I'm going to
sound like a classroom teacher -- or your mother. Or mine. But the secret
to surviving Thanksgiving or any other celebration that comes packed with
expectation is organization.
Do as much as
you can ahead of time. Go carefully through every recipe you are going
to follow and make a shopping list of ingredients. Then coordinate it.
It really is sensible putting all the quantities for the same item together.
This way, you won't find when you get home from the grocery store that
while you bought bread for the turkey stuffing, you don't have a loaf for
late-night turkey sandwiches.
A baguette is
worth having around. If you lightly toast circles of it in advance and
store them in the freezer, you can bring them out and heat them quickly
in the turkey oven to spread with toppings for crostini. These are great
with a cold beer after the football game when the gang is milling about,
hungry for a bite but doesn't want to ruin its appetite.
Blanch a dozen
tomatoes to remove their skins. Halve and deseed them, roughly chop and
dump them in a bowl with some finely minced garlic, a tablespoon of oregano,
salt and plenty of freshly ground black pepper, a good swoosh of olive
oil and stir. Get someone else to plonk spoonfuls of it onto oven-warmed
baguette slices.
You can do each
of the following one or two days before and store in the refrigerator.
-
Make a cornbread stuffing. Buy
enough cornbread or cornbread muffins (no one will know) to make 4 cups
crumbled. Mix them with 3 cups of crumbled toast, 2 cups of finely chopped
onion, 1 cup of finely chopped green pepper and 2 cups finely chopped celery
stalks, all of which you have tossed for 2-3 minutes in a pan in 4 tablespoons
butter. Add salt and plenty of freshly ground black pepper and refrigerate.
On Thanksgiving day, bring it to room temperature and add 3 eggs, lightly
beaten and mix all together.
-
Make the cranberry sauce. I
like it cooked with the zest of a scrubbed orange, removed with a potato
peeler and cut in fine shreds, and the orange's juice. First chop 1 pound
of fresh cranberries as finely as you can. I use a meat cleaver and a chopping
board. Dump them in a big saucepan with the orange, an inch of cinnamon
stick, 3 ounces of sugar and bring to a boil. Cook over low heat for 5
minutes, then cool. Remove the cinnamon stick, add 2 tablespoons port,
and refrigerate until needed. I've also served this raw. Taste before you
cook and see what you think.
-
The best pumpkin pie filling
doesn't come out of a can. A few days ahead, make 3 cups of fresh purée
by cutting a 3 1/2 pound pumpkin into lengths and scraping out the fibers
and seeds with a spoon. Put them, unpeeled, in the top of a steamer and
cover. After 15 minutes over boiling water, the pumpkin should be soft
and easy to scrape, when cool, from the skin. Mix to a purée, cover
and refrigerate until needed.
-
Make the gravy. Melt 1/4 stick
of butter in a large saucepan. Add the turkey giblets and neck and fry
till brown all over. Remove to a plate and add 1 cup onions, 1 1/2 cups
carrots, 1/2 cup chopped celery, all finely chopped and sauté gently
until turning brown. Pour in 1 cup white wine and 5 cups water. Return
the giblets and neck to the pan and simmer over low heat, partly covered,
for about 1 1/2 hours till the stock has reduced to about 3 cups. Strain
through a sieve, pressing the solids with the back of a spoon. Refrigerate
when cool. On Thanksgiving day, bring it back to the boil. When the turkey
has cooked and its juices have been strained of butter, add them to this
gravy.
-
Prepare your vegetables. Peel
and chop and store in water in the refrigerator any root vegetables. Wash
and bag any others.
On the day, finish
off the pumpkin pie before you start the turkey. Preheat the oven to 425
degrees F. Line a pie dish with bought shortcrust pastry and prick it all
over. Mix 3/4 cup of sugar, a pinch of salt, a good grating of nutmeg,
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon and 1/2 teaspoon of grated, peeled fresh ginger into
the pumpkin purée with 3 lightly beaten eggs and 1 cup of heavy
cream. Spread into the pastry case and bake for 15 minutes. Then lower
heat to 350 degrees F and continue for 30 minutes or until the filling
is set. Serve with rum-flavored sweetened whipped cream.
Turkeys aren't
a bother. Once they're in the oven, they just sit there. But to make sure
they don't dry out, they should steam away for most of the cooking inside
a big foil tent which you remove to brown the skin, only for the last 30
minutes.
An 8-10 pound
bird should start cooking, filled with stuffing and covered with 6 ounces
of softened butter pressed into its breast and thighs, at 425 degrees F
for 30 minutes. I recommend overlapping a whole package of bacon slices
on top of the butter to provide extra moisture. Lower heat to 325 degrees
F for the next 2 1/2-3 hours. This is when you go out to play.
Then raise the
heat to 400 degrees F, remove the foil, put the bacon in a separate pan
in the oven to brown (you can eat it later in sandwiches), and baste frequently
for 30 minutes until golden. Don't forget to let it rest for 30 minutes
before carving.
To make the
tent, use heavy duty aluminum foil, pulling one very long sheet lengthways
along your roasting tin, leaving a very generous overhang at either end.
Repeat crossways. Lay the prepared turkey on this then carefully draw first
one sheet's ends together, leaving as much air around the turkey as you
can, and repeat with the other. Pleat the open edges together to create
a blowsy shower-cap effect.
--
Copyright 2002 by United
Press International.
All rights reserved.
|