A pot luck Thanksgiving

As a Brit, it seems strange that I've so fully embraced Thanksgiving. In Britain we have the harvest festival, usually just at school where everyone would bring in fruit or vegetables to eat. My dad would always make a wheat sheaf from bread dough which would be a big hit. When I got older he started to let me make it myself. I always loved the little mouse that he would include, running through the wheat. (I know mum and dad have a picture somewhere...) Thanksgiving is an excuse for a big turkey meal, that's the truth of it. Apart from Thanksgiving and Christmas, I wonder how many people actually roast a whole turkey on a regular basis, turkey farmers maybe? Or, maybe the turkeys are too busy with the process of being fattened up for these two particular days.

Do you like turkey? Be honest. It always looks so magnificent when it's pulled from the oven, all glistening and bronzed, the skin crispy and crackling, the stuffing gushing forth in a Dickenson type of way. But we all know that unless we have brined, salted or marinated, it's probably going to be slightly dry. But it doesn't stop us. Year after year the turkey arrives on Christmas eve, ready to be roasted, full of so much promise, only to be lambasted yet again, "turkey was a bit dry", we say. Yet to admit defeat and attempt to roast a different bird is unthinkable, tantamount to criminal. Well I don't concern myself too much with traditions and have attempted many other things in lieu of the bird. Neil's mum roasts a capon every year; a large male chicken. Neil and myself have attempted duck, (fantastic), goose (disappointing) and roast beef, (always good). In my opinion, the best turkey is the one someone else cooks, as in this Thanksgiving feast, although I have to say, this turkey was pretty fantastic.   

I attempted some new recipes for this 'pot luck' Thanksgiving, (what was I thinking)? including candied yams, a Southern favourite. The recipes will follow under the images.

I'd heard of candied yams before, but first tried them at an Easter party and was mightily impressed. The sweetness is only emphasized by the brown sugar which toasts and caramelizes to produce a dish almost too sweet to be served with the main course. I added marshmallows, a peculiar type of topping, to toast and melt over the top, although one recipe I saw stated that they should also be melted into the sugar to be poured over the yams while cooking. Along with the jello salads that I posted about last year, these type of dishes reflect the Southern love of cloyingly sweet dishes to be served alongside the turkey.

Recipe : Candied yams

To feed 12

4lb of yams

1/4 cup melted butter

1/2 cup brown sugar

3 tsp cinnamon

a large handful of marshmallows (Neil thought it was mozzarella and told everyone so).

Preheat the oven to 350oF

Lightly grease a baking dish with a little of the melted butter.

Peel the yams and cut into discs about 1/8 - 1/4 inch thick.

Mix the sugar and cinnamon together.

Layer about 1/3 of the yams into the baking dish in one layer and sprinkle 1/3 of the sugar / cinnamon mixture over. Repeat with the rest of the yams and sugar.

Pour the melted butter over the yams, cover and bake for one hour, after which time the yams should be soft.

Remove the lid and bake for a further 20 minutes or so to slightly brown the top and evaporate some of the butter.

Add the marshmallows and bake for a further 5 - 10 minutes until the marshmallows are lightly brown and melted.

Recipe : Pigs in blankets

I'm not sure where this recipe actually comes from but my mum has always made them with Christmas dinner, although she calls them chipolatas. Neil's family serve sausage meat simply baked in a tray and of course, some people use sausage meat in their stuffing, so there's a vague sausage connection somewhere. Perhaps it stems from a financially leaner time to make the meagre skinny bird go further.

This is not so much a recipe as an instruction. Wrap a sausage in a piece of bacon, repeat and bake, drizzled with a little oil in a hot oven (around 375 - 425oF) until cooked through and starting to crisp.

A bit like Homer telling Bart to "bacon up that sausage boy", ignoring Bart's pleas that his heart was hurting. Not exactly healthy, but, you know.

Recipe : David Lebovitz's gougeres

I feel a little guilty writing this because they didn't work. I intend to comment on the post on David's site, asking for advice on what could possibly have gone wrong, but there's a chance he may not see it, so I thought I'd just share the disaster with you anyway.

I felt the need to make something 'bready' and at first decided that corn bread would be a good option. Neil doesn't like it much however and so I bravely thought I would attempt these tricky little puffs instead. David's blog is excellent, as everyone probably knows and he even provides troubleshooting tips with the recipe, but I still managed to do something wrong.

Here is a link to David's recipe and below each image is my experience with each stage. 

First, melt the butter, water and chili powder together until the butter melts.....

...shoot the flour into the mixture and stir vigorously until a ball is formed.....

...cool for 2 minutes and then beat in two eggs, one at a time. At this point it went wrong. Instead of a dough, I had a batter with the consistency of cream. Even with the cheese added, it still seemed too thin. I attempted to bake it anyway, but ended up with this...

Maybe I used too much water or not enough flour. Maybe the eggs were too big or not beaten in well enough. Whatever happened I was extremely disappointed with myself, (not least because I had wasted a lot of expensive cave aged Gruyere bought from a specialist shop). I tried adding more flour, which resulted in a better consistency, but I thought perhaps the gougeres would taste of raw flour and so abandoned that attempt. Not to be too dismayed, I made little dollar size cheese scones instead, a recipe I know well.

Recipe : Parmesan and Gruyere scones / biscuits

To make 25 small scones

1 and 3/4 cups of all purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp paprika

1/4 tsp mustard powder

1 tsp dried oregano

1/4 cup butter, cut into cubes

1/2 cup each grated Gruyere and Parmesan

1/2 cup milk

Preheat the oven to 375oF

Sieve the flour and baking powder into a bowl, add the salt, paprika, mustard powder and oregano and mix. 

Add the butter and use your hands and fingertips to rub the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. 

Add the cheese, mix well and add the milk, a little at a time, stirring with a spoon. As soon as the mixture comes together, use your hands to form a ball.

Roll the mixture out on a floured surface to about 1/2 inch thick. Use a glass or round cutter to cut out rounds about the size of a dollar. Gather all the scraps together and re roll, using as much of the dough as possible. 

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and lay the little scones onto the the tray. Brush with a mixture of one beaten egg and a splash of milk, beaten together and sprinkle with a little paprika.

Bake for about 15 minutes until the top is golden and the scones are cooked through. Serve warm just as they are or split open and spread with butter.

The rest of the Thanksgiving feast:

 Chelles organic harvest squash frittata
Click on link to be taken to Chelle's blog with the recipe and other great stuff

The turkey. From an organic farm, chosen from a flock, running around and doing turkey stuff. Good choice. Look for a leftover recipe in the next post.

Ham. The taste of the pineapple seemed to permeate right through the meat. Look for a leftover ham and pineapple pizza recipe in the next post.

Cauliflower cheese with a Gruyere and panko crispy topping.

Turkey, two types of stuffing (one sausage meat, one with bread), frittata, carrots with honey, white truffled mash, ham, Gruyere scone and cranberry port sauce.

Apple pie. 17 people, lots of food, lots of booze and one common goal: to eat and have fun. I may not be North American but I love Thanksgiving. Blightly, take note, isn't it time we had more than one big feast a year?