Thanksgiving Spread

This year, my husband and I hosted Thanksgiving for his side of the family. It was a delicious good time. The fellas did all the cooking, and I just kicked back and enjoyed myself. Not only was everything amazing, it was also all gluten-free. Here's what my husband made:

• Chicken Liver Pate
• Turkey
• Cornbread Stuffing
• Baked Whole Sweet Potatoes
• Broccoli
• Squash Pies
• Poached Pears

Chicken Liver Pate

This pate. It is amazing. You should try it. My husband prepared it the day before and put it in the fridge until go time.

The Turkey

In my husband's own words:

Brining or salting is the trick. Brining plumps the meat, but salting gives more intense turkey flavor. Both make for moist meat. I brined this year, but salting is also great.

I bought the turkey from a local farm, so it was fresh, never frozen. There's absolutely nothing wrong with a frozen turkey, but I endeavored to use mostly local ingredients.

24 hours before cooking, I submersed it in brine. I used a 4% salt brine. I boiled fennel, Sichuan peppercorn, and black peppercorn in a small amount of water to add a little flavor to the brine. Truth be told, the flavor proteins can't penetrate the meat, so the spices don't do a lot. Plain saltwater would be fine. Keep the turkey and brine cold. I kept it outside and added more ice and salt occasionally.

An hour before cooking, I pulled the turkey out, patted it dry, and trussed it. I then roasted it without stuffing at 350F. It took around 13 minutes per pound. I think it's best to pull it out around 155-160F at the center. The USDA recommends 165F, but really, 12 minutes at 150F is enough time to drive salmonella down to undetectable levels. This year's turkey hit 165, but that was an accident because I wasn't watching the time.

The same technique works well with any poultry, but you can cut down the brining times for smaller birds. A hour or two is enough to make a delicious duck or chicken.

Ingredients

• Turkey, 1.5 lbs * number of guests (we had a ~20lb bird)
• Salt
• Water
• Whatever spices you like, e.g. fennel and Sichuan peppercorns

Preparation: 1 day advanced prep + 13min per pound day-of (~4.5 hours for 20lb bird)

Advanced Prep

Submerge the turkey in a giant vat of 4% by weight salt brine and store in a chilly place. Boil the spices in a small amount of water, and add it to the brine. Brine for a day or two.

Final Prep

Pat dry and truss. Roast at 350F for ~13min per pound. Aim for an internal temperature of 155-160F. Carve and enjoy.

Cornbread Stuffing

Ingredients

• 5lb Duck
• Wild rice
• Chicken broth
• 3 bulbs Celery root
• Cornbread, Southern style
• 8 tsp duck fat
• 2 cups corn meal, stone ground
• 4 tsp sugar
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 2/3 cup boiling water
• 1 1/2 cups buttermilk
• 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 5 small Onions
• 1/2 lb Shiitake mushrooms, fresh
• Rubbed sage
• Salt

Preparation: 1-2 days advanced prep + 2 hours day-of

Advanced Prep

Brine the duck in 4% by weight salt water for ~1hr. Roast at 350F until cooked (150-160F internal temperature). Save the fat and drippings. Allow the fat to cool and separate. Carve the duck and shred the meat for use in the stuffing. Save the carcass for broth.

Use the Cook's Illlustrated baking book's Southern style corn bread. Make a double recipe. Since we had duck fat, we used that instead of bacon drippings. Grease a 10 inch skillet with duck fat, warm in oven at 450F. Mix 2/3 of the cornmeal with all the sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Mix the remaining 1/3 cornmeal with the boiling water, and stir to make a "stiff mush". Gradually whisk in buttermilk, eggs, and -- when oven and skillet are hot -- the dry mix until "just moistened". Stir in the molten duck fat from the skillet into the mixture, then pour the whole thing back in the skillet. Bake until golden brown, ~20min. Pop it out onto a wire rack and let it sit and dry out overnight.

Cook the wild rice in chicken broth until tender. If you're very patient and planned ahead, boil the carcass down into duck broth and use that instead of store-bought broth.

Cut the celery root into small cubes and slowly fry them on low in the duck fat. They should be tender and golden when done.

Final Prep

By this point, it should be ~24 hours later, and you should have the following ingredients:

• 1 1/2 quarts wild rice cooked in chicken broth (cooked volume)
• 1 1/2 quarts cooked diced celery root (cooked volume)
• 1 10" skillet of southern style corn bread, let stale overnight and chopped small
• 5 small fried chopped onions
• Meat of 3/4 of a roasted duck, chopped small (we ate some of the duck)
• 1/2 lb of shiitake caps, chopped and fried
• rubbed sage and salt to taste

Chop up the onions and shiitake mushrooms into small pieces, roughly the size of a fingernail, and fry them in duck fat. This can also be done in advance, but it's fairly quick to do day-of.

Chop the cornbread into small cubes.

Mix up everything except the corn bread, and heat it on the stove until steaming hot. Don't let it stick or burn. Add the cornbread, and stir it up. Throw it in the oven in a casserole and let it bake for a while.

This produces an exceptionally moist and flavorful gluten-free stuffing.

Baked Whole Sweet Potatoes

Ingredients

• Sweet potatoes

Preparation: ~1-2 hours

Trim off the bad bits of the sweet potatoes. Wrap in aluminum foil. Bake at 325F until soft, about 1-2 hours. Overcooking them doesn't matter very much -- they just caramelize more.

Broccoli

Ingredients

• Broccoli
• Salt

Preparation: ~30 minutes

Chop the broccoli into bite-size pieces. Stir fry in hot oil until tender. Salt to taste.

Squash Pies

My husband used the Joy of Cooking pumpkin (or squash) pie recipe. He used red kuri squash, and eyeballed the spices, but the JoC recipe is solid even without these modifications.

Ingredients

• 2 cups cooked squash
• 1 1/2 cups cream
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ginger
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1/8 tsp cloves
• 2 eggs, slightly beaten
• 1 pie crust of your choice (husband made a gluten free crust this year)

Preparation: ~90min

Mix all ingredients (except the pie crust) until blended smooth. Pour into the pie shell. Bake at 425F for 15 minutes, then reduce to 350F for 45 minutes.

Poached Pears

These poached pears. Good lord, they are delicious. The poaching liquid indicated in the recipe is good for many more pears than the recipe indicates. My husband did 8 pears in that volume of liquid, and could have done more. He also used a more acidic wine base, which helps keep the pears from oxidizing and turning funny colors. No need to increase the amount of sugar in the recipe though. My husband prepared it the day before and put it in the fridge until go time.

Pressure Cooker Beef

A while ago, my husband and I bought an entire cow. We shared half of it with our friends, and kept the other half for ourselves. We've eaten a lot of the easy, choice bits -- the ribeyes, the tenderloins, the various roasts and stew meats -- and now we have a giant pile of shins, shanks, and short ribs.

Yesterday, I took advantage of working from home to pull out a pair of shin bones (with meat) and a package of short ribs. I doused them liberally with soy sauce and cooking rice wine, and added just a splash of vinegar. Then I forgot about it for the afternoon.

When my husband came home, I tossed the lot into a pressure cooker, added water until the meat was just barely covered, and put it on the stove. Once it got up to pressure, we let it cook for about 30 minutes. It took another 10-15 minutes to depressurize afterward. While we waited, the husband made rice in the rice cooker, and stir fried some Chinese watercress with soy sauce.

The total time between application of heat and shoving food into face was about 50 minutes, so not exactly a quick meal, but it was pretty darn simple.

Ingredients:

• a pile of tough beef that would take forever to cook until tender
• a liberal dose of soy sauce
• a liberal dose of cooking rice wine
• a splash of black rice vinegar
• ginger slices to taste
• salt to taste

Preparation (5 minutes):

• Put beef in a large bowl or leak-proof ziplock.
• Pour in all your liquid marinade stuff (soy, wine, vinegar).
• Let it sit for as long as you want, as long as it's more or less defrosted at cooking time.

Cooking (45-50 minutes):

• Toss your marinated beef, plus the marinade, into a pressure cooker.
• Add water until beef is just submerged.
• CAREFULLY lock the pressure cooker lid and make sure it is secure.
• Cook on high until at pressure.
• Simmer at high enough heat to just maintain pressure. The vent should hiss sporadically.
• Let it go for 30 minutes.
• Turn off the heat, remove from stove, and let the pot cool. 
• CAREFULLY depressurize and remove pot lid.
• Serve.

We use Fagor's 8-quart pressure cooker, which has an awesome lid with built-in vent, and a knob that can switch from atmospheric pressure to low or high pressures (both are above atmospheric pressure). For the above recipe, I cooked the beef on the high pressure setting. To bring the pot back down to atmospheric pressure, we wait until the vent stops hissing, then turn the pressure knob down to the next setting. Repeat until the pot can be safely opened.

A Journey to Remember - Journeyman

To celebrate the successful demolition of the chimneys in our house, my husband and I decided that we'd visit Journeyman, a tasting house in Union Square that we've had our eye on for several weeks. It had recently reopened after the chefs returned from a trip to Europe seeking new inspiration, and we were excited to see and taste all they had to offer.

We were presented with a lovely menu, with several tasting options, divided into 5 or 7 courses, and omnivore vs. vegetarian dishes. We both selected the 7-course omnivore selection, pairing it with wine for him, and house-mixed sodas for me.

The amuse bouche was a beet and duck consomme, with a small nugget of mustard seed ice cream and a cube of jellied beet. The broth was light and refreshing, though I wished it had been a little warmer. The jelly cube was delightful and fun, sweet and earthy in true beet fashion. The ice cream was frankly astonishing. The blast of mustard seed was intense, but the heat of it coupled with the coldness of its form factor simply blew my mind.

The appetizer was an allium plate, with a stripe of bright green leek cream sauce down the center of the dish and 3 small scoops on top. One scoop was a goat cheese mousse, the second was a foam, and the last one was another ice cream. They were topped with incredibly slender strips of green onion, and some crunchy thing whose name I did not catch. This plate was very good, but I don't actually remember a lot of details about it.

The halibut dish that came next was brilliant. The fish was moist, flaky, and so sweet and tender that I melted with every bite. The sauces that accompanied the fish were also interesting and delicious. There was parsley, chamomile, spinach, leek, and at least one more which I can't remember anymore. I enjoyed the onion ones best, but they were all very tasty.

Seared scallops topped with scallop ceviche sounded so good when it was described to us that when we actually got to tasting them, we were disappointed.  The scallops were a uniform middling-cool temperature, that we are culturally trained to disdain, for fear of food contamination or disease proliferation. Obviously we did not take ill from this meal, but the cultural bias is difficult to overcome. Otherwise, the scallops were tender and sweet, though the ceviche did not quite have as much punch as I would have preferred. The tomato-dashi broth poured around it was also a luke-cool thing, much to my chagrin. I really wanted a stronger cool-warm contrast: slightly more chilled scallops in a just barely warm broth.

Foie gras is always delicious, with its creamy richness and sense of indulgent decadence. Unfortunately, the lavender brioche was so buttery that it covered up a lot of the fatty sweetness of the liver, and the berries, though properly tart and delicious to cut the fat, only served to bury the flavor of the foie gras even more thoroughly. I wish the bread had been a little more austere, but still, foie gras is a treat any day of the week.

The rabbit roulade with liver mousse on the side was delectable. Tender, moist, and so very flavorful, the rabbit meat was a pleasure to all the senses. The fresh spring vegetables that accompanied the meat was also beautifully done, tender and well spiced without overshadowing the meat. The liver mousse was a touch on the salty side, but the inherent sweet richness of liver made up for it.

Steak was the main course, served with two scoops of lentils, a wedge of fennel bulb, and maitake mushroom. Everything was wonderfully flavored, and I especially enjoyed the contrast between the moist, tender meat and the earthy, slightly crisped maitake. There was pureed beets and beet foam as well, but I was not as much of a fan of the contrast between the strong sweet flavors against the savoriness of the rest of the plate.

After we finished our main course, we were served an egg cream. If this was intended to be a palate cleanser, I'm afraid it didn't quite do it for me. I can't remember what was in it, but the taste was so sharp and piercing that it cut through all the previous very pleasant flavors and displaced them, lingering unpleasantly in the mouth until it was itself displaced by other things. Even though we were served a very small amount, I still could not bring myself to consume all of it.

Finally, for dessert, we got a delicious sweet sandwich. On the bottom was a moist, fluffy cake. In the center was a sort of rhubarb custard, and to top it off was a delicious meringue. If it had been just this, I would have been pleased as punch, and no more words need be said on the matter. However, they added a ring of lavender cream around the rhubarb, and it was so overwhelmingly sweet and aromatic that I could not taste the tartness of the rhubarb at all. In the end, I was so baffled by the lack of rhubarb that I took the sandwich apart, carefully removed the ring of lavender cream, put the sandwich back together, and ate it that way. Call me barbaric, but I thought it was tastier that way.

Overall, for all that we found things we thought they could have done differently, we still really enjoyed our experience. It was definitely a journey worth remembering, and I look forward to more inventive, delightful, tasty things from Journeyman.

Culture Shock -- Shiki Saves the Day

I really miss the sushi and other Japanese food in California. Hachi Ju Hachi's Suzuki-san and Yume-ya's Suga-san were really amazing, and definitely spoiled me rotten. Porter Exchange just doesn't quite do it for me anymore. While Sapporo does have delicious ramen, I find myself occasionally longing for a nice, elaborate, slow and leisurely Japanese dinner.

Enter Shiki. That is, we entered Shiki. This is a tiny restaurant in Brookline, with a fair showing of Asian customers. Their offerings were reasonably varied, and solidly decent or better. Certainly no Suzuki-san in the kitchens, but it did an acceptable job of meeting my desires.

Egri lunch, Budapest supper

Monday we decided to take a day-trip out to Eger, the home of the infamous Bull's Blood. After some annoying scheduling problems with the trains, we arrived just in time for lunch. Relying once again on the Rough Guide, we decided to go to Fehérszarvas Vadásztanya (unfortunately, only in Hungarian).

If you like stuffed animal heads and hides adorning your dining area, then this is the place for you. I thought it was super charming and lovely. They even had a table surrounded by chairs made from deer antlers and sheep hide. I'm personally a huge fan of using all the parts of an animal, so this practical and creative use of antlers made me really happy.

The food itself was also good. They did a fine goose liver trio, very tender and sweet, and very hearty portions for the entrées. (It's been a full 2 weeks since we ate there, so please forgive me for being sparse on the details!) Overall, lunch was a great experience.

After lunch, we walked out to the Valley of Beautiful Women to visit the numerous wine cellars and taste some wine. More details can be found here, but suffice it to say that I got thoroughly sozzled (some cellars failed to provide a spittoon, blargh). J had to steer me all the way back to the train station.

Because of my drunken state, we went back to Budapest rather earlier than we'd expected. On the train ride home, we looked up another restaurant, Alföldi. Being that it was a Monday, J reasoned that it ought to be slow enough that we wouldn't need a reservation. We were wrong again.

As we milled about outside this little restaurant, a couple stepped out and warned us off it. The food was hit-and-miss, they said, and the service was awful. Better to go to a place nearby called "For Sale."

After wandering for a good while, we finally found it. I was surprised to find that it was a rowdy, sawdust on the floor, basket of peanuts on bench tables sort of pub. We milled around uncertainly for a good few minutes before someone came to ask what we wanted. They tried to tell us they were full, but a couple was just finishing up, so we were spared this aggravating assertion.

Despite the questionable service, the food was decent. Their bean goulash was good and hearty, with wonderfully intense, rich meaty flavors and that ubiquitous Hungarian king of spices, paprika. The veal ragout was only passable. The weird Hungarian noodles were bland and dry, though their texture was interesting enough. The meat was also dry, and the sauce was not as intensely flavored. All in all, the ragout made for a rather poor follow-up to the goulash.

The portions were unbelievably huge, so we only got the 2 dishes... and even then, we didn't finish it all. Overall, it was a good cheap meal, but pubs aren't exactly my cup of tea.

Written 2010-05-31 13:15

Budapest, Hungary -- Day 3

Having failed to get dinner at Szent Jupát Étterem once before, we were determined that this time we'd get a reservation. Since we'd be in the area anyway, we figured we'd just drop by and tell them in person. When the time came, J and I looked at each other, and decided, oh what the hell. It's lunch time -- let's just eat here now.

The portions were ludicrously huge. J and I each ordered a soup, and we split an entrée of deer ragout. It was a fair meal, hot and filling, but the flavors were pretty standard and unremarkable. The deer meat was reasonably tender, leaning a bit toward the dry side, but not tough and chewy.

For dinner, we looked up a guidebook-recommended fish restaurant which served up some delicious soups and stews. We each had a fish soup, a "catfish cracklings" as a starter, and J had a pike-perch fillet while I had a catfish stew.

The cracklings were a bit under-salted, and they very quickly wilted and became soggy before we could actually enjoy them. I found the amount of catfish fat in the cracklings mildly nauseating. J thought they were "interesting" but not stupendous.

The broth portion of my catfish stew was incredibly rich and delicious, bursting with amazing fish flavor. The catfish in my stew was again somewhat nauseatingly fat, but well-flavored despite this and reasonably good to eat. J's pike-perch fillet was pretty tasty, tender, moist, and flaky. Unfortunately, it was also a bit oily.

Overall it was a nice meal that warmed our bones after the cold rain we'd been slogging through the entire day.

Written 2010-05-30 06:58

Budapest, Hungary -- Day 2

Saturday, we went to Etyek for a little wine festival they were having. It was miserable, cold, and pouring. By contrast, the food we had -- a plate of chicken and a plate of ham -- was hot, filling, and near perfection. The chicken plate was good and saucy, with bell peppers and other vegetables mixed in. The ham dish was incredibly yummy, with the skin fried with the meat. It was moist and tender, and so flavorful that, as J put it, even the onions were tasty.

For dinner, we thought maybe we'd go to Cafe Pierrot, based on the recommendation of our guidebook the Rough Guide to Hungary. Unfortunately, we again failed to make reservations, and showing up at their door got us the familiar "We're full" rejection. "Maybe you try 21 across the street?" they suggested helpfully. We tried.

Again they told us they were full, but we insisted and looked skeptical, and finally they seated us in a little corner by the window which was actually extremely pleasant. We started with a bowl each of their cream of wild garlic soup. It was milder than I expected, and was properly creamy and delicious. I love a good creamy soup, and it had been an awful, cold and wet day of trudging about, so it really hit the spot.

We followed this up with their foie gras concert. Goose liver was delivered to us on a platter as a pate, grilled, and one other way which I can no longer remember. It was fabulous. The grilled lobe was sweet and smooth, the skin bursting under the teeth with a gentle but satisfying pip to disgorge the tender liver inside. The liver was not overcooked at all, and was perfectly soft and melted across the tongue so nicely. ♥

For an entree, I opted for a goose risotto, with roasted goose leg, stuffed goose neck, and seared goose liver on top. The leg was the tiniest bit tough, but the skin was crisp, the fat sweet, and the meat well-flavored and quite delectable. The liver was again fabulously tender, smooth, and sweet. The neck was the only thing I was not entirely happy with. The stuffing was comparatively bland and uninteresting, and the skin of the neck was quite tough and fatty without a whole lot of flavor. The risotto underlying these goosy treats was a little crunchy. The rice seemed just a bit underdone. The flavor was mild but good, and the frequent chunks of goosy bits in the risotto made for a fun time.

Unfortunately, J has forgotten what he had at 21. Ah well. Such is the risk of blogging several days and many good meals after the event.

Written 2010-05-20 20:56

Edit -- J remembered what he got as an entrée at 21. :) The enormous slab of goose liver, delivered on a pile of caramelized apples, was an awesome sight to behold. It was, by all reports, incredibly delicious. The mildly tart sweetness of the apples blended and contrasted beautifully with the sweet richness of the liver for an amazing in-the-mouth experience.

Edited 2010-05-30 06:27