Cookbook Club – Thanksgiving
For November’s Cookbook Club, we decided to do a Friendsgiving celebration. Instead of specifying a cookbook, we left it open to give everyone a chance to test run the recipes they planned to make for Thanksgiving. I had planned to make mashed cauliflower and gravy, but ended up also making turkey, and butterscotch pudding. Yes, I am giving myself a little pat on the back 🙂 Go to my Cookbook Club site to see the whole Friendsgivng spread. For now – my dish(es)!
Sheana was going to make the turkey. She’d already bought it and had it thawing in the fridge. But then she had to go out of town unexpectedly and wasn’t going to have time to make the turkey before the party. You can’t have Thanksgiving without a turkey, so I agreed (rather reluctantly) to take over. Sheana handed the turkey off to me, accompanied by the recipe she’d planned to use, which sounded delicious but way too complicated for my maiden turkey-making voyage. After several frantic texts for help to other members of the Cookbook Club, I resigned myself to brining the bird. I dug up the biggest pot I could find, cleared room in the fridge, and went with a brine of cloves, salt, and lemon juice and zest.
After 24 hours in the brine, I removed the turkey and left it uncovered in the fridge to dry out over night. The morning of the Cookbook Club party, I strong-armed Anthony into coming over to help me finish the bird. We rubbed with butter and a little seasoned salt, and stuffed some onion and celery inside.
We cooked the turkey breast side down for the first hour, then flipped it over and basted it with the butter drippings. We basted it again every half hour.
When it reached 165 degrees F, we pulled it out. The skin didn’t get as brown and crisp as we’d hoped for, but the meat seemed perfectly cooked. So we opted for juicy meat over presentation, and called it done.
I considered the successful cooking of this turkey enough of an accomplishment for one day. I brought it whole to the party, where I enlisted Alyssa (who is a professional chef) to do the carving. Tip: If you can find a professional chef to carve your turkey for you, do it! Even the breast meat was moist and full of flavor, so we were glad we opted to sacrifice crisp skin (though juicy meat AND crisp skin will be my future goal). Win for Team Turkey – Sheana, Anthony, Alyssa, and Alana!
While the turkey was roasting, I boiled a head of cauliflower. I am not a big fan of mashed potatoes, or really any potatoes unless they are french-fried (yes, I’ve been told I’m a freak). So I’d been wanting to try the mashed cauliflower thing that’s been all the rage with the low-carb crowd (though for different reasons).
Into the food processor went the cooked cauliflower, 5 diced garlic cloves browned in olive oil, 2 TBSP plain yogurt, 1 TBSP butter, 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, 1/4 tsp chicken boullion, salt and pepper. And out came mashed cauliflower, which looks a heck of a lot like mashed potatoes, and tastes even better (in the opinion of a person who isn’t a potato fan haha). Even the potato fans in the group raved about how creamy it was and were surprised when I told them it didn’t actually have any cream in it, and contained only 1 TBSP of butter.
Meanwhile, I had also boiled the turkey giblets, which as you can see, were quite happy that they were about to be made into a delicious gravy! Sorry, I just couldn’t help myself.
The turkey drippings went into a pot, where I sprinkled with flour and cooked the roux to a golden brown. Then I added chicken broth, salt, pepper, and the giblet meat finely diced.
We were feeling pretty good about ourselves when the turkey was roasting nicely in the oven, the mashed cauliflower was done, and the giblets were happily awaiting their gravy bath. Feeling on a roll, we decided to get ambitious and make a bonus dessert while the turkey finished cooking. Because you can never have too much dessert.
Anthony pulled out the most well-loved copy of The Joy of Cooking that I’ve ever seen. I mean — separating from the binding, pages folded and stained, covered in hand-written notes — well-loved. He gently navigated to a well-worn page and asked me if I had butter, brown sugar, heavy cream, milk, salt, cornstarch, vanilla, and some ramekins. Why yes, yes I did. An easy bit of heating, stirring, and pouring later… and Ta Da! Butterscotch Pudding!!
