how already. But here are some thoughts.
Turkey: A fully brined turkey makes pan juices that are too salty for gravy, but 24 hours in a light brine keeps the bird fresh, seasons the meat, makes it a little more tender and moist, and you can make gravy. I use the brine ratio in Judy Rodgers’ The Zuni Café Cookbook: 25 gr salt and 25 gr sugar per liter of cold water, stirred to dissolve. A 20-pound turkey, such as we get, requires 10 to 11 liters of brine and a large container. (I use this plastic “flour bucket” from King Arthur Baking.) On Tuesday night, I put the turkey in the brine and place it in an unheated back room for 24 hours (if you don’t have refrigerator space, find somewhere between 30 and 40 degrees F, or –1 and 4 degrees C). Then I drain the turkey and put it back in the same container in that cold place for another 24 hours to let the salt spread more equally. Early on Thursday, I dry the bird and set it in its roasting pan on the kitchen counter to warm before roasting. I find my turkeys are done sooner than most formulas predict: check the center of the thickest portions with a cook’s thermometer and take the turkey out several degrees before the breast reaches 150 degrees F (65 degrees C) and the thigh reaches 160 degrees F (70 degrees C) — residual heat will finish the cooking. You can try different ways to slow the cooking of the breast (covering with foil at some point helps), but they’re fussy or imperfect and I accept that the light meat will be somewhat overcooked in order for the dark meat to cook fully.
Stuffing: It’s hard to make too much stuffing. Cooking it outside the bird in a roasting pan or a wide oven dish or two allows the bird to cook faster and more evenly, avoids the necessity of overcooking the meat to make the stuffing safe to eat, and the top of the stuffing gets a delicious crisp crust, plus you can ladle fat from the turkey over the stuffing to help the browning and add turkey flavor. I cut white breadcrumbs into cubes the day before and let them dry uncovered overnight if they’re fresh. Sourdough holds a firmer texture, but regular bread is fine. Use enough salt and pepper, and more butter is more delicious; otherwise proportions don’t much matter. I sweat plenty of chopped onions and celery, and you can add chestnuts instead of mixing them with the brussels sprouts. I add the melted butter and gradually stir in turkey or chicken broth, or water if I run out. (I try to have homemade chicken broth on hand. On Thanksgiving morning, I make broth from the turkey neck, wing tips, heart, and gizzard along with onion, carrot, celery, bay leaf, sage from Daphnis and Chloe, and parsley, but that’s for the gravy.) When you mix everything together, the bread should be very moist but not wet.
Gravy: Depth of flavor comes from well-browned but not scorched pan juices. If they aren’t dark enough, you can brown them further in the roasting pan on top of the stove. I use the classic flour thickener, cooking it first in just the roasting fat, then deglazing the pan with red or white wine and turkey broth or, in a pinch, water.●
The post Two Thanksgiving Menus appeared first on The Art of Eating Magazine.