Thanksgiving 2023

It's Thanksgiving once again and each and every Thanksgiving, I am blessed to be able to have so much for which to be thankful. But it seems this year of 2023, I really do have extra cause to be especially thankful. In particular, I do not know how I would have navigated two surgeries and the death of my father without Ann by my side. There are many, many other reasons I have to be thankful this year, but that is too long a list to compile and Ann trumps all of them.

Roasted Guanciale-Rosemary Turkey Thighs with Gravy
Pasta Flavored with Sausage, Leeks, Celery, Thyme, and Sage

I look back fondly at all our Thanksgivings past and have no choice to conclude that Thanksgiving at our house is not the raucous, noisy, and crowded affair it used to be. For decades, including before my time with Ann, Thanksgiving was always a feast involving a lot of people, family at times, but mainly people who did not have any other place to celebrate this holiday. A dozen people would have been a small crowd and one year, before Ann's time, we counted 35-40 people for the big feast.

Now that we are empty nesters, it's generally just the two of us and my heart really isn't in putting in a ton of work to not share it with others. My sister and I were lamenting the day before Thanksgiving that we'd much rather cook for a crowd than for two. At least she got to cook for 8 or 9 people this year. Don't get me wrong. I love cooking for Ann, but I think we both miss having company for our big holiday celebration.

Regardless, Ann and I had a great meal although much simplified from years past: turkey rillettes, roast turkey, and a Thanksgiving-flavored pasta. The goal this year was to do the prep (and dishes!) in the two days before the feast day and then let the oven do all the work on Thanksgiving.

This year, like many years, we started our feast day with turkey neck rillettes on crostini with cornichons. Rillettes are a spread of cooked meat in fat, similar to, but more rustic than pâté. They are a wonderful use for the neck meat leftover from making the stock that I use to make the gravy (and in years when Ann makes dressing, to moisten it).

Turkey Neck Rillettes on Crostini with Cornichons

Warming the Rillettes in Front of Fire

Rillettes need to be at room temperature (or in the winter, slightly warmer) so that they will spread easily. It was too chilly in the house to warm them on the counter, so I came up with a way to warm them gently in front of the fire. I got odd looks from my wife, but it was a success.

Sparkling Wine with the Rillettes

Rillettes, because of their fatty nature, need something acidic to work against that fat. So, I top them with cornichons and serve them with a bracing sparkling wine. Any high acid wine would work, but I think of all the choices out there, sparkling works best. This was Crémant d'Alsace.

Homemade Sausage for the Pasta

Two days before Thanksgiving, I made a small batch of sausage for the pasta that I would bake on Thursday. This is ground pork shoulder flavored with white wine, sage, thyme, rosemary, fennel pollen, black pepper, red pepper flakes, and salt.

The day before Thanksgiving, I assembled the pasta so that I could pull it, in ready to bake form, out of the refrigerator on Thanksgiving and put it in the oven while the turkey was roasting. The pasta started with cooked aromatics: leeks, celery, rubbed sage, and fresh thyme leaves.

Primary Pasta Flavorings: Celery, Leeks, Rubbed Sage, Fresh Thyme

Vegetables Sweated and Removed to a Mixing Bowl

Sausage Cooked, Then Mixed with a Spoonful of Flour

Pint of Heavy Cream, Cooked Until Slightly Thick

After cooking the vegetables, I browned the sausage that I made the day before and added a big spoonful of flour. Once the flour was cooked a bit, I added heavy cream and cooked it until the cream thickened a bit. The sausage and cream mixture joined the sweated vegetables in the mixing bowl with pasta that I cooked to just al dente and then cooled under running water. Everything all mixed, I adjusted the seasoning and put the pasta into an oiled baking pan. I topped the pasta with a lightly oiled mixture of panko and the breadcrumbs leftover from making the crostini for the turkey rillettes.

Thanksgiving Pasta, Ready for the Refrigerator

The End Result

Many years ago now, Ann turned me on to putting pancetta butter between the turkey skin and the breast meat to give extra flavor and to help keep the breast meat moist. I have continued that tradition ever since. This year, I made it out of what I had on hand, no longer in the business of curing belly after belly of pancetta for the restaurant. I had some smoked guanciale (pork jowl) and a bit of fresh rosemary in the refrigerator, so I made the butter from those two items. I do have to say that the firmer fat in the jowl (guanciale) chops much finer and more easily in the food processor than does the fat in the belly (pancetta).

Butter, Smoked Guanciale, Rosemary

Turkey Thighs with Guanciale Butter under Skin

Check out That Skin!

Another Thanksgiving in the books, I am beyond thankful for all I have, the people in my life, and the opportunities that I have had and will have in the future, and most of all, for a tremendously rewarding relationship with Ann without whom my life would have little meaning.

Kitchen Basics: Crostini

If you serve a lot of appetizers as we do when entertaining, you're often looking for finger foods that don't require utensils to eat so that people can nosh and chat more easily. For us, this often means small bites on either crackers or crispy toasts that we call crostini. I prefer crostini to crackers and so I make them somewhat frequently. They take time, but they're easy enough to make and you can make them in advance and store them in a closed container for a few days. We made them by the hundreds at the restaurant using the technique in the photo-essay below. The timings mentioned are for an oven at 350F.

Crostini, Perfect for Appetizers

Slice a Great Baguette to a Thick 1/4", 6-7mm
Bias Cut Gives a More Interesting Shape

Lay on Sheet Tray and Drizzle with Olive Oil

Flip and Drizzle the Other Side

Sprinkle with Salt

Top with a Second Sheet Tray
This Keeps the Crostini from Warping

Flip After 15 Minutes in a 350F Oven
This Lets the Steam Out

Flip After 10 More Minutes

And Again After 10 More Minutes

After a Final 10 Minutes
Cool and Store in a Covered Container

Turkey Neck Rillettes

Turkey neck rillettes are pretty common as an appetizer before our Thanksgiving feast and are a happy side product of making stock for the gravy and dressing to accompany our turkey.

Turkey Neck Rillettes on Crostini with Cornichons

Rillettes are a type of charcuterie, essentially a rustic form of pâté in which shredded cooked meat is mixed with fat to form a spreadable paste. I used to make all manner of rillettes for our charcuterie program at the restaurant, but mainly from pork, salmon, and duck, animals that have a really high fat content such that you can cook the meat and let it congeal in its own fat to make a great spread. Alas, turkey has no such fat, especially on the necks so you have to add fat to make the spread.

Making Stock
Roasted Turkey Necks and Aromatics

To make my Thanksgiving stock, I use turkey necks because they are cheap and also delicious. First, I rub the necks with oil and roast them in the oven until they are brown and caramelized all over. Then the necks go into the stock pot with aromatics, in this case, carrots, celery leaves, parsley stems, shallot peels, and leek leaves. They cook until tender at which point, I separate the stock for use later to make gravy and to moisten stuffing. The necks, I let cool to touch before picking the meat from them. It is far easier to pick the meat from the bones when the necks are warm rather than cold.

Picked Turkey Neck Meat, Roughly Chopped

Because turkey neck meat is naturally long and stringy, really long pieces can be difficult to chew. To avoid this, I give the meat a rough chop to shorten the pieces, but as you can see in the photo above, I still leave a decent amount of texture.

At this point, it is time to mix in the fat and seasonings. I like to keep the seasonings really simple, so I seasoned to taste with fresh thyme leaves, salt, and a few scrapings of nutmeg. Next, I mixed in enough softened fat to make a smooth, spreadable paste. In the best of all worlds, I would have used duck fat to make the rillettes, but I'm no longer running a restaurant with gallons of duck fat on hand. (This is why our sweet-and-sour brussels sprouts were so good: seared good and hard in duck fat with pork belly scraps and shallots before being finished with caramelized sugar and white balsamic vinegar!). So I used a mixture of bacon grease leftover from some other meal and softened butter. Lard would have worked great too, especially lard leftover from making carnitas.

Turkey Neck Rillettes Packed Into a Bowl

If I were making rillettes for long-term storage, I would have packed them into jars and sealed the tops with additional molten fat to keep them from the air. In this case, I was serving them two days hence, so I packed them into the bowl in which I wanted to serve them and covered it with plastic wrap before putting it in the refrigerator. On Thanksgiving morning, I gently rewarmed the bowl in front of the fireplace to restore its unctuous texture.

Leg of Lamb

I've been looking for an excuse to cook a leg of lamb, but that's a lot of meat for two people, so I needed to wait for a group dinner to prepare one. I decided to cook one (the smallest leg that I could find) just recently when Ann invited Andreas and Michelle over for dinner, along with mutual friend Erika. 

Michelle, Ann, Erika, and Andreas

It Would Be Rude to Start Without Sparkling Wine
Crémant d'Alsace

It's Almost Thanksgiving!

Ann and I started coming up with ideas for a menu based around leg of lamb a few days beforehand. When I learned that Erika is a vegetarian, I wanted to make a side for the lamb that would stand in as a great vegetarian entrée. Given that I was thinking about a classic Italian marinade for the lamb, why not continue with the Italian theme, such as cannellini in the style of pasta fagioli? That's some classic, home-style comfort food and perfect for a cold, pre-Thanksgiving evening.

Ann wanted to make an appetizer too but we never did settle on anything. I thought I might make some small risotto cakes, but I heard her mention something about stuffed dates in her musings. And so I resolved that if I could find them at the store, I would bring them to her. Luckily, our store has a great selection of bulk foods including dates, so I bought some and a bit of sliced prosciutto. Below you see a photo of Ann's handywork, pitted dates stuffed with goat cheese, some wrapped in prosciutto and some not, roasted in a hot oven for about 10 minutes.

Prosciutto-Wrapped Dates Stuffed with Goat Cheese

Back to the leg of lamb. I wanted to roast a leg of lamb in part because I love it, in part because it is something that I cannot serve to every crowd (Dyce, I'm looking at you!), and in part because of the last two dinners with Michelle and Andreas. For those two dinners, Andreas wanted to see cooking in action for the first and for the second, I made a paella, which is pretty much the textbook à la minute dish, a dish that must be cooked actively just before serving.

What I really wanted was a menu that involved very little last minute cooking and that would let me socialize. I am no longer the chef who stays in the kitchen while the guests socialize and dine. When we invite people to our house, I would rather spend my time with them rather than in the kitchen, a 180-degree departure from my former life as a chef.

The leg of lamb I could butterfly (remove the bone and open up flat like a book) the day before and then marinate by placing it in a plastic bag with a mix of red wine, olive oil, and black pepper, with lots of both garlic and rosemary added for flavor. Then on the night of the dinner, all I would need to do would be to put it on a sheet tray in a hot oven until it reached 125F internal temperature, about 20-25 minutes. After it rested for 20 minutes, then I would slice it, a simple thing that would not take me away from guests. Moreover, I would precook the beans in the afternoon and then while the lamb was resting on the stove top, I could put the beans into the oven to reheat.

Roasted, Butterflied Leg of Lamb

The cannellini beans could not be simpler to make and are exactly what I make for pasta fagioli except they have no pancetta (to remain vegetarian) and no pasta (so to remain gluten-free). I started with a soffritto of leeks, carrots, and celery that I sweated in olive oil in an oven-proof pan with a lot of garlic and fresh rosemary. Once the vegetables were soft, I added a couple tablespoons of doppio concentrato tomato paste to a bare spot in the middle of the pan. After the tomato paste caramelized a bit, I deglazed with a slug of white wine, scraping all the brown bits off the bottom of the pan.

Next I added a bit of dried basil and a bunch of stemmed and sliced cavolo nero (Tuscan black kale, easily my favorite kale) along with a bit of water and about five pounds of pre-cooked beans. I let everything simmer for about twenty minutes to bring all the flavors together. Just as the lamb was coming out of the oven, I put a low flame under the beans and drizzled them with great Tuscan olive oil and freshly grated pecorino romano. Into the hot oven they went while the lamb was resting to get warm and delicious.

Cannellini in the Style of Pasta Fagioli

Erika Brought Beautiful Flowers

Do you know the best thing about leftover leg of lamb? It slices beautifully and makes the best sandwiches, such as the open-face cheesesteaks below. To make them, I sliced the lamb thinly, sliced and wilted an onion, and sliced a block of Tallegio cheese. The bread, I drizzled with olive oil and browned under the broiler and then topped with lamb, onions, and cheese. Into a moderate oven for 10-15 minutes they went to melt the cheese and warm the cold lamb through. Delicious and a great reason to roast a butterflied leg of lamb.

Open-Face Cheesesteak: Lamb, Onions, and Tallegio

Brisket with the Boys

Somehow Ann and Dyce are joined at the hip and are constantly texting back and forth. This time, unbeknownst to me, they schemed up a dinner Wednesday last week for which Rob would smoke a brisket and I would make a "sexy potato dish." Don't take this the wrong way. I'm always game for dinner and I hardly mind if Ann commits me for a dish.

As always, the guys went way overboard, making not only the brisket, but mini crab cakes for an appetizer, a wonderful salad with apples, spiced pecans, and a maple dressing, as well as an old-school apple cake for dessert.

Ann and I kicked in the sexy potatoes, a Savoyard cheese and potato casserole called tartiflette which I covered in a prior post, a bowl of herb mayo for the crabcakes, and a delightful magnum of Chianti Classico. All in all, we had a phenomenal meal that would be impossible to get at any local restaurant.

Out at a restaurant or at one of our homes, it's always such a pleasure to have dinner with Rob and Dyce. Not only do we have wonderful conversation, but when we do it at their house, we our dog fix playing with both of their pups. Having lost both our dogs in recent years, Ann and I are being a bit jealous of our freedom to go on a whim, to travel, and to not worry about finding pet care. But we both love dogs so much that we still need to get our dog time and that's what we get from Rob and Dyce's girls.

Smoked Brisket with Tartiflette

Lola Loves Ann

Crab Cakes with Herb Mayonnaise

Brisket Ho!

Slices of Brisket with Smoke Ring

It's a Party When You Crack a Magnum

What wine to pair with smoked brisket? It is beef and so it is going to want a red and a pretty big one at that. My palate runs to wines that are lighter bodied, higher acid, and less fruity. For me, major grape varietals that fit this profile are Pinot Noir, Nebbiolo, Sangiovese, and to a lesser extent Tempranillo. Because it's beef, I opted for a bigger more extracted Sangiovese, a Chianti Classico. Of all the Chianti sub-zones, Classico seems to me to be the best match with beef, but then a great Brunello would have been delightful as well.

Spiced Pecans

Delightful Salad

Rob's Apple Cake, More Savory Than Sweet

It looks like Rob and Dyce are headed to California for Thanksgiving and we won't be able to get together again until early December. I'm feeling dinner at our house and I'm looking for an excuse to make braciole, if I don't get overruled by the powers that be.