Happy Thanksgiving special edition 2014/火鸡节特辑

This is my 50th post and today is thanksgiving’s day, I am very thankful for all your attention to my blog. I am not a professional; I am just a food lover who loves cooking more than eating. Thank you everyone, please continue supporting me. Happy Thanksgiving!

Tonight’s dinner:

Roasted Brine turkey

Sweet sausage with apple stuffing

Orange flavor carrot

Brussels sprouts with bacon

Sweet potatoes with marshmallows

Mashed potatoes

Turkey dripping with red wine gravy

Cranberry sauce

Mango mousse cake

 Roasted Brine Turkey

IMG_9355IMG_9376

Recipe by Alton Brown

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/good-eats-roast-turkey-recipe.html

I made some changes to the original recipe.

Ingredients:

13 pound frozen young turkey

For the brine:
1/3 cup kosher salt
1/2 cup brown sugar
12 cup water
1 tablespoon black peppercorns
2 pieces of dried orange peel
3 pieces of ginger

3 spring of rosemary

3spring of thyme

For the aromatics:
1 red apple, sliced
1/2 onion, sliced
1 cinnamon stick
1 cup water
2-4 sprigs rosemary
4leaves sage
Butter 2-3 tablespoons for chicken breast

Directions
a week before roasting:

Begin thawing the turkey in the refrigerator or in a cooler kept at 38 degrees F for 3 days.

2-3 days before roasting:

Combine the water, salt, brown sugar, peppercorns, allspice berries, dried orange peel and ginger in a large stockpot over medium-high heat. Stir occasionally to dissolve solids and bring to a boil. Then remove the brine from the heat, cool to room temperature.

Combine the brine and Turkey in an oven safe bag. Place the thawed turkey (with innards removed) breast side down in brine. cover, and refrigerate or set in cool area, turning the bird a few times through the whole process.

Remove the bird from brine early in the morning of the day you want to eat and rinse inside and out with cold water. Dry the bird with kitchen paper towels. Discard the brine.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.

Place some celery, carrot, garlic and onion on the bottom of a half sheet pan alone with one cup chicken stock then put the bird on top of the vegetables.

Combine the apple, onion, cinnamon stick, and 1 cup of water in a microwave safe dish and microwave on high for 5 minutes. Add steeped aromatics to the turkey’s cavity along with the rosemary and sage. Tuck the wings underneath the bird, and spread the butter underneath the turkey’s skin on the breast part.

Roast the turkey on lowest level of the oven at 450 degrees F for 30-40 minutes or until the color of the skin is brown. Insert a probe thermometer into thickest part of the breast and reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees F. Set the thermometer alarm (if available) to 161 degrees F. Once it gets to the color you desire, cover the turkey breast with aluminum foil to prevent it from getting too dark. A 13 pound bird should require a total of about 1.5 -2 hours of roasting(not including the time for browning). Let the turkey rest, loosely covered with foil or a large mixing bowl for 15 minutes before carving.

13 磅凍火鸡

鹵水︰

1/3 杯食鹽

1/2 杯紅糖

12 杯水

1 湯匙黑胡椒

陳皮 2 片

生薑 3 片

3小枝迷迭香

3小枝百里香

香味原料︰

1 個紅蘋果,切成薄片

1/2 的洋蔥,切成薄片

1 条肉桂棒

1 杯水

2-4 小枝迷迭香

4片 鼠尾草

 

黃油 2-3 湯匙涂抹雞胸肉。

烤前一个礼拜:

在冰箱裡開始解凍火鸡。

烤前2-3 天:

在中高溫火候的大湯鍋里加水、 鹽、 紅糖、 胡椒、 陈皮和生薑。偶爾攪拌,煮至沸騰。關火,將鹵水,冷卻至室溫。

鹵水和火鸡一起放入 5 加侖的桶中或火鸡专用烤袋里。將解凍的火鸡 (去除內臟) 放在鹽水里。確保它完全浸入水、 覆蓋,並冷藏,在醃制过程中翻几次身。

将火鸡從鹵水中取出用冷水沖洗內外。用紙巾将火鸡輕輕拍幹。

預熱烤箱至華氏 450 度

将一些切过的洋葱, 西芹,蒜头和胡萝卜放在烤盘里,加入1杯的鸡汤把鸡放上面。

蘋果、 洋蔥、 肉桂棒和 1 杯水放碗里微波5 分鐘。將其倒如火鸡的腹腔内再放入迷迭香,鼠尾草。将牛油涂抹在鸡胸的部位鸡皮下面。

在烤箱最低的架子上烤火雞450度30-40 分鐘。溫度計插入鸡胸最粗的部分烤箱溫度降到 350 華氏度。13 磅重的火雞應该燒 大约1.5-2小時直到鸡胸的温度达到161 華氏度。如果火鸡的颜色达到你所要的程度, 就放一张的锡纸在鸡胸上以防鸡颜色太深。 火鸡熟后放15 分鐘再吃。

Sweet sausage with apple stuffing

IMG_9370

Ingredients:

Extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 onion, small dice
2 ribs celery, small dice

1/2 medium carrot, small dice
Kosher salt pinches
1 pound sweet sausage, casing removed, broken into bite-size chunks
3 cloves garlic, smashed and finely diced
1 sprigs rosemary, leaves finely chopped
7 cups cornbread
1/2 cups dried cranberries

One large apple cut into cubes
16 Oz. chicken stock
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Coat a large sauté pan with olive oil, add the onions, carrot and celery and saute over to medium heat. Season with salt and cook until the vegetables are tender and are very aromatic. Add the sausage and cook until the sausage begins to brown. Stir in the garlic and saute for another 1 to 2 minutes. Add the apple and rosemary and cook for another minute, then remove from heat.

In a large bowl mix together the cornbread, cranberries, and the sausage mixture. Add chicken stock and knead with your hands until the bread is very moist, actually wet. Taste to check for seasoning and season with salt, if needed and transfer to an ovenproof dish.

Bake the stuffing until it is hot all the way through and is crusty on top, about 30 to 35 minutes.

Mango Mousse Cake

IMG_9351IMG_9379

Same recipe that I used for  Blueberry mousse cake. But this time I used Mango and didn’t do the Jello topping. Also I added a few mango roses on top of the cake for decoration

https://caiqinchen.wordpress.com/2014/09/01/blueberry-mousse-cake%E8%93%9D%E8%8E%93%E6%85%95%E6%96%AF%E8%9B%8B%E7%B3%95/

Turkey drippings with white wine gravy

Don’t throw away the yummy turkey drippings, it is the best ingredient  for gravy. Skim the fat from the juice then add 1/3 cup of white wine to the roast pan that you use for your turkey and bring it to boil.  whisk  3 TBSP of flour to it and keep whisking until it is smooth. Pour all the broth mixture back to the pan and cook about 2,3 minutes.

IMG_9359

Brussels sprouts with bacon

Precook 2 pounds of Brussels sprouts in boiling water for a few minutes, drain and set aside. In a skillet add little bit of vegetable oil, add some cut bacon and cook at least 3 minutes( depends on how dry do you like you bacon to be, my parents don’t like dry, crispy bacon, so I only cook about 3 minutes). If you like you bacon to be crispy, get all the bacon out of skillet before you pour Brussels sprouts to the skillet and absorb the fat with a paper towel. Cook the vegetable for about 5 minutes with 1/2 cup of chicken broth. Don’t put too much salt because both bacon and broth are already flavored. Put the bacon back if you previously take them out.

IMG_9361

Mashed potatoes

Boil 3 pounds of potatoes until fork tender then smash with a potatoes smasher. Add 1/3 cup of half and half or milk, 2/3 stick of unsalted butter and 3TBSP of mayonnaise. Flavor it with salt and pepper. If you have chives in hand, it will make this dish taste even better.

IMG_9366

Orange flavor carrot

Precook sliced carrot in boiling water for a few minutes, drain and set aside. In a skillet add some vegetable oil and saute carrot for 2 minutes with pinch of salt. Add water and orange juice(water:juice=2:1) simmer for 20 minutes or until it is tender.

IMG_9369

Sweet potatoes with marshmallows

Bake sweet potatoes in a preheat oven (375F) for about 1.5 hours, smash it with a potato smasher. Pour everything to a baking dish WITHOUT ANY SUGAR, add a few pinches of cinnamon powder and mix well. Put some marshmallows on top of it and bake 5 more minutes or until they are melt and golden brown.

IMG_9372

Happy family!

IMG_9375

Good night!

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s