A Thanksgiving feast fit for Christmas
Secrets and recipes distilled from decades of Thanksgiving meals all of which might feature on the Christmas table.
American food publications in November are rife with every possible alternative to turkey for Thanksgiving, to me the meal, bound by tradition, is always devised around a turkey (a chicken once when, as a student, funds didn’t stretch as far).
It needs cranberry sauce, too, and some exhuberance in both food and company.
For years I mostly winged it, somewhat messily and not a little frantically, but through the decades I have acquired some muscle memory. And I’ve started paying attention to the logistics. It sounds tediously technical but improves the ease. Start with a rough back count to when you intend to eat, when does what go into the oven and for how long; are there enough platters, glasses, plates; is the tablecloth ironed; should we use a side table? Yes. There is great benefit in having the large brushtrokes of a plan.
And so here are the notes of a very fun and delicious day, to stash away and remember for this week, or next year. Thanksgiving was our turkey feast, we’ll be having duck for Christmas.
The Menu
I learned from Julia Child years ago to stop criticising my own food in front of my friends. I bite my tongue and keep every nit I have to pick with the meal to myself. But this Thanksgiving, possibly for the first time, I was completely pleased. Time to quickly jot down the steps and details that made this one, I think, the best one yet.
Free-range turkey
Widely declared ‘best’ Valeryn Monroe stuffing
Nailed-it gravy
Roasted carrots and parsnips
Mashed potatoes
Favourite parsley celeriac mash
Maitake mushrooms
Rainbow salad
Puckery cranberry sauce
Some contenders for our traditional ‘battle of the desserts’ finale and a Boulevardier cocktail to start, finish, or in-between.
NOTES AND RECIPES FOR A FEAST
Well in advance —
Order a good, FREE RANGE TURKEY counting about 1lb per person.
A week (or a day) before —
Make the CRANBERRY SAUCE =» Recipe HERE. This can be done the day before but ideally earlier, a few weeks, as soon as cranberries become available. It should be kept in the fridge.
The day before —
Make the STOCK
METHOD =» Ideally with turkey bones but realistically probably with a chicken carcass and a few wings, 2 onions, head of garlic, bay leaves, black peppercorns, red wine vinegar.
Preheat the oven to 200C (400F). Place the bones on a kitchen-paper lined baking tray. Cut the onions in half height-wise, and place them cut side down on the tray (skin on) with the cloves from one whole head of garlic. Roast in the oven for about 30 minutes until everything takes on a golden brown hue. Scrape the bones and vegetables into a large pot. Add 3 bay leaves and a small handfull of black peppercorns, a generous gulp of red wine vinegar, cover entirely with water and bring to a gentle simmer. Cook for at least 2 hours or all day long, adding water as needed. I let the stock simmer until I go to bed, turn off the flame but leave it on the stovetop overnight, and turn it back on in the morning. (Alternatively if there is enough refrigerator space, strain the stock, let it cool, and store it in the fridge before reheating it the next day.)
The day of —
Harness as much help as possible for all the washing, peeling and chopping of vegetables and plucking of herbs. Start early with the roasted vegetables as later the oven will be busy cooking the turkey.
CARROTS AND PARSNIPS
METHOD =» Count about 2 carrots and 2 parsnips per person, olive oil, red wine vinegar, lots of fresh thyme, salt and pepper.
Preheat the oven to 200C (400F). Peel the vegetables and cut them lengthwise into halves (or quarters if they are quite thick). Place the vegetables in a roasting tray and sprinkle them with a generous amount of olive oil and a little red wine vinegar. Season with salt and pepper and toss the whole thing with lots of sprigs of fresh thyme. Place the tray in the oven and cook for 30 to 45 minutes (depending on how full the tray is — the more are stacked in there, the longer they will take to cook), tossing regularly, until the vegetables start browning at the edges. They should not be overcooked at this stage as they will go back into the oven to reheat while the bird is resting.
(We will be coming back to the turkey throughout, it requires some attention all through the day.)
Dinnertime minus turkey roasting time + 2 hours —
Take the TURKEY out of the refrigerator, remove the giblets and put them back into the fridge, and let the turkey come to room temperature for at least an hour.
Meanwhile make the STUFFING =» Recipe HERE.
It is my friend Kobi who had the idea to merge the stuffing recipe I thought up years ago with Marilyn Monroe’s stuffing recipe published recently in the New York Times. He also had the idea of naming it ‘Valeryn Monroe’ STUFFING. He created (and baptised) a superlative dish, which I in turn have adopted, and which many people agree may be the best part of the meal. I’ve enshrined the recipe HERE, it’s naturally bread (i.e. gluten) free.
Prepare the TURKEY
Method =» As you finish making the stuffing, preheat the oven to 225C (440F). Place the turkey which has come to room temperature on a lightly oiled baking tray. Season the inside cavity and rub the skin all over with coarse sea salt and freshly ground pepper. Stuff the turkey with the stuffing. [Any stuffing not used inside the turkey should be set aside and later reheated and mixed with the rest that has come out of the bird.] Leave the legs untied. Flip the turkey so its breasts are on the baking sheet, place it in the oven and roast for 10 minutes. Take the turkey out of the oven, turn it around so the breasts are now facing up and place it back in the oven for another 10 minutes at high temperature. Now lower the temperature to 130C (260F) and pour a little water at the bottom of the roasting tray. From now on, the roasting time will be about 14 minutes per pound of turkey (i.e. 3 hours 40 minutes for a 16lb turkey). Have a meat thermometer to hand. As the calculated cooking time depending on the size nears, check the temperature inside the turkey. It will be ready when the inside of the breasts register 65°C (150°F). As soon as this happens, take the bird out of the oven, cover it well with large sheets of aluminum foil, and let it rest for a good 40 minutes.
This will be your cue to increase the oven temperature to 150C (300F) before putting the CARROTS AND PARSNIPS back into the oven to reheat.
But backing up a few of hours —
The turkey had just gone into the oven, it’s time to make the celeriac mash and mashed potatoes.
CELERIAC MASH =» Recipe HERE
MASHED POTATOES. I don’t follow a specific recipe for mashed potatoes.
METHOD =» Potatoes, bay leaves, milk, butter, salt, pepperm nutmeg. Fill a large pot with cold water, salted as you would pasta water and a couple of bay leaves. Add the peeled potatoes, cut into halves or quarters depending on the size. Bring to a rolling boil and cook the potatoes until a knife slides in easily. Strain and leave the potatoes in the colander for a few minutes to release some steam. Return the potatoes to the pot in which they cooked and mash them using a masher or ricer, whichever you have and prefer. Add a little warm milk and lots of butter. In this I follow April Bloomfield’s advice: ‘Just when you think you’ve added enough butter, go ahead and add some more.’ Season with salt and pepper, grate in some nutmeg. Set aside.
Make the GRAVY
METHOD =» An onion, flour, the liver from the turkey, the stock, a little madeira or port wine, salt and pepper. The stock should be at the back of the stove simmering away, with a ladle nearby. Thinly chop the onion. Melt a large chunk of butter in a medium to large pot, add the onion and cook until just starting to colour. Mix in the chopped liver to brown briefly while stirring continuously. Add a couple of tablespoons of flour and stir to create a thick paste. Cook, stirring, for one or two minutes. Add a ladle of hot stock, stir well. Add more stock gradually, all the while stirring, thinning it little by little to the desired consistency. This is entirely personal. Finally add a touch of alcohol and season with salt and pepper. Strain the gravy and pour it into a pot in which it can later be reheated.
Prepare the MAITAKE MUSHROOMS.
Method =» Trim the stalks and cut the mushrooms heightwise into slices. Set aside with some sprigs of thyme. They will be pan-fried at the last minute.
Now make the multicolored SALAD using a mix of herbs and winter greens
METHOD =» Wash all the greens and herbs: chunks of raddicchio, thinly shaved fennel, circles of Belgian endive, cut watercress, chopped tarragon, dill, mint ...
Assemble in a large bowl and season it (as close as possible to dinnertime so it doesn’t wilt too much) quite simply with olive oil and a mix of little each of good balsamic vinegar, red wine vinegar and lemon juice, and season with salt and pepper. Toss well.
Spoon the CRANBERRY SAUCE into serving bowls.
We should have reached a point in the day, close to dinnertime, when a thermometer shows that the turkey breasts have reached a temperature of 65C (150F), the bird has just come out of the oven and is reasting under its tent of tin foil, all the sides are waiting to be reheated. This is the moment to sit down and enjoy a BOULEVARDIER =» Recipe HERE.
Assembling the meal, dinner minus a few minutes —
Because now comes the stressful bit. The turkey is out of the oven, covered and resting, there is about half an hour to get everything ready for the table. Ideally the serving platters should be kept warm. The carrots and parsnips go back into the oven (175C/350F). The mashes are reheated on the stovetop, stirring regularly to make sure the bottom doesn’t burn. The gravy is also back on low heat pimped up with a few spoonfuls of the juices gathered from the roasting tray of the turkey. The maitake mushrooms can now be cooked: heat couple of spoonfuls of olive oil in a large frying pan, cook the mushrooms with the sprigs of thyme over fairly high heat, tossing occasionally, until browned. Cover to keep warm.
Once the turkey has rested for about 40 minutes, uncover it, spoon out the stuffing and mix it with any leftover stuffing set aside earlier (and briefly reheated, yikes another pot!). Immediately check the turkey legs. If there is still some sign of pink or blood, cut them off, place them back in the roasting tray and back into the oven.
Now plate all the sides, keeping everything covered with lids and aluminum foil, and bring everything to the table.
Thinly slice the breasts against the grain, place the them on a serving platter. If the legs have gone back in the oven, they should be ready now. Add them to the platter with the breasts. Spoon a few ladles of hot stock over the turkey before serving. Phew!
Sit down, reach for a glass. Delicious.
Now time to enjoy.
In our Thanksgiving tradition our friends all bring a dessert, it is a second feast. But since we’re not able to resist adding something to the table we have a stealthily growing library of Thanksgiving desserts: my mother’s legendary award-winning pumpkin pie, this impeccable pecan pie, and the unchallenged winner of everyone’s secret affection: David Tanis’s cranberry curd tart which Thomas makes every year.
May some of this inspire your holiday table. Happy feasting !
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Bravo, Valerie!
Pulling such a meal together for family and friends is quite a feat of derring-do and not a little planning.
With this letter, you now have a blueprint for all manner of occasions. That in itself is quite something, not to mention being fault-free on the plate.
Bravo, indeed!!!