It's the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and I've been invited to my friend's house for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. We were advised against having a big lunch (or having lunch at all!) since there was gonna be a ton of food.
I arrived a little later than expected, and found the house packed with people. Most of the food was already on the table, and included both traditional and non-traditional items (kimchi for Thanksgiving?)
Last night while I was enjoying myself at Caprice, two of Santa's little elves turned up at my friend's house, and helped the family prepare for the feast. And the results are clearly evident.
In addition to the 22-pound big bird from Pennsylvania, we also had a big chunk of honey mustard ham, along with the usual trimmings of stuffing, sweet potato, peas, Brussels sprouts, potatoes, cranberry sauce, gravy...etc. The turkey was just about the best I've had, thanks to the amount of work that went into it. Bacon was used to enhance its flavors, and the juices were injected back into the bird to keep it moist. 
But the other highlight was the mashed potato. This was done based on the famous Robuchon recipe, and one of the elves did spend time in the kitchen of L'Atelier. This was refined with eggs and black pepper, and the result was pretty stunning. It was so creamy that I ended up ditching the gravy and used this instead...For dessert, there was delicious homemade pumpkin pie, in addition to other store-bought cakes. Finally we were treated to some salted chocolate chip cookies with walnuts and pecans. I only had one but wished I had room for many more.
There were lots of wine but people didn't drink too much of it. I opened up the 1997 Clarendon Hills Old Vines Grenache Kangarilla Vineyard that I brought, but it took a little time to aerate. In the end it was pretty fruity but a little light and acidic on the palate. The 2004 Goldeneye Pinot Noir was a very typical Californian Pinot, and drank pretty nicely. For some reason a bottle of 2000 Cos 'Estournel was opened, and it was beautiful - very classic St.-Estephe.
This was definitely one of the best Thanksgiving meals for me. I gotta learn how to make that mash...
2 comments:
The mash.... It's beyond a recipe!
The bacon was layered between the breast skin and meat, acting as a heat buffer allowing the legs to fully cook without the breasts overcooking.
Making the mash isn't hard but rescuing it sure is...hard to describe the feeling when the mash suddenly splits and floats out a whole liter of butter =P
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