Thanksgiving 2020

[nonelvis]

We normally have three friends over to share dinner with us. This year, of course, that didn't happen, which was pretty depressing, but also didn't stop me from cooking enough food for five people. (Actually, that's not entirely true: there was enough capon for five, even though only three of us are meat-eaters; leftovers have been split into chicken salad and Sunday's gumbo.)

Anyway, the menu, just for my own records, if nothing else:

• Just enough chopped liver on buttered toast for two, since our picky cats won't eat giblets, WTF


• Capon roasted with the gochujang glaze from this recipe


• Mashed potatoes with caramelized onions (and two bags of caramelized onions frozen for future deliciousness, go me)


• Roasted brussels sprouts with cotija and this roasted jalapeño vinaigrette (some minor mods here, like all orange juice so I didn't have to slice up a lime for such a small amount of juice; parsley instead of cilantro to accommodate my spouse's defective cilantro gene; and a touch of simple syrup instead of agave nectar)


• The usual cranberry-tangerine conserve


• Pecan pie

The sprouts and vinaigrette in particular are a real keeper of a recipe. We have some of both left over, so I think I'm going to roast some carrot chunks and toss them in on the grounds that pretty much anything will taste good with the vinaigrette.

Anyway, I hope you all had a good holiday, or at least as good of one as it's possible to have in this benighted year. May we all have a better one next year.

Comments

[profrobert]

My Wife made me a turkey crown (none of us like dark meat), Stove Top stuffing (none of those disgusting veggie bits) and canned cranberry jelly (ditto). Store-bought cherry pie for dessert. Total yum. (Wife made roast chicken and potatoes for her and Son. Probably because their un-Ammurrican.)

[nonelvis]

That all sounds great! And hey, you can tell your un-Ammurrican wife I made chicken, too.

[eve11]

OMG we got Brussel sprout for the feast yesterday but didn't get around to making them. So I might try that recipe there or at least make that vinagrette because it sounds amazing.

[nonelvis]

That vinaigrette is going to be delicious on anything. Definitely give it a try even if you don't put it on the sprouts!

[kass]

Oh that sounds utterly delicious. I'm going to bookmark some of those recipes. :-)

And yes, here's to a better one next year, dammit.

[nonelvis]

Thank you, and I hope the recipes turn out as well for you as they did for me!

[fauxklore]

That sounds like a fabulous menu.

[nonelvis]

Thank you! It actually felt weird only cooking this much, but I really did have to remind myself there were only two of us this year.

[iainpj]

Sounds lovely!

The major component of mine was turkey thighs, which I misordered (I did not need four pounds of thigh, no, but that's what I got). I used Samin Nosrat's Buttermilk Brine recipe from NY Times Cooking this time, which ... wasn't bad, but also wasn't as good as the recipes I've used before, so I'll probably go back to them. (The skin didn't brown at all until I sprayed olive oil on it with too little time left to make it crisp, which isn't included in the recipe.)

[nonelvis]

Huh, is that the recipe from Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat? I saw her use it on some chickens, and it looked good, but I'm willing to believe it was less interesting in reality.

[iainpj]

I think so. It was this one:
https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1021522-buttermilk-brined-turkey-breast

Granted, for breast instead of thigh, but that shouldn't have made much difference. The recipe talks about putting a tent over the breast if it's browning too quickly, but this literally didn't brown at all until I sprayed it. I'm kind of surprised; one of the ones I've used before puts butter on the skin, and that browns just fine, so I'd have thought the butterfat content of the buttermilk would help it along, but no.

[nonelvis]

Yup, that's what I remember seeing her make on the show. Buttermilk is pretty low-fat, though, so its fat content shouldn't have made much of a difference in terms of browning; adding more oil, like you did, was the right thing to do.

I wonder if it would have behaved better if it had sat for an hour or so in the fridge post-removal from the buttermilk mixture? Maybe the skin just needed more time to dry out.