Last night, I made soup from the beautiful Marina Di Chioggia pumpkin from Crystal Bay Farm. It was a labor of love, requiring both the food processor and the blender, and a great deal more stock than the recipe I used stated. I think this is a dense pumpkin: the pith and seeds were not wet and stringy at all.
I roasted a head of garlic, too, and threw some of that in, along with coriander, cumin, and a little cayenne. (The spices were a variation on a recipe from A New Way to Cook.) For kicks, I topped it with some of the Bodega Bay goat cheese I got from Ferry Plaza last weekend, and that was a great match. You can see how the spice darkened the color, which was so bright it surprised me when I cut into the pumpkin.
I would make this again, but I think I'd organize differently. There is no way two pounds of pumpkin fits in a food processor, much less with the addition of chicken stock. So I'd purée in batches. I might also roast the pumpkin with a bain-marie, and let the steam help soften it.
We also had a small roasted chicken from TLC Ranch, along with roasted carrots, potatoes, shallots, and orange bells.
. . . . . . . . . . .
Today I am researching regional Thanksgiving recipes. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday: gratitude makes such a nicer showing than greed and compulsory gift-giving. I'll have more to say about it all later, but wanted to take the opportunity to share a coupon code from LocalHarvest.org for $5 off the price of a turkey. They have heritage turkeys (woo hoo!) -- just plug in code #TRK2005 at check-out, and you will get the discount.
For the record, this is the recipe I've used every year but one since it came out in Bon Appétit in 1994: Roasted Turkey with Herb Rub and Shiitake Mushroom Gravy. I make batches of the herb rub in my coffee grinder (we don't drink coffee), and use that on roasted chickens year-round. It's a lengthy recipe but not really that hard. Lots of mise en place, and keep on top of your timer. I found it helpful to write down the actual times for action: what time I put the bird in, when to change the heat, when to remove the foil, etcetera.
I will never brine again. I tried that once, to see what all the flap
was about. I used a time-honored recipe that's been published for
several years in the San Francisco Chronicle, and which many people
have said they loved. Being that I can count on one hand the meals I've
ruined, I don't believe I did anything wrong. The result, however, was
a bird that tasted more like a ham than a turkey, and the pan juices
were ruined and useless for gravy. Too much salt! I'm not a heavy salter, regardless. But Bob is quite a salter, and it was too much even for him.
Harold McGee, probably the most respected food brain on the planet, says that brining replaces flavorful juices with salt water. He's not an advocate, and neither am I.
More soon. Thanks for visiting.
MORE BLOGS TO CHECK OUT
101 Cookbooks: Heidi also has her own forum, and it's well worth checking out. Beautiful design, beautiful photography, knowledgeable writing. Highly recommended.
Treehugger: a webzine, more than a blog. A little on the consumer-heavy side, but it's always good to have greener choices.
Sustainable Table: obviously!
. . . . . . . . . . .
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: "You probably think Italians like meals with heavy meats and sauces, but they actually prefer light meats. They see turkey as a healthy, light white meat that lends itself excellently to their style of cooking, and they use it in many different ways. Also, Europeans do not celebrate Thanksgiving so they perceive turkey as an all-year round option." —Todd English
Comments