Best dish on the T-day table?

[hjshorter]

The oyster and andouille stuffing was a big hit,

Sure sounds good. Care to give it up?

I made it up, really. I used the recipe that Brooks posted in this thread, except I used bread cubes instead of crumbs, left out the parmesan and pecans, didn't have any green onions, and added some sauteed andouille cut in half then into thin slices.

[KateW]

there was an interesting fresh cranberry-rosemary drink spiked with vodka and garnished with a rosemary sprig.

Oh?? Sounds good to me. Any details available??

I don't know anything more about it but I can try to find out. It tasted very fresh, and unstrained, maybe pureed cranberries sweeted with sugar, and flavored with fresh rosemary which was then removed. Just a guess but I will try to find out.

Edit: Ohh, I just read the culantro thread and realized I forgot to mention the hors d'oeuvre which was scallops marinated in sesame oil and soy sauce and then sauteed I guess and served atop a cucumber slice and a sprig of cilantro. I hate cilantro, but I keep trying it whenever I see it because I keep hearing of people developing a taste for it later in life. As of Thanksgiving, I still hate it.

Edited November 30, 2003 by KateW (log)

[bloviatrix]

As my dad took a taste of his butternut squash soup, he commented "this is interesting." This prompted my heart to jump into my throat. And then I hear my fil tell my dad that "interesting" is a forbidden word (I finally got him trained). I though the wild rice salad turned out well, and the cranberry-dried cherry compote was out of this world. The pumpkin pie was a little soggy. And I don't think I blanched the brussel sprouts for long enough. My mil loved them, commenting that she found them to taste like meat -- maybe it was the duck fat.

The concord grape sorbet and the banana sorbet were really good.

[megaira]

I never ever bake pies and for some reason, went on a pie frenzy & made pumkin, chess and apple. All three were not pretty by any stretch of the means, but the chess and apple pies tasted fantastic. (he says he loved the pumpkin -I'm all pumpkined out after the bread pudding expirements). The chess pie I added golden raisins along with the toasted pecans - if I'd left out the pecans it'd have become a butter tart pie. Canadian goodness. Needless to say, it's gone. The apple pie was Shirley Corriher's apple pie with flakey cheese crust. Since the pie crusts and filling are precooked and assembled, the pie filling was mounded 4" high. cutting a small slice off that thing is pretty much impossible.

The hit for him during dinner was the potatos babka - much like the aforementioned potato souffle, with egg yolks, cottage cheese, butter and heavy cream, then whites are folded in.

For me, it was the stuffing... I made two different kinds: a sage sausage cornbread stuffing (julia child's recipe), subbing half the butter for turkey broth (it was being cooked outside the turkey) and adding ground toasted pecans; and a mushroom herb stuffing with french bread. Both were good, but the two of them combined were "it" for me so next year it'll be a mushroom herb stuffing with sausage, cornbread and toasted ground pecans added. Maybe overkill, but I like it -there's an interesting mix of textures and flavors and mixed together, neither overpowers the other. :) I could make a meal out of the stuffing alone.

[monkeymay]

My daughter has developed an allergy to dairy, so I needed to make sure she got a couple of her favorite things without threat of the moo juice.

So to the table at my mom's house I brought fingerling potatoes, pan roasted with leeks, pancetta and chantrelles that I finished off with truffle oil just because I could.

The brussel sprouts that usually get finished with sour cream were dressed with applewood smoked bacon (thank god for pork product!), garlic, shallots, thyme and malt vinegar (which I like much better than balsamic for the dish).

Both of these dishes turned out beautifully, along with the creamless creamed corn that I threw toghther at the last minute.

There were very few leftovers, much to my daughter's chagrin.

[tryska]

By far and away, sweet potatoes with plantains, dashed and dotted with cinnamon and butter.

woodburner

this has piqued my curiosity - could you expand a little?

thanks!

[col klink]

I smoked up a venison shoulder from a fawn buck. Smoky, medium rare and utterly delicious. If it wasn't for the fact I was there for the butchering (and the shooting), my buddies would have turned it into hamburger!

I decided to make a gravy with some rendered venison fat but that didn't turn out as well.

Of course the smoked turkey went over very well likewise my wife's pumpkin pie from scratch.

[Susan in FL]

I smoked up a venison shoulder from a fawn buck. Smoky, medium rare and utterly delicious. If it wasn't for the fact I was there for the butchering (and the shooting), my buddies would have turned it into hamburger!

Ahhh, smoking venison. A great idea. We have a "venison roast" in our freezer and that's all we know about it -- don't know what part of the animal it is. Do you have any advice?

Yes, isn't is awful what some people do to venison when it is just simply so flavorful. How much venison chili can one eat.

[col klink]

Don't get me wrong, they treat the steaks very well (the tenderloins and the backstrap were out of this world) but my buddies don't have the food background that I do and normally just don't think of cooking large portions of meat. They think in terms of hamburger and steaks. Since the shoulder isn't as tender and the muscles aren't as big as the hind quarters, they just hamburglerize them.

Is your roast wild or farmed? If it's wild, more than likely the your roast is one of the muscles from the back leg. If you trust the source of meat, only roast it until 135 F otherwise it will dry out. Do you know who shot the deer? If so, ask that person if you can eat it medium rare, otherwise it will have to be well done and it will be dry to remove any possibility of trichinosis.

If it's farmed venison then you won't have any problems roasting until medium rare.

[Susan in FL]

It is farmed, Matt, and will be our first time to try farm raised. When we lived up north, we were given a lot of venison from our hunter friends. It's good to hear your endorsement for cooking it medium rare.

[sammy]

The best thing on the table was the Smoked Turkey... until the Fried Turkey came out. I'm now a fried turkey convert. It was great watching civilized people search for any small peice of skin they could get their hands on. The sound of crunch when biting into a leg was priceless.

As for the sides, the corn pudding and mashed sweet potatoes (both from NY Times) were standouts. I improved the corn pudding by adding a bunch of braised bacon.

[cheeseandchocolate]

We did a vegetarian Thanksgiving this year, and although it was all delicious, I'd say the biggest hit was Shirley Corriher's "Touch of Grace" biscuits. I'd heard so much about them and finally got around to making 'em myself...WOW. We had a few left, and they even reheated beautifully the next day. Mmmm. Again, WOW.

We also made a wonderful, spicy, rich cranberry linzer tart with toasted almonds and orange zest in the crust. Topped with loosely whipped cream, of course.

[bigwino]

The hit at our table was this creamed onions recipe from the NYT article with 10 chefs recipes for Thanksgiving. All of those recipes looked worth a try to me, that one was the least challenging to the traditional palates of my family.

[Rhea_S]

My favourite was the brussel sprouts with bacon and hazelnuts. I diced then cooked the bacon, drained off most of the fat then tossed in the shredded brussel sprouts. Added chopped roasted hazelnuts at the end. Very simple but delicious. But then, everything is better with bacon, right?

[dumpling]

Steven-

What can be said about that cake? Amazing. By the way tell your sister the Wampanoag Indians did not wear feather headresses.

Over the weekend, from the dinners-

T-day

I think it was one of the most beautiful turkeys I've ever made or seen. Perfect shape, beautiful skin, juicy meat.

People were also quite fond of the sausage, chestnut, apple, sage and rosemary cornbread stuffing.

But the hit was probably the butternut squash soup served in a pumpkin. Can't beat the presentation value. It had a great gingery piquant flair to it. People scarfed it up.

Saturday, my friend brined a 20 pounder and cooked it on his Kamado. We were supposedly done with the dinner but me and the teens stayed at the table to pick at the crispy skin on the wings. We kept saying, "oh we're stuffed" but we just couldn't stop picking off that skin! That was the tastiest turkey. Between the brining and the Kamado, the juicy and the smoke, umm, umm! His wife made a lovely sweet potato pie not complicated but just straight ahead good.

For dessert, I made some vanilla bean gelato with chocolate and walnuts. While a little icy, it captivated everyone with its flavor.

Edited December 2, 2003 by dumpling (log)

[Toliver]

Recipes, people, recipes!

Having said that, I, unfortunately, don't have recipes () for the hits on our Thanksgiving dinner table. I didn't make either the Cajun Sausage Stuffing that had a heckuva kick to it, or the Whipped Sweet Potato Cassserole topped with a melange of brown sugar, oats & pecans that was more a dessert than a side-dish.

Simply dreamy.

[adoxograph]

Wow. We didn't have cake dioramas but we did have 30 pounds of mashed potatoes that my sister made, including a premium sun dried tomato pesto variety. I think I had thirds of those.

As for personal successes, my vegetarian mushroom sherry gravy was finished before the turkey gravy was - and there were only two vegetarians of 35 guests. And it was clearly labeled as vegetarian. I think I might be getting the hang of it.

[howard88]

This year I tried a stuffing recipe from Jacques Pepin. It was a country loaf cut into large pieces and dried with regular stuffing type mirepoir, plus mushrooms and turkey broth; no eggs. It was light and tasty. The true hit of the meal was a made from scratch (no campbell soup) green bean casserole from a recipe supplied by cooks illustrated. It contained mushrooms, heavy cream, celery, shallotts, green beans and fried onions and bread crumbs spread on top.

[sequim]

I made a Pumpkin Flan for dessert that came out quite well.  I made it non-fat and relatively low calorie by using egg substitute, Splenda, evaporated skim milk and fat free half and half, but you could probably make it with real eggs, sugar and half and half and it would be delicious, if not deadly! 

Pumpkin flan for me too, but I don't do low-fat. Made carmelized sugar three times before it came out right... A small piece served to each guest garnished with frosted grapes, served with a small glass of Kestrel Winery (WA) reserve ice wine. The flan was surprisingly light and easy to eat after a big meal, despite all the eggs and cream.

Edited December 2, 2003 by sequim (log)