Friday, December 4, 2009

A Very Martha Thanksgiving



I have never been responsible for a Thanksgiving turkey before. Last year, that was Andrew's job (I made the pumpkin cheesecake, the green bean casserole, and the crescent rolls).
This year, I was feeling ambitious. It started with the turkey. I ordered a turkey from Deep Roots, one of my favorite local co-ops. It wasn't organic or local, but it was a free range turkey, which was very important to me. It came in about a week before the big day, and I let it sit in the freezer until 50+ hours before I would prepare it. It was a small turkey, 11 pounds, so this should have been sufficient.
Foolish me. At about midday Thanksgiving, I removed the turkey from the bag. The outside was soft, however, when I went to remove the neck, it wouldn't come out. I ran the turkey under cold water for a little while, but still nothing. I called Andrew. Maybe it's deformed, he said. He came over, worked on it, and we came to the conclusion that it was not deformed, just deeply, deeply frozen. Though initially panicked, we got it under control. The outside of the turkey was ok, so we rinsed the cavity for about fifteen minutes. Finally, Andrew was able to wrestle out the neck and all the innards.
So, after all that (about an hour and a half, at least), we glazed the turkey with orange and paprika (Martha said Aleppo pepper, but alas, couldn't find that old syrian spice anywhere, though I suspect if I had gone just a little farther down High Point Rd., something would have turned up). I set it in the oven and let it cook for about two hours (like I said, small bird), basting it with butter and orange juice every 30 minutes.
Fortunately, I had already made many of the other dishes (all from Martha's thanksgiving issue): marinated cauliflower salad, white beans in tomato and rosemary sauce, sweet potato casserole with sage butter, and the pie crust. This left me with: the wild rice pilaf, the sister schubert rolls to stick in the oven, the dressing, and the pie construction.
The pie was by far the most ornate pastry I've ever constructed. The pate brisee crust, though properly chilled, was very difficult to work with. (It, in fact, was the crust Martha labeled as "advanced"). The most difficult thing about it, however, was that it required a latticework not of the traditional strips, but rather one made from leaves.
Once I tracked down a maple leaf cookie cutter at Sur La Table though, it wasn't too hard. I cut out about 20 leafs, laid those in a spiral on the pie (apple blueberry), and then set it with an egg wash.
It would have been perfect, had I not had to set it on the top rack in the oven. The top was a little overly browned. Also, I have learned an important lesson. When Martha says to use parchment paper, use parchment paper! I did not, and the blueberry juice glued the pie to the cookie sheet underneath it. Otherwise, it was lovely.
All in all, Thankgiving was very nice. Andrew and Zac and I feasted late into the evening (on these dishes as well as Zac's very nice cornbread and creamed onions), and then Andrew and Zac went to Target (at 4 30 AM!) to get a big screen TV (last picture in the list is the line outside Target).

1 comment:

  1. No photo of the maple lattice leaf apple blueberry pie? I hope that you took one before you three ate it. Looks delish. Oh: Zac and Andrew ruled that Black Friday shopping!

    ReplyDelete