Thanksgiving à la Française

As Will mentioned in the previous post, we had some difficulty sourcing the essentials for our Thanksgiving feast. As a result, I was filled with some trepidation about how the meal would turn out, especially since I was making most of the dishes for the first time. I’m pleased to say that the evening was a raging success and nearly everything came out perfectly.

The menu:

• Starter: Broccoli Stilton soup, compliments of Sharon

• Turkey legs, roasted in onions, red wine and broth

• Roti de filet de dinde (turkey breast), braised in shallots, white wine and mustard

• Mashed Potatoes with goats cheese

• Maple-glazed sweet potatoes and squash

• Stuffing made from baguettes and home-made cornbread with leek, mushrooms and cepes (porcini) reduction

• Haricots verts with toasted almonds

• Cranberry sauce

• Gravy made from the turkey leg roasting liquid

• Bread sauce, compliments of Sharon

• Dessert: ice cream and fromage, compliments of Sharon

I’d done a whole roast turkey before but never parts. The legs were cooked in the oven and the breast in a casserole on the hob. Both came out fine, although the breast was a bit on the dry side. For the past few Thanksgivings in London, we’ve been privileged to have David White’s cornbread stuffing, which is extra specially tasty. So this was my first attempt at making stuffing and I have to say, it came out really nicely (thanks for the tips, Mom). The others were from recipes found on epicurious.com. Despite having to use dried cranberries, they too turned out rather nicely.

Sharon made a delicious soup with stilton that she imported from the UK. She also made bread sauce which is a traditional xmas meal accompaniment in the UK, usually served with poultry. We mostly skipped on dessert although Babette and Will had a bit of ice cream. Babette brought us flowers, 2 bottles of Bordeaux and chocolates, which was very sweet of her. She also entertained us with amusing stories for most of the evening although I have to admit only understanding half of what she said since she only speaks french. It was good practice for me to try to converse with her but it’s handy having Will to fill in the gaps when I stumble.

Babette left around 10:30 and then we hung out with Sharon, playing some poker but mostly just drinking wine and setting the world to rights. We celebrated the harvest in an alternative way as well, which meant that we were hungry for cheese around 1 am. Sharon brought over a lovely selection on which Will will elaborate later. We were up till nearly 4 am so we’re all feeling a bit rough today. We just got back from a nice walk in a remote area very nearby and are looking forward to tucking into the leftovers later on.

So despite the uphill battle, I am very pleased with our first Thanksgiving a la française and hope that it’s not the last!