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November 17, 2006

Thanksgiving recipes plus tips for beginners

Thanksgiving for dummies: You can do it. From the Greeley, Colo. Tribune. The basics: Cook, meet turkey.

Even more basic, from my own experience:

-- To streamline all this, buy a bagged stuffing, and milk, a pound of butter and lots of chicken stock. Buy a can of turkey gravy to fortify your own. Have some flour around. People care most about the turkey, the gravy, the (canned is okay) cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and dessert. Sweet potatoes, yams, squash, carrots, green beans, turnip, boiled onions, peas, beets, brussels sprouts, chestnuts and rolls or biscuits are cook's choice.

-- If you don't get around to making dessert, everybody's got a pumpkin pie to sell you. Store-bought rolls of chocolate-chip cookie dough can be made very early in the morning (my choice, as I drink coffee before making stuffing and tackling the turkey) or after dinner.

-- I rub the outside of the turkey with a loose paste of olive oil, garlic powder and a red spice -- I've used tandoori seasoning, and a paprika/oregano mixture (but not on the same turkey). It browns well and flavors the skin.

-- While the turkey is cooking, add the neck and what comes in the bag inside the turkey to a lot of water with some stock added. Toss in a quartered onion, a rib of celery and couple of cloves of garlic, salt and pepper -- salt will extract flavor to your broth. Bring to a boil and simmer till the turkey is ready. If the stock is thin and flavorless near that time, increase the heat and let it reduce. If it's not, cover it and cook on very low heat.

-- When it's time to make gravy, remove the turkey from the roasting pan, pour off the drippings till only about a cup is left. Put the pan on top of the stove and add a couple of tablespoons of flour -- enough to make a paste. Cook it slowly for 5 minutes to cook the flour, then slowly add your stock in increments, just a little at first, mixing it in before adding more. Keep tasting; add more stock, salt, pepper and, if it's the right consistency but just doesn't taste like good gravy, throw in your canned gravy, but not the can.

-- The milk: Heat it just enough to melt butter in it, then whisk this into your hot, just-mashed potatoes. Add salt and pepper to your taste. Don't use an electric mixer for this. It will make them gluey. Don't use cold milk unless you want cold potatoes. And somebody will ask for milk to drink with the chocolate chip cookies.

-- Dessert: Pumpkin, squash, custard, apple, mince, pecan pies. The very best holiday dessert is Plum Pudding and Hard Sauce, but you start one for Christmas around Thanksgiving. I've bought canned plum pudding, and it's quite good. Very rich, so a little goes a very long way.

-- Hot is better. Keep dishes warm in a low oven, covered in foil to keep in moisture. Don't forget they're in there.

-- Remember to take the bag of giblets out of the turkey, and to stuff both ends.

Here's projo's food story index, with separate recipes, and our perennial Thanksgiving page, which I'll be updating tomorrow. Food editor Gail Ciampa offers an intriguing and tested recipe for a turkey roasted at high-temperature (links fixed) (500 degrees) for less than two hours, which frees your oven for pies, rolls and casseroles.. That's a photo of one.

Food blogs:

Food blog search engine at Simply Recipes, whose Thanksgiving page links both blogger Elise Bauer's recipes and those from quite a few other food blogs.

11 classic stuffing recipes for Thanksgiving at Slashfood

A Collection of Thanksgiving Vegetables at Veggie Venture.

Unadorned recipe links are below, culled from what we used to call "the wires" but now refer to as "news sites' Thanksgiving food sections."

These look solid, use natural ingredients and don't require dozens of them, or all your time. I don't do sauerkraut at Thanksgiving. If you do, you're on your own.

The recipes:
(Brined) Garlic-Honey Plumped Turkey

All-purpose gravy. No drippings required.

Vegan Bread And Celery Stuffing

Cream of Green Onion Soup

Goat Cheese and Apple Triangles

Buttermilk Biscuits

Portobello Mushrooms with Zucchini and Goat Cheese Crumbles

Root Vegetable Puree. Potatoes, turnips, carrots.

Brussels Sprouts With Lemon-Mustard Butter

Green bean casserole. If you must. Yes, the kind with canned fried onions.

Herb-Roasted Vegetable Mélange

Roasted beets with walnuts, grapes, rosemary and bleu cheese

Maple Mashed Sweet Potatoes (Kosher)

Ultimate Smashed Potatoes

Whipped Sweet Potatoes with Pears

Sweet Potato Casserole. Yes, with little marshmallows.

Indian pudding

Honey Pumpkin-Date Pie With Golden Marshmallow Topping

Southern Pecan Pie

Sweet Potato Pie

Holiday Pear Pie

Pumpkin Pudding

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 2:19 AM | Permalink