The holidays are my favorite time of the year. I love spending time with my family and friends, especially cooking for them, entertaining, drinking wine, teaching my sons how to cook, and having friends stay over and help with prep. I vacillate on my favorite – Thanksgiving or Christmas. I cook the same meal for each holiday – Turkey for Thanksgiving and a Bone-in Prime Rib Roast for Christmas. My Thanksgiving meal consists of a stuffed turkey – I do an in-bird stuffing, baking dish dressing and stuffing muffins cooked in extra large muffin pans – these make a great pre-meal snack, mashed potatoes, homemade cranberry sauce, gravy, and brussels sprouts.
My inspiration for cooking the meal came from my Grandmother, Elizabeth Wisher – I grew up spending a lot of time with her and always loved when she cooked for the holidays – so all my family and friends know the source of my inspiration and love – this is the main meal!
I have come across many recipes over the years and will present my converged main meal. Turkey, Stuffing/Dressing, Mashed Potatoes, Gravy, Cranberry Sauce, and Brussels Sprouts. My primary go-to source of cooking guidance has been Williams and Sonoma Thanksgiving Cookbook – this book was all over stores in the mid-1990s. Within my copy are many pages of other recipes from every source imaginable – Bon Appetite, NY Times Cooking, All Recipies, my local grocery stores’ cooking pamphlets, etc. I have about ten books like this with scattered recipes – I think a future post of all of these one-offs and stragglers that have captivated my interest over the years would be a good weekend project.
The Shopping Lists
THE Turkey
Ingredients
20 – 25 LB Turkey – Fresh not frozen
Brine + Bag
Sage Leaves – 1 Package chopped for stuffing the skin
Butter – 2 sticks softened
6 boxes Swanson Chicken Broth – don’t go healthy and all cheap with some organic brand or low sodium – this is the meal for cheating on the diet – it’s all about taste!
10 parsnips
10 carrots
Stuffing/Dressing
4 Round loaves of sourdough bread
6 yellow onions chopped
2 celery stalks chopped
1 bunch broad leaf parsley chopped
6 – 8 eggs
4 – 6 packages of Jimmy Dean sage-flavored sausage
2 – 4 sticks of butter
6 quarts/boxes of chicken stock
8 small cans of diced hot hatch green chilis
Sage, rosemary, thyme chopped
Poultry seasoning, celery salt, salt, and pepper
Mashed Potatoes
8 – 12 Yukon gold potatoes peeled
1 bulb fennel
4 leeks
1-pint heavy whipping cream
16 oz sour cream
8 oz Beechers Flagship cheese
2-4 sticks butter
Cranberry Sauce
2 packages 16 oz fresh cranberries (note now packaged into 12 oz bags to reduce costs)
1 cup sugar
1 orange juiced
Brussels Sprouts
2 bags Costco or 2 lbs brussels sprouts
1 lb bacon
Grated Parmesan cheese
Hungarian paprika
Gravy
Stock and drippings from the roasting pan
1 -2 cups all-purpose flour
1 -2 boxes chicken stock
Salt and pepper
The Night before the Day
Brining
I always brine my bird. Lately, I have been using a store-bought brine mix from the Metropolitan Market and follow the package directions.
PM Prep
I find that enjoying Thanksgiving and contributing to an on-time meal start requires a significant amount of prep. I have been doing the bulk of my prep the evening prior and have continuously strived to do as much in advance as possible. The PM prep typically takes between 4-6 hours and is best done with family and friends over a nice bottle of wine.
Bread for stuffing and dressing…
I always make my stuffing with fresh sourdough loaves. I use between 3 – 4 depending on how many people I want to feed and how many leftovers I want. Also, consider I like to make stuffing muffins as they keep well and are always a crowd-pleaser. We tear the bread apart by hand and dry it on baking racks. The air is filled with the savory scent of sourdough, and the humidity increases as the bread dries. It’s all about the anticipation.
Herb Chopping
I use broad-leaf parsley, rosemary, thyme, and sage for the stuffing and also sage exclusively for stuffing the turkey breast. Finely chop.
Onions, celery, leeks, fennel, shallots…
Prepped and ready to go!
I make my cranberry sauce the night before as I need all the stove room I can get.
Now one can go to bed knowing that the morning’s work will be much easier.
The Morning of Assemblage
First things, first…
In process…
Stuffing & Dressing
I love my stuffing recipe. It’s my favorite thing to eat – in part due to all the herbs I add, but the freshly dried sourdough, savory sauteed onion and celery, Jimmy Dean sausage, Green Hatch Chilies, chanterelle and morel mushrooms sauteed in garlic, and shallots, which are now a permanent addition to the dish.
Preparation
Add in the chopped onion and celery with copious amounts of butter. Start to sautee and cook down the mixture. Add in all of the chopped herbs and broad-leaf parsley. The mixture will release a lot of moisture and reduce down in size. You want the mix to be slightly golden brown, pay attention so you do not overcook it – these savory bits will be very tasty in the dressing. The photos at the bottom of the collage are where you want the desired doneness.
Sausage
Cook the sausage until it’s broken down into chunks the size of your thumb – you want this chunky, not too granular, as the chunks will be better in the stuffing. Strain out the liquid fat.
Mushroom Mixture…
Sautee the morels, chanterelles. shallots, garlic in butter until cooked down as shown, ideally until the shallots are translucent and the bits of mushroom are still distinguishable.
The making of the stuffing and dressing…
Place the dried sourdough into large bowls. Add in the onion-celery mixture, mushroom mix, sausage, and three eggs per large bowl and mix by hand. Season well with salt and pepper. I suggest wearing cooking/grilling black gloves as the food may be hot to the touch. Knead the mixture thoroughly, ensuring you break down the bread and saturate the liquid into the whole mix. The dressing should be able to clump together – add in chicken stock as needed if more liquid is needed. In this iteration, I added the broad-leaf parsley to the dressing prior to cooking.
Stuffing Muffins…
I must confess that my stuffing muffins have become my favorite dish of the meal. One year we added Dungesoness Crab to the tops!
Mashed Potatoes
Peel the potatoes and half. Boil until fork soft. Drain. Mash with a hand masher in the pot you used to cook them.
Roast the sliced fennel with olive oil in the oven at 325 until golden brown.
Sautee the leeks in butter until soft and done.
Combine both in a food processor and blend with olive oil until a moderately thick puree forms.
Fold this puree into the mashed potatoes, adding butter, sour cream, Beechers Flagship or white cheddar cheese, and heavy cream as needed to obtain your desired consistency. I find that a hand blender is unnecessary, but feel free to use one if you want the potatoes to have a whipped consistency. I like my slightly chunky, and a hand masher does the job just fine.
Brussels Sprouts
The Bird!
I like to line my roasting pan with sliced carrots, and parsnips cut lengthwise and covered in chicken stock – the dripping from the bird will make the base of my gravy and the root vegetables become fall part tender and make a great side dish too!
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. For a 20lb stuffed bird, it takes about 4-5 hours until done, based on the efficacy of your range. Plan 15-20 minutes per pound for a stuffed bird. The temperature should be 165 degrees at the thigh, test the meat, not the joint – the dark meat will take longer to cook than the breast, so it’s very important to baste and use an in-oven thermometer, Thermapen, or now Meater to monitor the turkey continually – It will continue to cook once removed from the oven for 15 minutes, so please factor this in terms of when you pull the bird out of the oven. Once removed you can finish the mashed potatoes and make gravy from the roasting pan juices.
Several birds illustrate the golden skin, sage-stuffed breasts, and stuffing. It’s critical to not overcook the bird and baste it at least every 30 minutes. You can see the ribbon of sage in the breast below.
Gravy
Take the roasting pan used to cook the bird and set it to medium-high heat on the stove top. Take a shaker or jar and mix 1-2 cups all-purpose flour with chicken stock, shake until well blended, and pour into the pan. Add in more chicken stock and flour mix as needed until the gravy thickens for 5-10 minutes. Salt and stir constantly until gravy forms large bubbles. It should be done by then.
Photos prepping, eating, and enjoying the day with friends and family.
