Thanksgiving 2012 - Soy-Sauce and Honey-Glazed Turkey, Mark Bittman's Green Beans with Crisp Shallots, Cranberry-Reisling Compote and Sweet Potato Gratin with Chile Spiced Pecans

I came up with the menu for Thanksgiving back in mid-November after spending a little while pouring through the Food & Wine website.  I quickly realized that they had a slideshow for various ethnic and regional Thanksgiving feats, including an "Asian-American Thanksgiving."  I was instantly hooked.  Alex's favorite thing about Thanksgiving with my parents has always been the Sichuan cucumbers that my mother makes and the Soy-Sauce and Honey-Glazed Turkey sounded like the perfect centerpiece to a meal featuring my American father, my Chinese mother, a number of her Chinese siblings and a batch of Sichuan cucumbers.  We only ended up making one dish from the slideshow, but since it was the turkey I think that deserves a shout out. 

I thought the turkey had really good flavor and was very moist, although I wish that the flavors of the honey and soy-sauce mixture really seeped down into the meat a little more.  With that said, I think it was the best turkey we have made for Thanksgiving to date, although I think we have made better gravies.  Unfortunately the picture looks a little ridiculous - nothing that I did made the turkey lay flat on its back.  It just kept keeling over left and right until I admitted defeat.  The sweet potatoes were perhaps my second favorite dish from Thanksgiving.  They were really good.  I was a little worried about the dish for a number of reasons, including the fact that I bought white sweet potatoes and didn't realize that the flesh inside would be this weird light yellow color (which looked kind of sickly against the roasted marshmallows), but the flavor was really good.  They almost looked like applesauce mixed into mashed potatoes.  The color was really weird and slightly off-putting.  I actually considered leaving the sweet potatoes at home rather than bringing them with me because they were such an odd color. I wish I had taken a picture (even thought the picture would have been horrible), but I didn't have time.  I was also worried that they would be too sweet, but in the end I think they were just right.  Mark Bittman's green beans were nice, although the shallots and almonds tended to fall straight to the bottom and without any shallots or almonds to liven them up, they were a little blah.  The cranberry compote marked our third attempt at cranberry sauce, none of which has been a smashing success.  I'm not sure if the heirloom cranberries we are buying at the farmers' market are more bitter than your average grocery store cranberry or if I am extremely sensitive to bitterness, but the past few batches have been too bitter to eat without the addition of a large amount of additional honey or sugar.  I would say that these cranberries ended up being our most successful to date by far, but I added about 1/4 cup of honey to them after they cooled to get them to that point.

P.S.  Sorry for the delay on this post but there was a whole camera/hard drive debacle.  If you want to read more about it, you can look at my Thanksgiving 2012 Desserts post.  I'm not going to repeat the whole story here, but suffice it to say that I am a wee bit forgetful sometimes. 

Recipes (and more pictures) after the jump!

Salad with Pecans and Blue Cheese

 
I don't know why I am always experimenting with different salad recipes.  I have a few go-to greens (baby arugula and big mix from 5 lbs of Dirt are the most common salad greens in our apartment) but we tend to mix it up with dressings and ingredients.  I bought some nice blue cheese at my new favorite cheese shop last weekend (more on that later) and I have been trying to figure out what kind of salad to make with my cheese.  I thought about getting some pears and doing roasted pears with blue cheese over salad greens, but decided to go with this salad because it used ingredients we already had in the apartment.  My one complaint with the salad was that this salad dressing combined with the dried cranberries (which for the record were unsweetened) was a little sweet for me.  I would probably cut back a little more on the amount of maple syrup or use a more bitter green.  The big mix is fairly bitter because it has baby kale and chard and mustard greens in it, but it' not as bitter as some other greens.  I definitely would tone the dressing down before using it with something as mild as baby spinach.  When you got a bite that combined all of the ingredients the blue cheese and the toasted pecans really helped to cut through the sweetness of the dressing.  But there were a few bites with just lettuce and the sweetness was a little overwhelming.  I think there are other salads with blue cheese and fruit out there that do a better job of striking a balance between the pungent flavor of the blue cheese and the sweetness of the fruit or the dressing.

Recipe after the jump!

Happy Thanksgiving! Cider-Brined Turkey Breast with Star Anise and Cinnamon, Roasted Squash with Mint and Toasted Pumpkin Seeds and Homemade Cranberry Sauce

Happy Thanksgiving!  I'm not going to give much commentary because I think I deserve to be able to take Thanksgiving off too, but I wanted to post the menu I served my family (my parents and Alex) for Thanksgiving today before I fly off to Hawaii tomorrow morning!!!!!!  Since there were only four of us, we cooked a whole, bone-in turkey breast instead of a whole turkey.  We used the braise from Anita Lo's Cider-Brined Turkey with Star Anise and Cinnamon recipe, but revised the recipe for a whole turkey breast.  From the same issue of Bon Appetit we made the Roasted Squash with Mint and Toasted Pumpkin Seeds.  We served the turkey and squash (both of which my father assured me were properly traditional and American dishes) with some Momofuku brussels sprouts and homemade cranberry sauce.  Yum.

Recipes after the jump!

Turkey Cutlets with Brussels Sprouts and Dried Cranberries

This dish reminds me of Thanksgiving.  If I were to cook Thanksgiving for just Alex and I, this is the type of dish I would make.  Actually, for Thanksgiving last year we were pretty elaborate and made Pan-Roasted Squab, Polenta and Broccolini.  I have a problem with making overly elaborate dishes/meals on occasion.  What I love about this dish is that it's a medley of my favorite Thanksgiving ingredients and flavors - turkey, cranberries, sage (which I love in stuffing) and brussels sprouts (which is one of my absolute favorite Thanksgiving sides).  Actually, that's not the only thing I love about this dish.  Equally important is the fact that this is a one pot meal that doesn't taste like a one pot meal.  If I didn't know better, I would think this dish had cooked longer and been more complicated.  The flavors were just so rich, nuanced and delicious.  This would be a great Thanksgiving dish, but I would definitely cook this all fall long.  It's perfectly (and wonderfully) autumnal, plus it's so easy.  It also comes together really quickly - and in one pot (bonus)!  It's a toss up for me between whether I prefer the swordfish or these turkey cutlets, but I think the turkey might win by a hair.  Alex said that he also preferred the turkey, but it wasn't quite as close a call for him.  Both were unexpectedly moist and flavorful, but this dish had the added bonus of the delicious brussels sprouts and cranberry mixture.  Yummy.

Recipe after the jump!

Cranberry Ketchup

Ever since I tried cranberry ketchup that was served with a tourtiere (a traditional Quebecois meat pie) from Hugue Dufour (formerly of Quebec's infamous Au Pied de Cochon) on Christmas Eve, I have been dying to try to make some cranberry ketchup.  Unfortunately, I have no idea how to can or preserve things so that deterred me for a little while.  Well, it deterred me for about a week.  Then I saw the bags of fresh cranberries at my grocery store and decided to just go for it.  So this morning I did some research, found some recipes to base my own cranberry ketchup off of and made myself a cranberry ketchup.

The cranberry ketchup served with the tourtiere was sweet, but still a little tart and had a slight kick to it.  It also tasted of allspice.  So I kept all of that in mind as I tried to design my own version.  I have to say that I am quite pleased with the results.  So right now I am planning a turkey meatloaf for tomorrow to serve with my cranberry ketchup.  And later in the week I want to try to make a Vietnamese Pate Chaud (a traditional Vietnamese meat turnover wrapped in puff pastry) to try with it.  Served with the tourtiere, the tartness of the cranberry ketchup cut the rich meatiness of the pie beautifully.  If the ketchup goes half as well with the pate chauds as it did with the tourtiere, then I will be a very happy cook.  This might be the beginning of a beautiful holiday tradition!

Recipe after the jump!