After a busy day of cooking, I'm proud to say that I managed to serve a very traditional Thanksgiving dinner quite smoothly. The turkey was moist, the gravy was lump-free, the dressing was tasty, and I didn't under or over season anything. Compared to my last attempt at Thanksgiving dinner, I made a few notable improvements: no more cardboard turkey, everything's completed more or less on schedule, and I'm less dependent on recipes. Unlike pastry, cooking savory is more about intuition. Once I've mastered the technique, I'm free to cook from my heart. Case in point, I did not follow any recipes for any course of the meal except for the bread and desserts.
The turkey was a 7 3/4 lb bone-in breast. The reason that I chose to roast only the breast instead of a whole bird was for simplicity and shorter cooking time. According to Julia Child (gotta love Julia Child) in The Way To Cook, roasting a disassembled bird not only shortens the cooking time, it also solves the perrenial problem of cooking the white and dark meat to different temperatures. I soaked the breast in buttermilk for 4 hours prior to cooking to tenderize the meat. Just before roasting, I seasoned it with kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper and massaged it with sage and thyme butter (don't forget to rub butter between the skin and meat). I put a few sprigs of sage, thyme, three cloves of garlic, and some chopped celery, carrot, and onion inside the cavity. Prop the bird in a roasting pan scattered with celery, carrot, and onion and off it went into a 325F oven. I basted the bird every 30 min (first with melted butter, later with pan juice) until internal temperature reached 165F (took almost three and a half hours). The turkey came out juicy and moist. I was relieved that it turned out alright.
While the turkey was resting, I worked on making the gravy. I used a basic deglazing method. I drained all the oil and discard the vegetable from the roasting pan. Put the roasting pan directly on the stove at high heat, I sauteed some chopped shallot in the pan and deglaze the pan with port. Next I transferred everything into a sauce pan, add some stock, make a cornstarch slurry, and thicken the gravy to desired consistency. I should have finish the gravy with butter but I forgot. Oh well. The gravy tasted just fine even without the butter.
I'm so proud of myself...I'm single, 29, and I made a Thanksgiving dinner for 7 from scratch. Haaahaa. This is my final menu:
- roasted butternut squash soup garnished with creme fraiche. Served with mini corn muffin, mini buttermilk biscuit, and garlic bread.
- thyme and sage roasted turkey breast served with port gravy and orange port cranberry sauce
- roasted garlic mashed potato
- chestnut wild mushroom pancetta dressing
- apple crumble pie made with freshly picked Northern Spy apples
- cream puffs
