With Thanksgiving quickly coming, I find myself doing early preparation for my contribution. Every year, by popular demand, I bring the same dessert: homemade pumpkin pie topped with McConnell’s vanilla ice cream.
Do any of you have a signature dish or one that you find yourself coming back to every so often? And if anyone wants to share their “secret” recipes or tweaks, feel free.
For years we had a great group of ex-pats who would do thanksgiving. For some reason I often got stuck doing that horrid green bean casserole. You know what I mean. Beans with a can of cream of mushroom soup and dry roasted onions on top.
I really hated that. The first time I tried to improve it by having really nice, fresh beans, and making my own fresh mushroom base, etc. I found it much more palatable, but comments were along the lines of “that’s not how I remember it”.
So, a couple of times I did one of the turkeys, and then dirty mashed potatoes, which I do love so.
Dirty mashed potatoes are phenomenal!
Ice Box Cake
Wild rice with various types of sauteed mushrooms, roasted pine nuts, sautéed fennel root, sautéed water chestnuts (sliced,) lots of butter, turkey stock, white wine, sautéed celery.
Easy recipe: prepare each ingredient and add to rice and keep moist and simmering all day.
Deeelish.
Invented it myself.
Pumpkin Chiffon Pie from The Pie and Pastry Bible.
Had many stuffings over the years, but the best I’ve had is the cornbread and sausage stuffing from Julia Child. There is nothing more signature to me than the stuffing.
about 6 years ago I made duck confit turkey thighs with stuffing waffles. I haven’t been allowed to make anything else since. I keep the ingredients in the freezer and make it for dinner once a month or so.
Oh man, that sounds pretty awesome.
My favorite is the cornbread and sage stuffing from an early to mid-seventies issue of Gourmet Magazine. Utilizes the sautéed liver of the bird.
LOL on me.
I had to read it twice.
Here’s the basic recipe, although I use 5 spice instead as it feels more “holiday”. and yes, rereading what I wrote it isn’t clear. I’m destined to make this dish the rest of my life. Luckily it takes about 15 minutes active time.
I still don’t get it. You made a waffle, filled with stuffing and turkey thighs that were cooked like duck confit?
Mostly I attempt to be out of the country for Thanksgiving - preferably in Piedmont, where there are usually still plenty of white truffles (and none of my family members) - but when I can’t escape, I am obliged to make pumpkin chiffon pie. I have no idea where the recipe came from originally, but it has a very nice gingersnap crust and the filling is head and shoulders above the typical dense and flat pumpkin pie.
This seems strange to me (even as I’ve set it up this year so that I’m going to be in Alsace this Thanksgiving). I like cooking for family, especially since they approach the meal with such varied expectations and tolerances for what’s presented. It’s easy to cook dinner for fellow Manhattanites who share the same palate / food vernacular, but how do you cook something that your family from rural Vermont will like just as much as you? Something that appeals to the 70 year old and the 7 year old and you?
I’ve had really good results using traditional ingredients but focusing on technique - sort of like the America’s Test Kitchen approach. I’ve converted all of my inlaws to stuffing in a dish, rather than the bird; the merits of roasting the bird with herbs in the cavity; experimenting with different cheeses in the mac and cheese (they LOVED raw milk gruyere), even as I do it old-school with béchamel and bread crumbs.
I confit turkey thighs in duck fat and separately, I put uncooked stuffing mix in the waffle maker, thus maximizing the crunchy surface area.
I assume you mean it seems strange that I prefer to avoid Thanksgiving, as there’s nothing particularly strange about the pie. I very much doubt I’m the only one, though there are perhaps not so many who will admit to it. I found it enormously freeing when I came to be comfortable opting out.
Actually, that’s the recipe I mention above (I said mousse instead of chiffon - my bad). It’s from Rose Levy Berenbaum’s Pie and Pastry Bible.
Do you do it sous vide? I was thinking about trying this, but don’t have a sous vide and doing it in the over would require a tremendous amount of duck fat for a few turkey legs. Anyways, thanks for the idea, sounds great.