Thanksgiving!

Sorry that I crapped out on my Thanksgiving news folks. Thing just kept happening.

I'll try to catch up...starting with turkey day.

Preparation started on Thursday with making pie crusts. I am working on making pate brisee. flour, butter, and a little water. I used a Martha Steward recipe to make a double crust, and a Fine Cooking Recipe for the single crust for the pecan pie.

We did Saturday because the two Americans in the house don't have time to prepare anything huge during the week. I work until 8.30 on Thursday, and Chelsea works on Friday. So on Friday I went to pick up my pre ordered turkey from the closest Market, And when I say market I don't mean the grocery market. I mean the Spanish Mercado that is a few blocks away that has fresh fruits and veggies, meats, and sea foods. I was a little worried about the size. This being my first turkey, and in Spain, I had no idea what to expect. When the man handed it to me after wrapping in about 5 plastic bags, I was surprised at how compact and little it was (5.5 kilos-i think). Earlier when I had talked to my brother and sister-in-law they told me that my turkey and my 3month old nephew were roughly the same size.

The second task at hand was how to prepare the bird. My Spanish roommate and I burned off some extra feathers and tried to deal with it's legs because they were stuck out like it was going to walk away at any minute. Dead turkey legs must be like any other dead animals legs...not in the mood to be forced in a different direction. So I had to come to terms with the fact that my turkey would not look all neat and tidy as the birds in all the pictures of roast turkey there are floating around. For the Brine I used Alton Brown's recipe from the Food Network, with a slight variation of added pepper corns, because I didn't have allspice berries, and some rosemary. After making the brine solution, the next step was finding an adequate receptacle for the bird and bird bath. the little bones at the ankles of the bird were sawed off in a very sharp manner which was bad news for the garbage bag approach and so my roommate and I emptied out a container and crossing our fingers plopped him into the largest Tupperware we had. He just fit. But there was no way he was going to be submerged. So we covered him the best we could and then my roommate put a towel to "osmosis" the brine solution to the exposed side of the bird. It was more like so the brine would capillary action to the exposed side of the birdy. We stuck him by the mini deck doors so the cold would keep him fresh. Later me moved him into the fridge. Good thing we have some medium sized spaces. Half way though the brining process, I flipped the bird over and left it over night.

Friday also the day of making pies. I also made a double batch of spinach dip, because it is always a hit. Judging from our Facebook Event we were expecting somewhere in the range of 20 people to come...slightly nerve-wracking.

Saturday came and I picked up the sage that I ordered at the fancy produce market next door. I have never seen sage with leaves the size of rabbit ears before. I also went around and picked up bread for the spinach dip.

After I ran my errands i extracted the turkey and places in into our pan...I had a stroke of genius and put the metal trivet under the turkey so that the air could circulate and it could brown nicely. We tied the legs and the tail together with some string we found in the drawer and tried to tied the wings down. I used water soaked bamboo skewers to close the holes where the head and the behind used to be and it just fit into the oven. It brought to mind when Oakland brought in a crane from China that fit under the bridge with inches of clearance. Same thing here. I think I might have been able to fit a finger between the top of the turkey and the top of the oven. The turkey cooked for 2hours and 45 minutes. I did the old 'clear juice" test since I didn't have a thermometer, so I probably slightly over cooked it. Reading all of the turkey cooking guides about bacteria and health codes and turkey temperatures probably also added to the slight over cooking. It turned out beautifully brown after a few turnings and ended up tasting alright. The first turkey I ever made was deemed a success!

People were constantly between saying that they were going to come and then saying they couldn't come and at one point we had 20 people coming , but we actually ended up only having 8 in total. After we digitally documented our work, we dug in. The food was a success and then the pies were over the top. 4 types of pies and everyone had a slice of eat. Hows that for an end to the meal? We all laid around in food comas for about half an hour.

All in all, Thanksgiving in Spain was a success with lots of things learned and more things enjoyed.