Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving has the reputation of being the “foodie” holiday. But strangely, it’s also a meal that I feel requires sticking pretty closely to tradition. I just feel that it’s not the time to stray too far into new recipes or unusual presentations. I normally stick to a pretty traditional dinner and this year was no exception.

We had gotten a turkey and I put into a brine the night before. I normally stuff the bird because stuffing is so much better cooked inside of the bird than in a separate dish. Stuffing is also a very personal thing. Most people have their own ideas of it and don’t like other stuffings that stray to far from that. Mine is pretty straight forward: bread, sausage (generally an American sage type breakfast sausage), onions, garlic, butter, and enough stock to moisten it all. If you’re worried about cooking the stuffing in the bird there are a couple of things you can do to make sure that the stuffing gets hot enough. If you put a silver spoon into the cavity with the stuffing and keep the end sticking out, it helps to transfer heat into the middle of the stuffing.

I think the single easiest way to ensure you have a good turkey where all of the parts cook evenly is to stick to smaller turkeys. I normally stick to 10-14 pounds and find that they cook quickly and evenly. I’ve seen all kinds of recipes that call for flipping the bird in various ways to ensure even cooking, but fumbling around with a hot 20 pound bird isn’t my idea of fun. I think smaller birds are the easier way to go. If you’re feeding a huge amount of people consider getting two smaller birds instead of one large one.

Our bird this year was just under 12 pounds and cooked at 325 degrees in about 3 hours. On the side we had mashed potatoes, the stuffing, brussel sprouts cooked with pancetta, onions and white wine, cranberries cooked with orange juice, orange zest and fresh grated ginger. I had added onions and carrots to the roasting pan to help make a richer gravy. Later, I deglazed the roasting pan with white wine and turkey stock (from the neck) to make a gravy. Pretty traditional all the way around.

There is a lot of debate about what to drink with Thanksgiving. In the wine world a lot of people call for softer reds. Matching the turkey to a wine isn’t hard. The real difficulty is the side dishes. Most of my sides, except for the cranberries, would have worked well with wine, but I wanted to go with beer this year. I made a run to the local bottle shop and was looking for a good Biere de Garde (and not just because Garret Oliver says so). Biere de Garde is full ad malty with a slight herbal note to some, but it’s essentially a stronger, smooth, full malt flavor style of beer. Unfortunately, finding fresh examples can be hard. I was able to find a La Choulette de Noel, which is their seasonal, slightly stronger version of their Amber Biere de Garde. It also had more hop flavor and aroma than the normal version. The hops weren’t overwhelming, but they lent a slight herbal character to the beer which also worked well with the food. It was an intense full bodied beer and was very satisfying with all of the food (even the cranberries). Plus it also felt like I wasn’t compromising like I would have felt with a softer, lighter red wine.

For dessert, we had pumpkin mousse. It’s from a recipe I developed a few years ago when we needed a dessert and didn’t have the time to make a pie (and the turkey was already I the oven and the pie and the turkey needed different temperatures). It uses canned pumpkin, eggs, cream and sugar and takes about 30 minutes to make plus additional time to cool down and set.

I also discovered several years ago, that pumpkin desserts are also great with barley wines. Some of the really hoppy barley wines can be a bit much, but most work pretty well with pumpkin desserts. I had gotten some Hair of the Dog Doggy Claws and opened one with the mousse. This year’s Doggy Claws is a tremendous beer and is much more approachable than some previous years were (many of them seemed to need a few years of aging to come around). It was rich and hoppy but didn’t overwhelm the delicacy of the mousse. But it did have enough bitterness to cut the richness. Over all it was a fine match and I’m looking forward to opening another bottle with the leftover mousse.