By Jason Hobbs
Well, I did it again — Thanksgiving at my own place. Three different places in the past three years. This time though, I used an untested oven. I’ve only been here a little while! Oddly, I have very long counters, with cabinets about a foot above them. It makes you wonder, why so much cabinet space, if the kitchen counter space is so terrible that nobody would want to cook in it?
Ahhh, but the food. The turkey cooked perfectly, in the perfect amount of time…at least on one side. The other side was about 20 degrees lower, and the cavity was about 40 degrees lower! What to do now? Well, I turned the turkey 180 degrees, and let it cook for another 45 minutes. The conclusion? The turkey was still moist! But why? I made a compound butter and put it under the skin. The fat saturated the meat, and BAM! Or uh,,,I’ll think of my own nonsense to scream. It was delicious though. The skin was crispy, the meat was “moist” (buttery rather actually, but it has a similar mouthfeel to water in meat). The compound butter consisted of kosher salt, black pepper, fresh sage, fresh thyme, minced garlic, and minced shallots — yep, that’s right; shallots!
The dressing, as with most Thanksgivings, was my favorite. It was a savory, sage, thyme, bacon and sausage dressing. It was crunchy on top, moist in the middle, and deliciously salty all the way through.
My mashed potatos consisted of sauteed garlic, shallots, and mushrooms, and was accompanied with a gravy made from turkey drippings and vegetable broth.
All was good. Friends and family at my house for Thanksgiving if always good — I’m just glad it worked out with all the problems I had that day.
