by Julia Reed
2 bay leaves
3 sprigs tarragon
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
1 large bunch curly parsley
One 2-pound piece of cooked ham
2 tablespoons Knox gelatin
Salt and freshly ground white pepper
Combine wine, roughly half the stock, shallots, garlic, bay leaves, tarragon, and peppercorns in saucepan. Cover, bring to boil, and reduce to simmer. Strip parsley leaves from stems and add stems to simmering wine mixture. Let simmer for 30 minutes. Wash and dry parsley leaves, chop them, and place them in small bowl. Pour ¼ cup of boiling water over leaves to set the color and leave to cool. Divide ham into uneven chunks, discarding fat and any sinew. (The finished aspic looks best if the ham is pulled apart into big slivers with fingers rather than cutting into cubes with knife.)
Pour remaining stock into medium bowl, sprinkle gelatin on top, and leave it until spongy, about 5 minutes. Strain wine mixture into measuring cup—there should be about 3 cups, but if not, add a little water. Bring wine mixture just back to boil and pour it over gelatin. Let stand for a minute, then stir to melt the gelatin. Taste aspic, season with salt and pepper (remember, the ham is already salty), and leave to cool until tepid. Aspic will thicken quite suddenly when cool, so don’t chill it.
To mold the ham, add shallow layer of aspic to 2-quart glass bowl or terrine mold and chill in refrigerator or over ice water until set. Mix ham with parsley (along with its liquid) in large bowl. Add remaining tepid aspic, mix well, and transfer to mold. Press the pieces of ham well below the surface of the aspic and make sure no air bubbles are trapped beneath the ham. Cover the mold and chill it until set, at least 6 hours. It keeps well for up to a week, but once cut open should be eaten within a day or two.
To serve, dip the mold in hot water for 15 to 30 seconds to loosen the aspic. Run a knife around the edge, unmold the ham onto a platter, and cut it in wedges or slices.
CELERY ROOT REMOULADE
( Yield: 6 servings )
1 pound celery root
Juice of 1 fresh lemon
1 cup (approximately) remoulade sauce (recipe below)
Salt
Freshly ground white pepper
Minced parsley
Peel the celery root and cut out any deep brown grooves. Cut into workable pieces and grate coarsely using a hand grater or food processor. Place into a bowl of cold water with the lemon juice. Allow to sit for 10 minutes. Drain and place in a towel and squeeze out the excess moisture. Toss with 1 cup remoulade, adding more as needed but be careful not to overdress so that the sweet, earthy flavor of the celery root is not masked. Add salt and pepper if needed, and sprinkle with parsley.
Remoulade Sauce
( Yield: About 1 ¼ cups )
1 large egg
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon rinsed capers
1 teaspoon chopped cornichons
1 anchovy, rinsed and chopped
1 tablespoon each, chopped fresh chervil, tarragon, parsley, and chives
Juice of 1 lemon
1 tablespoon champagne vinegar
1 cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and freshly ground white pepper
Place all the ingredients except the oils and salt and pepper in the work bowl of a food processor, fitted with the steel blade. Blend until very frothy then slowly drizzle the oils (while the machine is still running) in a thin stream until uniform and well blended. Stop and taste, adjust seasonings with salt and white pepper. Remove and store covered in the refrigerator until needed.
25
A Pilgrim’s Progress
The first Thanksgiving dinner I cooked on my own, I was a junior in college and living off Washington’s Dupont Circle in a narrow, second-floor walk-up apartment with exposed brick walls, a boat shower from Hammacher-Schlemmer in the minuscule (black!) bathroom, and a kitchen with a single oven, a freestanding sink, and no counters. Any meal more elaborate than about two dishes was always a major undertaking—mainly because chopping meant kneeling on the floor over a cutting board and stirring meant sitting with a bowl anchored between my knees.
It didn’t matter. I loved that apartment and I loved cooking for a motley group of friends that included (on that particular day): a male and a female former roommate, a childhood friend I hadn’t seen in fifteen years, and a New York Times photographer from my hometown, as well as his medical student wife. Determined to impress, I dutifully followed the directions in my battered Joy of Cooking and covered the turkey’s breast in cheesecloth soaked in melted butter and vegetable oil. I made a savory sweet potato gratin from a recipe I found in Gourmet, the yummy oyster dressing from Joy, and that ubiquitous green bean casserole topped with Durkee’s fried onions, which might be a tiny bit gross and definitely a little tacky, but also really tasty.
We gathered in my living room around my mother’s old kitchen table, drank a lot of cheap red wine, pulled out pretty much every LP I owned, and carried on well into the night. In an ancient scrapbook somewhere, there are pictures of us dancing. It remains one of the most memorable Thanksgivings I’ve ever had, not least, I’m certain, because it was the first I’d done one on my own and I dared to veer off the family script. There were no oranges stuffed with overly sweetened sweet potatoes and topped with marshmallows, a dish de rigueur at the house I grew up in and my grandmother’s before that, but which I cannot abide. I finally got to have the bean casserole that graced the table of my friends with slightly less tasteful mothers; the dressing was made of French bread as opposed to cornbread (horrors!), and the pie was chess rather than pecan.
Since then, I’ve cooked at least twenty more Thanksgiving meals. I’ve brined turkeys, deep-fried turkeys, sought out hard-to-find heritage breeds, and the best butchers from whom to order a Turducken. I’ve broken down and stuffed the dread oranges with sweet potatoes (sweetened only with the juice from the oranges and enlivened with a healthy dose of brandy), albeit with no marshmallows (buttered bread crumbs with orange zest and finely chopped pecans makes a far less cloying topping), and discovered the significant pleasures of Brussels sprouts. I’ve copied the delicious purees of my friend Jason Epstein (his cauliflower with curry and his rutabaga and apple with a tiny bit of maple syrup are always huge hits), and made like the Cajuns and forgone bread dressing in favor of dirty rice and mirlitons stuffed with crab and shrimp. For a stretch of almost ten years I freed myself from Thanksgiving altogether by having a grand time in London instead.
But after a while, I missed it: the planning, the camaraderie, even the rising at dawn to start the prep. And then, of course, there’s the significance of the day itself. On the first Thanksgiving after Katrina, one of the few pieces of furniture in our halfway-renovated house was a gift from my father, an enormous dining room table that seats twenty-four. The storm was less than three months behind us; those of us living full-time in the still sparsely populated city felt like pioneers and I was determined to fill my new table with all the stray pilgrims I knew. After all the guests had arrived, the kitchen sink overflowed and flooded the kitchen (my idiot plumber had forgotten to replace the outgoing pipe with one that was, say, wider than a quarter-inch, the width of the heavily corroded old one), and further catastrophe struck when my mother drained the tub in the guest bathroom (the same idiot did not connect the drain to a pipe of any kind, so that all the water poured straight through the ceiling). None of it mattered—we formed a tipsy mop brigade and then sat down and gave thanks to our extraordinary luck and the blessing not only of being together, but of being alive.
Since then, I wouldn’t dream of forgoing Thanksgiving. Last year, sixteen of us sat at a long table outside and ate a feast as close as we could get to the real pilgrims’ first one, which as it turns out, probably didn’t feature a turkey. In fact, it didn’t have much of anything we now equate with the Thanksgiving table. There was no stuffing (the dearth of flour meant there was no bread to make it with),
no rolls (ditto), no potatoes (most Europeans still thought they were poisonous), no pumpkin pie (pumpkin and winter squash were served boiled), not even any cranberries (they’d yet to be introduced). We know for sure that Governor William Bradford sent “four men fowling” after wild geese and ducks. They may or may not have returned with a turkey or two as well, and possibly a swan, but they definitely augmented their bounty by copious amounts of venison (Bradford was presented with at least five deer) and the seafood that was abundant on the coast. There was corn, of course, and foraged wild mushrooms, and the watercress that grew on creek banks.
For our own Plymouth-style celebration, we grilled oysters on the half shell alongside venison sausages and duck sausages. We roasted a duck and a wild turkey (just in case), made shrimp and crab dressing and cornbread dressing with chanterelles. We made corn pudding with caramelized leeks and finished up with a watercress salad with toasted pecans. It was a glorious day and now a tradition requiring that all participants wear feathered headdresses or Pilgrim hats. Another—longstanding—tradition is the pitcher of icy (and eye-opening) Red Roosters that Elizabeth Cordes always brings over to kick-start the festivities.
The menu will keep changing, as always. Elizabeth will likely bring the sweet potato-stuffed oranges that her children still insist on, while I’ll make some version of that long-ago sweet potato gratin and the cranberry conserve I have to have with my turkey. Always there are oysters, sometimes in the French bread dressing of my college feast, sometimes in a red rice and andouille dressing inspired by Scott Peacock. And then, of course, there’s pie—Jason’s pear tarte Tatin (see here) and some version of pecan or chess or both. In November there are usually so many key limes falling off my trees, I should really add a classic key lime pie to the mix. It may not be in keeping with the traditions of the season, but seriously, who likes pumpkin pie?
RED ROOSTER
( Yield: 8 to 10 drinks )
1½ quarts cranberry juice cocktail
One 6-ounce can frozen orange juice concentrate
2 cups vodka
Lime slices, for garnish
Mix juices and vodka well and put in a Tupperware bowl with a lid or a wide-mouth pitcher with a screw top. Freeze. The vodka will keep the mixture from freezing hard. When ready to serve, transfer to a pitcher and stir. It should have the consistency of a slushy. Garnish each glass with a lime slice.
CRANBERRY CONSERVE
( Yield: About 8 cups )
Five unpeeled oranges, halved and sliced
1 cup apple juice
1½ cups fresh pineapple, cut into half-inch chunks
Three 12–ounce bags cranberries
2 cups honey (orange blossom is especially nice in this recipe)
1 cup turbinado sugar
½ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
1½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons whole cloves
1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger
Place orange slices in heavy-bottomed pot, large enough to hold cranberries. Add apple juice and simmer for about 10 minutes.
Add remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, stirring often until thick, about 35 minutes.
Ladle into clean jars. The conserve will keep, tightly covered, in the refrigerator for up to 3 weeks.
OYSTER RED RICE DRESSING
( Yield: 8 to 10 servings )
6 tablespoons butter
2 cups shucked, drained oysters, liquor reserved
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1½ pounds andouille sausage
6 tablespoons bacon fat
1 cup chopped onion
½ cup chopped green bell pepper
2 teaspoons dried thyme
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 tablespoons minced garlic
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2½ cups canned whole peeled tomatoes, roughly chopped
1 cup chicken stock
2 cups long-grain rice
1 bunch thinly sliced green onions, including a bit of pale green tops
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.
Melt 4 tablespoons of the butter in a large sauté pan over medium low heat until foaming. Add the oysters, seasoning lightly with salt and black pepper, and sauté quickly, until the edges just begin to curl, about a minute. Drain over a bowl to collect juices and add them to the reserved oyster liquor.
Pour about ½ inch of water into a heavy skillet, add the sausage, and cook over low heat, uncovered, about 10 minutes, until the water has cooked off. When the sausage has cooled, cut in thin slices and then cut in half again. Heat the bacon fat in the same skillet and add the onion. Cook for about 8 minutes, until onion is translucent, and add bell pepper, thyme, cayenne, and garlic. Cook, stirring occasionally, for another 10 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste, tomato paste, and tomatoes, and continue to cook for about 3 minutes.
Measure the oyster liquor and add enough stock to make 2½ cups. Add to the vegetables, cover, and simmer gently, stirring often, for about 15 minutes.
Melt the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter in a large, heavy pot or Dutch oven. Add the rice and cook over medium heat for 2 minutes, stirring constantly until grains are well-coated. Add the sausage and the tomato mixture. Stir and cover tightly. Cook over low to medium-low heat for about 20 minutes, until rice is tender. Toss in the oysters and green onions and taste for seasoning. Spoon into a buttered casserole dish and bake for 30 minutes.
SAVORY SWEET POTATO GRATIN
( Yield: 6 to 8 servings )
3 to 3½ pounds sweet potatoes
2 tablespoons butter
1 small yellow onion, diced
3 garlic cloves, minced
5 bay leaves (fresh, preferably)
1 leafy branch thyme
2 cups cream
¼ cup dry white wine
½ to 1 cup chicken stock
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 cup grated Gruyère cheese
1 cup grated Parmesan
Peel potatoes and slice into thin rounds, preferably with a mandoline or with a Cuisinart slicing attachment. Set aside and preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Butter a 9 × 13-inch baking dish.
Melt 1 tablespoon of the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat and add onions. Stir occasionally for about 5 minutes, until onions are translucent. Lower heat, add garlic, and cook, stirring constantly, for a minute or two more.
Add bay leaves, thyme branch, and white wine, and increase heat to medium-high. Reduce until most of the wine has been cooked out. Add cream and return the mixture to a simmer. Lower heat and maintain the mixture at a simmer until it is reduced to 1½ cups, which may take as long as an hour.
Remove thyme branch and bay leaves (if using dried) from reduced cream. Transfer to a blender and blend for about a minute. Strain through mesh strainer into a mixing cup, and stir in ½ cup of the chicken stock. Spread ½ cup of the mixture evenly over bottom of baking dish and arrange half of the sweet potato slices on top in slightly overlapping rows. Season with salt and pepper and sprinkle with half of both cheeses and then another ½ cup of the cream. Cover with remaining potato slices, sprinkle again with salt and pepper, and add the remaining cream and cheese.
Cover tightly with foil and bake for 40 minutes. Remove foil and drizzle with the remaining chicken stock if the gratin seems dry. Return gratin to the oven and bake for another 20 minutes, until cheese is crisp and golden on top.
RUM PECAN PIE
( Yield: 8 servings )
1 partially baked 9-inch pie shell (see below)
5 tablespoons butter
1¼ cups pecan halves
1 teaspoon salt
4 eggs
1½ cups packed light brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons dark rum, preferably Barbancourt
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
Melt 1 tablespoon of the butter in a medium-sized saucepan over low he
at. Toss pecans in the pan and sprinkle with the salt. Spread in a single layer on a cookie sheet and place in preheated oven. After 5 minutes, stir the nuts, and, watching carefully, bake for another 5 minutes, until they have just begun to color. Let cool.
Melt remaining 4 tablespoons butter over low heat in a saucepan and set aside to cool. Meanwhile, break eggs into mixing bowl and beat until smooth. Add sugar and stir until sugar is dissolved. Stir in the butter, vanilla, and rum until smooth. Fold in pecans and pour into the prepared shell.
Bake for 10 minutes. Reduce the heat to 325 degrees and bake until filling is set, about 30 minutes.
Serve warm, if possible, with lightly whipped cream (add 3 tablespoons sugar and 1 teaspoon each of vanilla and rum for each cup of heavy cream) or vanilla ice cream.
FOR THE PARTIALLY BAKED PIE SHELL
1 cup all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons butter, cut into ¼ -inch chunks
2 tablespoons lard, cut into small chunks (vegetable shortening or more butter may be substituted)
About ¼ cup ice water
Place flour and salt in a food processor fitted with a steel blade that has been chilled in the freezer. Pulse it a few times to sift flour, then add butter and lard. Pulse the machine until the flour looks like coarse meal. (You can do this by hand by whisking the flour and then cutting in the butter and lard with a fork or pastry blender.)
Add 1⁄8 cup cold water and pulse (or mix by hand with fork). Pulse and add more water until mixture just begins holding together and is no longer sticky or wet. Quickly gather it into a ball, lightly dust with flour, wrap well with plastic wrap, and flatten it into a half-inch disk. Refrigerate for at least 20 minutes before rolling it out.
Roll out dough on a lightly floured surface until you have a circle of 13½ inches in diameter; gently fold in half and then in half again. Put the point at the midpoint of the pie plate, carefully unfold, and gently press into the edges of the plate. The pastry should extend ½ inch all around the lip of the plate. Trim (and save) any messy excess and crimp the edge decoratively. (My friend, the brilliant food historian and stylist Rick Ellis, makes a bit of extra dough and rims the pie in individual dough “leaves” that he has “veined” with a knife.) Lightly butter a piece of foil, drape it over the pie plate buttered side down so that it covers the edges, and press it very lightly into the contours of the pie shell. Pour in 1½ cups dried beans or rice. Bake 15 minutes, remove from oven, and carefully lift out foil and beans. Prick bottom with fork and repair any cracks with reserved trimmings. Return to oven for 10 to 15 more minutes, until it is beginning to color and the bottom looks dry.
