Chicken Fried Gourmet

Thanksgiving 2007 in West Monroe LA

What I am Thankful for this year :

My wife and my family, the ability to share the talent God has given me not only with my friends and family but also with all of you who read this blog,my health,the friends I have met via this blog,that food is getting more mainstream,that I am able to write what I want when I want and share it with you, that we live in a free country because of this,and finally that whatever genius it was that discovered how to make Pinot Noir and Guinness(not together mind you).

So this year we spent Thanksgiving at my parent's house in West Monroe, LA. Ann's parents went to Memphis to have Thanksgiving at her sister's house, so this left us and her younger sister Alex to celebrate the holiday here in Louisiana. My mother recently had surgery on her arm and has limited movement so the cooking was left entirely to me. This is not a bad thing, when I cook I like to have complete control over the menu and the actual cooking. We came in to WM Wednesday night and we basically started cooking as soon as we got there.

I got up at 5:30am Thanksgiving day and cooked for the next twelve hours. Here are the results :

Chocolate Covered Corn Nuts ( idea taken from Jose Andres' MiniBar)                                              

Golden Beet & Popcorn Soup with Fried Beet Chips

Brown Butter Pumpkin Consomme "raviolis" with Maple Syrup

Potato Foam with Vanilla Oil & Rosemary

Mushroom & Parmesan Bread Stuffing

Cranberry,Cabernet, cherry and Orange zest sauce

Aunt Birdie Rolls (via my mother's family recipe)

Pancetta Sage Roasted Turkey

Traditional Pumpkin Pie

The brown butter pumpkin consomme raviolis were a last minute idea. The consomme was on the menu but I was trying to think of another preparation to do. I thought of the "Pea Ravioli" style from ElBulli so I thought I would try this. I would have to say that it 50% worked out. I think the fat from the butter thickened it to much and it was more like a gelee. The maple syrup was also a last minute idea to sweeten it and round out the taste. It was heated or about 3 minutes just to loosen it up a bit.

For some interesting and often humorous takes on Thanksgiving meals gone wrong go HERE. There were more things planned for the menu but we just did not have time. There was also some Blue Cheese, cranberry and Pumpkin fritters but the outside cooked too fast. Also while spreading the pancetta sage butter under the turkey skin we inadvertently tore it, hence the "surgery".

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Chicken Escabeche and Whiskey Sours

This past weekend we celebrated Ann's dads birthday. Originally her sister Alex was going to prepare dinner but she woke up Saturday morning sick . My only contribution to the meal up until this point was some sort of appetizer. About noon or so I get a call asking if I would mind cooking dinner. Of course I don't but usually I need a day or two to process a thought on what the meal should be ( I would never do well with the "quick Fire" challenges on Top Chef ). It came to me that I had seen a recipe for chicken on one of my new favorite blogs,Studio Kitchen, that seemed easy enough and could be done in time for dinner. Although the recipe called for the chicken to marinate for 24 hours I just did not have that kind of time.

My original contribution to the meal was a dish/drink that I had seen on EGullet's thread on Jose Andres' MiniBar. It is a twist on a whiskey sour using passion fruit juice. Its basically a hot/cold combination. I am not a big fan of whiskey but this drink was amazing, really interesting texture. This one is definitely a keeper. Email me if you want the recipe.

I also tried out a recipe I wanted to do for Thanksgiving. I have read about using CO2 cartridges and the ISI whipper to make "Fizzy Fruit". I mistakenly thought cranberries would be a good fruit to try. I mixed fresh cranberries, vodka and lime zest and put them in the ISI and charged them with one CO2 cartridge. I also cut a slit in each cranberry in order for the CO2 to absorb. Well the problem is that cranberries are tough and the one slit did not give the CO2 much room to infiltrate. It could have also used some sugar as cranberries are extremely tart. Other than all that it was tasty and cleaned the palate.

All in all it was a good night and I was able to pull off dinner on short notice. I also made an apple pie from scratch but I neglected to take pictures.