So today was/is Thanksgiving, and a week's worth of preparation yielded some good food. The menu was:
• Turkey (of course), brined in vegetable stock, cooked A La Alton Brown's suggestion.
• Blue Corn cornbread/yam/ham stuffing
• Cauliflower with mustard-cheddar sauce
• Roasted maple-brown butter carrots
• Cranberry sauce (Kim made it, don't know the recepie)
• Twice baked chedder-buttermilk potatoes
• Ginger-snap gravy (I use the pan juices, some stock, and thicken it with Ginger Snaps instead of flour)
• Baby Spinach salad
The turkey was about as good as I've ever had. It was done perfectly. I followed Alton's suggestion and brined it (I'd done this before), then cooked it for about 30 minutes at 500 degrees, then covered the breast only with a piece of pre-sized (before i cooked the bird) oiled foil "breastplate" and cooked it until the white meat was 155 degrees. Alton says 161 but I think that would be too done because when I took it out, I cover it tightly and let it continue to cook for about 30 minutes in it's own heat. It was delicious, both white and dark done just right. It really didn't need any gravy, but of course, was good with it.
All the sides were nice too, but the turkey was the star, which, I think, is too rarely the case. Now, on to the home made dark chocolate pudding with home made whipped cream...yum!
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