Thanksgiving Showdown

Class have been drawing to a close and things have been getting busy, so It's been a while since I've posted something. I'll try and catch up with some things I noted over the past few weeks as soon as I can. To start things off, here's quick look at what was on my Thanksgiving menu this year.


To start the day, I popped open my cans of foie gras and duck rillette. I had bought these on a goose/duck farm when I was in France this summer and had been saving them for a special occasion. I also tried to keep it simple since I had a whole dinner to worry about as well. I served them with melba toast and topped the rillette with some cornichons. Everything was great - rich, fatty, and very ducky...



I've heard so much about Turducken (a chicken, inside a duck, inside a turkey) that I needed to try it just once. Combining all those meats into one could only lead to ultimate poultry bliss. Being in New York though, Turduckens weren't available at your local grocery store. Luckily, I had found CajunGrocer.com, which sells and ships frozen Turduckens directly to your door. The website was featured on Food Network and the Wall Street Journal. Turduckens they have come in two sizes of pure awesomeness - 15 lbs and 4 lbs (this one is just a turkey breast with duck and chicken meat stuffed inside). Of course, we got the 15 lbs bird(s).


After 7 hours of cooking, the bird was ready and we were ready to eat. The skin had an amazing brown color to it and was extremely savory. The meat was very tasty, but I'm not sure if I really would classify it as a giant improvement over normal roast turkey. At least I can say I've had it and next year I can just go back to normal turkey to make things easier. Other menu items included a sausage dressing (seen above), truffle mashed potatoes and green beans with country ham. Overall, a very satisfying meal with a mountain of leftovers (just as it should be).



For dessert, the easy way out would have been to just buy a pumpkin pie. This year I tried to challenge myself to make everything (from scratch too). Also, I thought why have pumpkin pie when you can have pumpkin cheesecake. The recipe I used was a variation of a Paula Deen recipe (found here) in that I substituted the graham cracker crust for a crust made with ginger cookies (see my earlier post on ginger cookies for the recipe). This by far I think was the star of the night. The filling came out creamy and light; the crust was sweet and crispy. It was a great dessert full of fall flavors (if I do say so myself) and a perfect way to end a great meal.

Eating In: Ginger Cookies

The holidays are right around the corner, so that means it's time to bake up some holiday goodness as well. My favorite holiday baked good recipe is for Ginger Cookies. I use a Paula Deen recipe, but I substitute the shortening for butter (because butter is always better). I like the recipe because it produces an extremely chewy cookie, but not in a way that makes it seem like the cookie is old and stale. Also, the molasses gives it a saltiness while still having the sweetness everyone wants.

The recipe can be accessed through the Food Network website.


On a side note, I recently purchased a pair of Silpat non-stick baking mats (seen in the picture above). I must say that these things are great. Not only do you not have to butter/PAM/wax paper your baking trays but the mats also seem to reduce the chances of burning the bottoms of your cookies. Because of that, it's easier to get nice thin cookies without getting them too crispy.

Eating In: Thai Basil Chicken with Cashews

Over the weekend, I decided to make my mom's recipe for Thai Basil Chicken. Whenever I cook I like to make things that have lots of sauce and can easily be scaled up to a large amount so that I have leftovers for the rest of the week. This is my first attempt at writing a recipe, so I'm sure there are going to be some things that need work. Ingredients needed are as follows:

1 pound minced chicken thighs / ground chicken
3 tablespoons oyster sauce
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon lime juice
2 tablespoons vegetable / canola oil
1/3 cup unsalted roasted cashews
2 cloves of garlic (chopped)
basil (about a small handful of leaves)
black pepper



1. Start by heating 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil in a wok on medium heat.
2. Once the oil is hot, add the chicken. You can use either chicken thighs that have been minced or ground chicken if you want to save time. Chicken thighs will produce better flavor, but having to chop them up adds time to the process.
3. Cook the chicken until all of it appears to be cooked through.
4. Remove the chicken from the pan and set aside. Also, keep any juices that collect in the pan as a result of cooking and set aside in a separate dish.
5. In the same pan on medium heat, add 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil and the garlic.
6. Cook the garlic until it starts to brown, then add the oyster sauce, fish sauce, sugar and lime juice and stir to mix all the components.
7. Depending on how saucy you want the dish to be, add some of the chicken juice set aside earlier to the pan (about 1-3 tablespoons should be fine). Water can be used as well.
8. Once the sauce starts to caramelize (gets thicker and starts to bubble), add the chicken and the cashews, and stir to coat with the sauce.
9. Add pepper to taste and cook for an additional 2 minutes.
10. Remove from heat. Add the basil and stir to combine.
11. Serve with steamed white rice.