Twas the Night before Turkey
The sweet potato pudding is defrosting in the refrigerator; the pie crust is resting in the freezer and the cranberry/orange relish is getting damned tasty after its week-long marinade in Tripe Sec. Despite a day spent here at the beach house last week getting a head start on the Thanksgiving preparations, tomorrow will be a marathon — and despite my joy at spending the day with people I love, the meal itself probably won’t be proportionately tastier than the one I fixed tonight in about 15 minutes, start to finish.
J and I rarely eat steak anymore, but sometimes a New York strip just calls our names. Besides, steak, broccolini and salad was the simplest meal I could think of. To jazz it up a little I made a quick compound butter: minced shallots marinated for 10 minutes in red wine vinegar and then blended into soft butter along with some minced parsley. Dolloped generously onto thick slices of black-on-the-outside-and-ruby-red-on-the-inside steak, it was fabulous.
A few weeks ago I used a blood orange (from J’s beloved little tree) in a butter to top grilled fish. Minced shallots, again, this time marinated in a little blood orange juice for 15 or 20 minutes, then blended into soft butter along with a generous amount of grated rind. Twas lovely as it melted over the hot sturgeon.
If I were more organized I’d make a variety of savory compound butters into logs and store them in the freezer.
And, if I were really organized, I’d have taught my daughters to cook and I’d be watching them fix Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow while I sipped champagne and nibbled almonds. Instead I’m immensely thankful that they are angelic about doing the dishes. And equally thankful that I have reservations for dinner out on Friday.
Happy Thanksgiving.
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Thursday, November 22nd, 2007 at 5:02 amand is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
November 22nd, 2007 at 9:56 am
I’ll happily cook if someone else does the dishes! Enjoy your day, sip the champaign anyway, and your dinner out on Friday!
Happy Thanksgiving!
November 26th, 2007 at 5:16 pm
I think Katiez is right — we should all sit around and sip champagne whether we’ve cooked the dinner or not. Actually, we should sip MORE champagne if we’ve cooked the dinner. Besides, ‘fess up — given the choice, wouldn’t you rather cook than do dishes? I know I would. Hope you and yours had a joyous holiday — I know you had a delicious one.
November 27th, 2007 at 12:48 am
I agree with Katie and Dorie — give me cooking duty over clean-up duty any day! Don’t we all fantasize about having people following us around to wash up? But the most fun is sitting down to share your meal with whoever is at your table. The meal could be hot dogs, and it wouldn’t matter.
October 25th, 2008 at 10:56 am
I love compound butters, and I especially love to make them with the wonderful English and Irish butters. The trick is to take an afternoon (in your case, while the grandkids nap) and just make them up! I do a mixed herbal with parsley, sage & rosemary with one tiny pinch of sugar to offset the bitter of the herb. I also love a bit of tarragon & marjoram and some shallots sauteed in a little white wine. Roasted garlic and onion butter is delicious too. No need for sugar in that as the caramelization of those two make it a bit sweet, and just a dash of Worchestershire. Roll those up in waxed paper or plastic wrap (I prefer parchment paper then wrapped in plastic) and they are ready when you need them. Just take it out of the freezer and cut off how much you need and let it sit for a bit to warm up. Delicious! I use salted butter for mine. YMMV.