Saturday
Nov272010
Thanksgiving Shout Out: Best Dish? Worst Dish?
Stephanie Webster
Thanksgiving has come and gone and while I'm thankful for many things, one in particular stands out. No, not cruelty free fois gras. I'm grateful that my husband did not burn down the house while deep frying the Thanksgiving turkey.
Our meal is pictured above, but suffice to say, as with any menu there were highlights and lowlights. Depending on how far you push the Thanksgiving envelope, you are destined to have keepers as well as dishes you'd prefer to never taste again.
What was your favorite Thanksgiving dish? (if you have a link, feel free to include it)
What was the worst dish in your Thanksgiving lineup? (no link necessary)
1 lucky person on this comment thread will get an early holiday gift and WIN a CTbites mug!!
Reader Comments (15)
BEST: The Parsley Thief's Chestnut Stuffing w/ Leeks & Apples (adapted from Gourmet). I swapped challah bread for white sandwich bread, added turkey sausage and some broth before baking and my family proclaimed it "the best stuffing they ever had." The roasted brussel sprouts with pancetta & hazelnuts, and a bread basket filled with pumpkin currant muffins, cranberry & orange bread and brioche were close behind.
WORST: Boiled onions. I guess it's a traditional thing but I just can't get into them but I would be ostracized from my family if I didn't serve them. I'm also over the white mashed potatoes thing. They are great when you want to make a shephards pie with your leftovers but take up much-needed real estate on your Thanksgiving Day plate.
I can't pick a favorite -- it was all wonderful. An organically raised turkey from John Boy's Farm and organic veggies from Sport Hill Farm. And I loved cooking with my husband again (he's been out of home-cooking commission for the last year). Sweet pototoes anna brulee, roasted turnips, mashed potatoes, caramelized little onions. Lots of gravy made from stock using the pristine giblets from the turkey (we froze the liver to make "faux gras" in the future), stuffing made with day-old Fairfield Bread Co.'s Flaxette, stock, onions, carrots, celery. The cranberries were not organic, but I got away from the super sugar fest by putting in hot peppers, fresh-grated turmeric, and other spices to bring a lower note and make it more of a relish. And the best pumpkin pie ever, which I invented as I made it, and was so good I'm not willing to give up the recipe. Yet. We drank an organic pinot noir from Oregon with dinner. It was OK, not great - so maybe that's the one thing I'd change next year.
Thanksgiving is the best!
If you need a visual for the following dishes, that's my meal up there.
The good stuff:
Bon Appetit's Clementine-Salted Turkey - salt locks in the moisture and the bright citrus flavor provides great contrast.
Bon Appetit's Harvest Corn Chowder w/ Chorizo - 3 years running as best amuse-bouche.
Cook's Country's (America's Test Kitchen) Sweet Potato Casserole - it's all about the cream cheese in this one.
Mark Bittman's "Simplest, Best Shrimp Dish Ever" - we start every dinner party with this dish.
Not so much:
Cook's Illustrated's Buttermilk Mashed Potatoes- who needs mashed potatoes when you can eat sweet potatoes & the outrageous purple sweet potatoes we have found @ Stew Leonard's recently.
All that talk about dispelling the picturesque myth of the perfectly cooked whole turkey prompted us to break it down and cook it in parts. I COULD NOT have done the knife work on the 16 pound bird without my hubby, though. Since the legs and wings benefit from higher temp and longer cooking time, we placed them in their own pan.Then, I layered the 2 breasts together after seasoning them top and bottom. We layered some fresh herbs in between the 2 sides before wrapping it all up in its own skin (previously removed). We tied the breasts together with 5 bands of poultry twine, resulting in a perfectly cooked, super moist "roast" . As always, we placed all parts on a rack over a pan scattered with onion, garlic, parsnips, carrots and lots of herbs. We rubbed the parts with olive oil, powdered and fresh herbs and hardly had to baste. Controlling the cooking time by separating the parts was well worth the efforts. The left overs never tasted this good!
The family did an away game this year and we were asked to bring some cheeses.
I MUST give a shout out to Plum Plums in Scotts Corner (just over the NY border north of New Canaan on Route 124) for their selection, their patience in customer service and their cheeses. All were outstanding. They suggested the fig jam as well and I ate a ton of their choices on T'giving.
This year I decided to brine my turkey and I was rewarded with the juciest and most flavorful turkey ever! Another highlight was my gravy which I made with Maderia wine. Not so great, were the green beans which I overcooked:((
We visited friends Thanksgiving evening and had leftovers from their feast: while everything they cooked blew me away, it was the brussels sprouts, roasted with olive oil and tossed with pomegranate arils and walnuts, that left me speechless. That, and their homemade bourbon-cinnamon ice cream.
Some highlights include the homemade pumpkin soup, as well as the free range turkey from Stone Gardens Farm in Shelton. Not sure if it was the turkey or the way it was prepared but it was the best we had in a long time.
Not so great was the oyster stuffing...
I happily made the same Thanksgiving dinner we make every year. Roasted sweet potatoes in orange juice and maple syrup with a bit of cinnamon, mashed potatoes, my roasted brussel sprouts with panchetta, cranberry sauce, homemade gravy, and my favorite (see post) stuffing with roasted chestnuts, apples and dried cranberries...
Was most excited for the "day after" sandwich with everything (except the brussel sprouts) smushed into a sandwich in soft potato bread.
Fabulous Thanksgiving, made even more memorable by watching my kids cook up a veritable feast! My favorites - the corn chowder and the Clementine roasted turkey and the sweet potatoes with marshmallows and the REMARKABLE purple sweet potatoes from Stews and....... :))
Didn't really have room for everything, but I didn't love the shredded brussel sprout dish (sorry!)
LOVED the Michele's maple pumpkin pie.
BEST was the company - children, inlaws, granddaughters. Couldn't have been better! Thank you all!
I know I've cooked it a half-dozen times this fall, but the leek bread pudding from Ad Hoc At Home was a terrific alternative to stuffing for Thanksgiving.
Mashed Sweet Potato Brulee from the BrownEyedBaker - Yum!
http://www.browneyedbaker.com/2010/11/19/mashed-sweet-potato-brulee/
The worst;
Boiled Brussle Sprouts - no pic needed here ;)
We had an excellent seasonal feast that included a few new dishes and my brother "cooking" a turkey for the first time. He was a good sport and agreed to order a free range turkey from CT Farm Fresh Express. When I arrived to rescue him from the kitchen he said "please tell me this turkey saw the light of day." I was so glad to see that a humanely treated animal was so appreciated and declared "the best turkey ever" by my mother. Everyone loved the roasted pumpkin pie, made with a local organic sugar pumpkin. You really don't know what you're getting in those cans (could be other squash), so it does make difference to go through the trouble of roasting your own. Here's the recipe: http://fairfieldgreenfoodguide.com/2010/11/24/roasted-sugar-pumpkin-pie/. The vegetarians and carnivores alike loved the Scalloped Root Vegetables from Michel Nischan's newest cookbook, Sustainably Delicious, so much so that I left the leftovers behind so they could feast on them at lunch the next day. A Mionetto Prosecco and a Hopkins Vineyard sparkling white (CT made in the French champagne style) went nicely with each course, except dessert when we pulled out a Moscato d'Asti for the pies and nuts. Almost forgot about the Connecticut chestnuts! They are so tender and creamy, well worth seeking out, plus they slip right out of their shells. The cheese plate my sister and her family brought in from New Hampshire was a treat because it included homemade bread and flat bread. The Candied Quince, also from Michel Nischan's cookbook, provided a burst of color and flavor to the selections. Everyone made something, resulting in one of the lowest stress and most delicious Thanksgivings in recent memory. Sorry, no duds this year!
I cooked my first Thanksgiving meal this year and while we did have a big-time dud (broiled spinach-stuffed tomatoes with a cheddar/parmesan crust); the herb and butter-rubbed turkey, potatoes, cornbread stuffing, etc. tasted great. The hit? Was my homemade cranberry-key lime sauce, a nod to my Floridian upbringing. I'm still getting comments about it!
I forgot to mention the chocolate cornucopia from Belgique Chocolatier in New Canaan, an amazing foodie find from my friend Elizabeth Keyser and the subject of an article she wrote for Fairfield County Weekly (photo included). http://www.fairfieldweekly.com/dining/dining/chocolate-thats-fit-for-royalty-028452. It made a gorgeous centerpiece and was the talk of the table as we each bit into our confections, declared what was inside, and savored every bite. Now we can say we've eaten like royalty.