Our Thanksgiving dinner was, if I say so myself, epic. I printed out the menu in that fancy font that restaurants always use, so people wouldn’t have to ask me what they were eating; here, of course, I’ve added extensive notes.
Antipasti Vari (various antipasti) – Paola brought mini breads, we supplied salame. I didn’t do much on antipasti because so much other food was coming.
Tacchino al Forno (oven-roasted turkey) – The guests were mostly Italian, many of whom had never seen a whole turkey cooked American style. By American standards, this was a very titchy turkey – less than 13 pounds. In the US you can select from a whole range of turkey sizes; here in Italy, you either take the small female (which I did) or the humungous male. The smaller one turned out to fit all right in the 40 cm roasting pan I had bought.
I used some American technology, a Reynolds oven bag that I bought in the US two years ago on Sue’s recommendation. I filled the turkey cavity with mandarin oranges, onions, and herbes de Provence; we didn’t eat this filling, but it helped produce marvellous gravy.
Ripieno di Pane al Mais con Marroni (cornbread stuffing with chestnuts) – A Martha Stewart recipe, bless her. Martha expected me to have canned or frozen chestnuts. Here in Italy, in season, you can find fresh chestnuts in the woods yourself (difficult – everyone else wants them, too!) or buy them at the supermarket, which I did. I then roasted them in the oven and peeled them. Labor-intensive, but worth it. In my opinion, roast chestnuts by themselves smell a lot better than they taste, but when you cook them with meat or in a stuffing like this, they’re heavenly. Stuffing is unknown in Italy, and turned out to be very popular.
Insalata di Finocchio e Mela (salad of fennel and apples) – Another thanks to Martha. Everyone loved the unusual combination.
Puré di Broccoletti e Spinaci (broccoli and spinach puree) – Recipe from The New Basics Cookbook by Rosso and Lukins. Not the most popular dish on the table, especially with my family since I had made a test batch last week and we’d already had enough of it, though we liked it a lot the first time around. I’ve frozen the leftovers to eat when we’re no longer sick of it.
Fagiolini con Gorgonzola e Noci (green beans with gorgonzola and walnuts) – New Basics again, easy and tasty.
Puré di Patate (mashed potatoes) – Everyone loves €˜em. Fortunately, I had help with peeling and chopping 4 kilos of potatoes.
Selezione di Formaggi con Salse (selection of cheeses with chutneys and honey) – One of the guests brought cheeses, and I had also bought some, plus I had made two chutneys, tomato and dried apricot. Don’t be overly impressed – chutney is very easy to make. These recipes were from Madhur Jaffrey. We also had dark honey (from chestnut flowers), which goes well with many cheeses.
Dolci (sweets) – Maryellen brought a wonderful pumpkin pie which she made completely from scratch (canned pumpkin is not widely available here), Elisabetta made a scrumptious chocolate cake with pears – You’ve never had that? It’s an Italian tradition. You put thin slices of fresh pear into a fairly standard chocolate cake (it may be necessary to correct for moisture; I have not actually done this myself) – it’s a wonderful combination. Rossella had made chocolate chip cookies and brownies, but we never even got to the brownies. Her classmates have been happy to polish those off for us.
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