eG Foodblog: slkinsey's Thanksgiving Week Diary

[JennyUptown]

The magic continues!

What do you like in your crepes?

[slkinsey]

On Saturday we had a brunch. This is something we started doing several years ago when we found ourselves in the situation where we weren't able to invite everyone to Thanksgiving we would like to have invited. This is a great way to spend time with friends who weren't able to come to Thanksgiving dinner, and also to get rid of leftovers. We used to do the brunch on Friday, but after we figured out that was completely insane, we started having it on Saturday. It's an open house buffet brunch, and people dropped by from 11:00 to around 4:30. Here's what we had...

The desserts were out, of course:

We made three different kinds of potato hash:

A "dry hash" with potato, turkey and onion

On the left: a hash with potato, turkey, onion, smoked paprika, thyme, parsley, chicken stock and sour cream.

On the right: a hash with potato, turkey, onion, chicken stock and leftover spinach purée

Made some cheese grits with cheddar and gruyere:

Had to have plenty of preserved pork, of course. This is breakfast sausage and double smoked Schaller und Weber bacon.

Here are some of the filled crêpes. I love crêpes filled with just about anything (in fact, I have been filling leftover crêpes with Nutella) but these are filled with a sort-of "turkey a la king." To make the filling I softened some onion in butter, added flour, then added some milk to make a white sauce. Into this went the leftover shredded dark meat (the white meat went into the hash), green peas, parsley and some other seasonings.

[snowangel]

Massive effort, Sam and Kathleen! Thanks for taking the time to share with photos while performing.

Thanks for sharing the nuts and bolts of this with us.

I thought I worked hard. I thought I was organized. You taught me a thing or two!

[winesonoma]

Very Impressive! Wanna come live with me when I win the Lottery? You have set a high standard.

[Daddy-A]

I love crêpes filled with just about anything (in fact, I have been filling leftover crêpes with Nutella)

[sing]Did you ever know that you're my hero???[/sing]

I suffered through overdone roast, devilled eggs & assorted cheeses (each slice thoughtfully unwrapped) at a familly birthday party.

I'm torn between awe, hatred & jelousy.

A.

[Ling]

Oh god, crepes with Nutella! I have to buy some Nutella tomorrow.

You two did an incredible amount of work for Thanksgiving, and it sure shows in your beautiful dishes. Your guests are too lucky!

[bleudauvergne]

Those leftovers look so good, I'm starving!

[bergerka]

  Those leftovers look so good, I'm starving!

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C'mon over! we'd LOVE to have you...especially if you bring that consommé...

K

[ludja]

Great idea re: the crepes and leftover turkey--and the whole "Saturday-After" gathering for more people is also a good idea--- lots of food around, the house all nice and clean-- good time to have more people over!!

Thanks for sharing your wonderful feast.

[Cusina]

Wow...

What a gorgeous thread!

I just had to add my thanks for your time and effort in documenting this most organized process for us onlookers. The cauliflower soup... I can practically taste it, I'll be "QA"ing that this week for the Christmas dinner menu.

And I loved the MOM cameo!

Kathleen, would you be willing to share your sugarless apple pie recipe? I'd love to try that too.

[Cusina]

Sam, will you look this over and tell me if you think I've gotten the proportions and technique right? I wish I could do this "by feel", as you have, but I need a more solid outline.

* Exported from MasterCook *

Cauliflower Soup with Hidden Spinach puree and Curry Oil Garnish

Recipe By : SLKinsey, eGullet Turkey Day blog 2004

Serving Size : 10 Preparation Time :0:00

Categories :

Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method

-------- ------------ --------------------------------

1 head cauliflower, large -- chopped

milk -- enough to cover caluiflower in pan

1/2 cup heavy cream

1/2 cup Extra Virgin olive oil

1 Tablespoon curry powder

1 package spinach -- cleaned and sorted

1/4 cup heavy cream

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

4 shallots -- sliced fine, sauteed untill crispy

Place chopped cauliflower in large dutch oven over medium-low heat. Pour in milk to within 1" of the pan lip. Simmer uncovered until tender, but not overcooked. Drain, reserving cooking liquid.

Run cauliflower through a food mill to remove fibrous texture. Then place into blender with about 1/2 of the reserved cooking liquid (ratio should be about 2:1 cauliflower to milk). Blend till silky. Can be chilled overnight at this point. Before service, reheat soup, adding cream to taste.

For curry oil, add curry to olive oil, let steep overnight. Strain through fine mesh sieve. Pour into squeeze bottle.

Saute spinach with 1-2 Tbsp. olive oil in heavy skillet until completely wilted, place in food processor with cream and nutmeg. Process until smooth.

For assembly, in a small bowl with high sides, place 1" of spinach puree, top with a sprinkle of crispy shallots, then 3 or 4" of cauliflower mixture. Garnish with curry oil drizzle and a few of the crisped shallots or a single chervil leaf.

Description:

"SLkinsey, Thanksgiving 2004 blog egullet"

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Thanks, it really does sound beautiful. Can't wait to give it a try.

[slkinsey]

Sam, will you look this over and tell me if you think I've gotten the proportions and technique right?  I wish I could do this "by feel", as you have, but I need a more solid outline.

Seems about right to me. A few comments below.

Place chopped cauliflower in large dutch oven over medium-low heat.   Pour in milk to within 1" of the pan lip barely cover cauliflower.   Simmer uncovered until just tender, but not overcooked.  Drain, reserving cooking liquid.

Run cauliflower through a food mill to remove fibrous texture (optional).  Then place into blender with enough of the milk to make a thick puree about 1/2 of the reserved cooking liquid (ratio should be about 2:1 cauliflower to milk).  Blend till silky.  Can be chilled overnight at this point.  Before service, reheat soup, adding cream to taste.

For curry oil, add curry to olive oil, let steep overnight heat until bubbles begin to form and infuse for several hours.  Strain through fine mesh sieve a coffee filter or paper towel.  Pour into squeeze bottle.

Saute spinach with 1-2 Tbsp. olive oil in heavy skillet Steam spinach until completely wilted, squeeze dry in tea towel and place in food processor blender with cream and nutmeg.  Process Blend until smooth and mix in crispy fried shallots.

For assembly, in a small bowl with high sides, place 1" of spinach puree, top with a sprinkle of crispy shallots, then 3 or 4" of cauliflower mixture.  Garnish with curry oil drizzle and a few of the crisped shallots or a single chervil leaf.

These changes make it closer to what I did, which is not to say that doing exactly what you originally wrote wouldn't be just as tasty.

[slkinsey]

Okay... now that I have some breathing room, I'll run down the dinnertime execution logistics. As mentioned upthread, there were cocktails and crudités starting around 6:00 with a planned sit-down time of 8:00.

3:00 : All chilled wines into the refrigerator (cava, moschofilero, montlouis sur loire and riesling). Red wines by an open window. Make bourbon caramel for bread pudding. bergerka cubes brioche.

3:30 : Shred turkey dark meat, reduce braising liquid. Set covered saucepan on kitchen window sill (the sill in the kitchen is around 1 foot deep).

4:00 : Blanch cabbage leaves and make dressing rolls. Place in baking pan, sprinkle turkey stock jelly over rolls, cover with foil and set on kitchen window sill. Extra dressing removed from baking pan to ziplock bag and into refrigerator. Dressing pan washed and put away.

4:30 : Pound out tuna, place onto salad plates. Salad plates into refrigerator. Mix herbs for salad, place into stainless steel bowl. Bowl onto kitchen window sill (underneath baking pan).

5:00 : Brussels sprouts gratin out of refrigerator to kitchen window sill (on top of baking pan with dressing rolls).

5:15 : Shower. bergerka does last minute cleanup and supervises setting of table. Various infused oils, vinaigrettes and purees in squeeze bottles out of refrigerator to kitchen counter.

5:45 : Print place cards (menu on back) and assign seating. Two bottles of cava from refrigerator into freezer.

6:15 : Cauliflower soup and spinach puree out of refrigerator and into covered pans on the stove. Slates into the freezer. Make custard for bread pudding. Layer brioche cubes and bourbon caramel, then cover with custard and set aside.

6:30 : Make first round of cranberry champagne cocktails. Mingle and make merry. Set oven to 350 F.

7:30 : Moschofilero wine to freezer.

7:45 : Start opening oysters. Take cauliflower soup and spinach puree up to simmer and then reduce heat to minimum.

8:00 : Deploy slates on table. Go around table making mound of salt on each slate followed by ewindels who placed one oyster on each salt mound. Open wine. Fill and place cucumber cups while ewindels pours wine and bergerka gets everyone to the table. Begin dinner proper.

Next : When oyster course is finished, ewindels and bergerka remove slates from table, sweep salt, shell and cucumber cup into trash with damp cloth and stack slates out of the way. Demitasse spoons into the bus bin. Meanwhile I have turned stove to high to bring soup and puree up to full simmer and opened wine. All bowls laid out on kitchen counter. One ladle of spinach into each bowl, then knock bowls on counter to level puree then fill bowls with cauliflower soup. Each bowl garnished with parsley leaf and sprinkled with curry oil. ewindels has poured the wine by the time I am at the garnishing stage. ewindels and bergerka take finished bowls out to table. Brussels sprout gratin into the oven. Pots for soup and puree rinsed out and put away. This whole process takes maybe 7 - 10 minutes.

Next : When soup course is finished, ewindels and bergerka strike soup bowls and soup spoons to bus bins. Wine is opened and ewindels pours. Sauteed Brussels sprouts into nonstick frypan with guanciale fat on low heat. Guanciale into oven. Salad plates onto kitchen counter and sprinkled with a few desalinated capers. Herb salad dressed, mixed and mounded on plates by hand. Plates deployed by ewindels and bergerka. Down time 5 - 7 minutes.

Next: Salad plates and white wine glasses removed to bus bins by ewindels and bergerka. Red wine glasses set and wine opened/poured by ewindels. Sauteed brussel sprouts pan turned to high. Crème brûlée removed from refrigerator, sprinkled with sugar and flamed with torch by me. Gratin and guanciale removed from oven and slaw from refrigerator to counter top by me. Each plate is: cut small round of gratin with too-expensive French ring cutter, place on plate; place one crème brûlée at opposite side; place four pieces of sauteed Brussels sprout and a few pieces of guanciale by hand; place small mound of slaw by hand (which cools off fingers from placing the sauteed pieces); squirt ring of marjoram vinaigrette and hand off to ewindels. Oven to 400 degrees. Down time 10 - 12 minutes.

Next: Plates scraped and stacked in bus bin along with ramekins by ewindels and bergerka. Red wine glasses removed and small glasses for moscato deployed and filled by ewindels. Sorbet bowls placed on kitchen counter. Meanwhile, roasting pan heated on stove, breasts browned in butter and put into oven with temperature probe. Skillet of sliced mushrooms and butter into oven. Baking pan with dressing rolls into oven. Sauce and shredded dark meat brought up to temperature on low heat at back of stove. Each sorbet bowl with two scoops of sorbet and a drizzle of Farigoule thyme liqueur. Down time 10 minutes.

Next : Large "restaurant plates" (kind of like gigantic pasta bowls) placed in oven. Turkey breast and dressing rolls removed from oven. Sorbet bowls, spoons and moscato glasses removed to bus bins by bergerka and ewindels. Large bowl red wine glasses set and both red wines opened. Mestizaje poured by ewindels and Syrah placed on table. Sauce mounted with around 3/4 pounds of 83% butter. To make up a plate: ring mold into center of heated plate; then some mushrooms, then some shredded darm meat; a little sauce on top of the shredded meat; then several slices of white meat into the top of the rind mold; a small piece of foie gras and some black truffle over the white meat; remove ring mold; place sliced dressing roll at 12 o'clock and pour sauce around plate; dust with minced parsley. ewindels took each plate to the table as finished. Oven to 300 F and the bread pudding into the oven. Down time 15 - 17 minutes.

Next: Everyone to the living room for a break. Plates and glasses to the bus bins. Desserts deployed to table and espresso made to order. People help themselves to desserts.

Next: palmiers, chocolate truffles and various bottles of booze offered.

[Cusina]

Thanks for the clarifications on the soup and the timeline. Very interesting to see it broken down like that.

One more question, and pardon me if I missed this upthread, but where did you get the slabs o' slate for the oysters and granita? They look too thick to be tiles. They're brilliant.

[slkinsey]

One more question, and pardon me if I missed this upthread, but where did you get the slabs o' slate for the oysters and granita?  They look too thick to be tiles.   They're brilliant.

The slates have an interesting story. My old day job used to be doing graphics and publicity materials, etc. for a small group at Citibank that was developing a product to do very secure, high value, electronic cash transactions. When I say "cash" I mean actual cash, not some front-end that looks like cash but actually involves bank-to-bank transters at the back-end level. So if you withdrew a million dollars of cash and left it sitting on your computer, it was like having a million dollars of cash in your wallet. You can see our patent portfolio here.

Anyway, we were part of what was called the "Corporate Technology Office" -- a small division that reported directly to the CEO of Citicorp. One of the things that the head of the CTO did was order a whole bunch of these slate things to use for corporate awards and whatnot. They could just send out the slate to be engraved whenever they wanted, and so it was handy to have a bunch of them on hand. Well, eventually Citicorp merged with Traveler's Group to become Citigroup. Soon thereafter the Citigroup CEO was gone and Sandy Weil was the top dog. Sandy Weil was not interested in having a small technology division under him, and so the CTO was dissolved. Everyone forgot about the slates (among other things) or simply didn't care. Our group was put under "emerging markets." Then 9/11 happened and the bottom fell out of "emerging markets" -- most of which are in Asia and the Middle East. Suddenly there was pressure to make money, and our product was more of a long-term project with not insubstantial right-now costs. To make a long story short, our project was terminated.

Not only was the project terminated, but we had very little time to get out of our facility. Some bigwig from Solomon Smith Barney wanted the whole floor for his group, and they were coming to tear out the whole floor in a few weeks. We had around 14 days to shut down the project, warehouse all the records, terminate contracts, get rid of the hardware and clear out. Anything that was left on the floor after a certain date would be thrown out with the trash.

Since all the other CTO people were long gone, there was no one around to care about the slates and they were going to be thrown away. So I took them... among other things. Use them mostly as trivets.

[little ms foodie]

Bravo, Bravo!! Beautiful food, beautiful blog!

I'm already incorporating some ideas for Christmas dinner.

Thank you!

[lovebenton0]

Positively stunning! Great team work, Sam and Kathleen, and Ed! It was delectable right through the screen. Thanks again for opening your kitchen and dining room to us.

[Cusina]

Interesting slate story, indeed. Thanks for illuminating.

What do you serve on the "leftover" gold bars?

[slkinsey]

Guys, it's been fun. My thanks to everyone for their kind comments and enthusiasm. I hope I've provided some inspiration, and if nothing else I hope I've shown that you don't have to be a Ducasse-trained chef to pull off a complex, multicourse dinner party. All it takes is planning.

If there are any questions or requests, please post today and I'll see what I can do. Thanks again!

[Blondie]

I'm still speechless

Beautiful job, Sam and Kathleen. Thanks for taking the time to share it with us.

[Jinmyo]

If there are any questions or requests, please post today and I'll see what I can do.  Thanks again!

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Sam, another blog soon would be brilliant. Say beginning on Monday?

[Jake]

Sam, great blog. Thank you, and Kathleen, for sharing. Thanks for making sure to get a picture of the ferrets in too! We will, of course, expect another blog for your next multi-course gathering.

[Sandra Levine]

This was truly amazing. Where do you get your energy?

[johnnyd]

Guys, it's been fun.  My thanks to everyone for their kind comments and enthusiasm.  I hope I've provided some inspiration, and if nothing else I hope I've shown that you don't have to be a Ducasse-trained chef to pull off a complex, multicourse dinner party.  All it takes is planning...

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... and some first-rate imagination, some top-quality tools, access to great markets, a resolve and determination worthy of champions, a few extra bucks kicking around...

...and most important...

A holiday as great as Thanksgiving to bring it altogether with friends and family, and a butt-load of really jazzed eGulleteers who get to "be there" too. Can I get an "Amen", people?!?!

Thanks Sam and Kathleen!

[KatieLoeb]

Sam:

Inspired by your Cranberry Champagne cocktails I also made Cranberry puree by boiling the cranberries in simple syrup and then running through the food mill. I then gave it a couple of healthy doses of Angostura Bitters right into the puree thinking this was basically the equivalent of the bitters soaked sugar cube. I guess I'd forgotten how much pectin is in cranberries in addition to the coagulating effects of all that sugar. Once I refrigerated the puree it became the texture of canned cranberry sauce. I had the same problem you did, since my friends also have the lovely tulip shaped Champagne flutes. Resulting cocktail was quite tasty and looked quite similar to yours. I solved the problem by stirring vigorously with a chopstick down the stem of the glass. Looked pretty and festive in the end.