Traditionally I roast a turkey for Thanksgiving. I’ve done it for several people, and I’ve done it when I’m alone. Stuffing, dressing, mashed potatoes, gravy, Brussels sprouts, maybe green bean casserole, red wine. I might have roasted a duck last year, but I don’t remember. I know I roasted a duck, but I don’t know if I did it for Thanksgiving.
This year I asked the roomie if she wanted me to roast a turkey. She says she has a hankering for a spiral-cut ham. OK, why not? I’ve never cooked one, but you basically just heat it up, right? Maybe some ‘all-rotten’ potatoes. I’m sure she’ll make the green bean casserole.
Yes, the spiral-cut, honey-glazed-type hams are fully cooked…you can heat (some of) it up if you want to get fancy, but they’re not at all bad eaten cold.
Be very careful not to overcook (overheat?) the spiral sliced ham. Because of the spiral cut slices, the ham can lose moisture quite fast. If you have a slow cooker that can handle it then that’s a better bet than the oven. Put a quarter inch of water in the slow cooker and let it slowly bring the ham up to temp. After slow cooking, blast it in a 500 degree oven for a few minutes it you want to crisp the skin or apply a glaze. Leftovers should be bagged and stored A.S.A.P. lest you wind up with well seasoned ham jerky.
Or better yet, buy a regular ham and ignore the spiral sliced ones.
I also vote regular ham, I have never liked spiral hams. I like a good thick slab of meat, not the paper thin mingy cheap looking slices. And a lovely ham bone with meat bits clinging on for dear live is great for tossing in a pot to make split pea soup when the meat is all gone.
We are actually going up to my moms from the saturday before thanksgiving to the sunday after for the longest vacation there ever. It is going to be a blast, we are going to actually do all the pre-prep work there and not have to schlep stuff up with us the night before. It will actually be relaxing
Available from about 10 am onwards - homemade bread, french onion soup [cheese and croutons on the side for do it yourself] and assorted nibbles [typically cut veggies and dip, bacon wrapped water chestnuts, wonton skin mini eggrolls, stuff like that] and cut up fruits. The main dinner itself is going to be about 5 in the afternoon with the usual suspects =) and the next couple days will be leftovers in various forms =)
The magazine Cook’s Illustrated mentioned the best way to heat up one of those spiral-sliced hams, or any pre-cooked ham for that matter – use the plastic baking bags – that really keeps the juices inside. Google a bit to find oven temperature and duration per pound. And definitely make your own glaze, cranberry sauce is excellent.
No pig minge for you!
I’m not a huge fan of ham. A nice salty country ham steak with a bone in it with eggs and hashbrowns? Check. The occasional ham-and-Swiss sandwich? Of course. Spiced ham (aka SPAM®)? You bet. But your typical baked ham, not so much. Good, but it gets boring. Still, the roomie asked for it. She loves my turkey, but if she wants ham I’ll make ham.
Dad always made ham for Christmas dinner. I’d make the turkey for Thanksgiving, he’d make the ham for Christmas. It was always a canned ham. He’d score the top in a diamond pattern and insert a clove into every intersection, then cover it with orange marmalade and bake it. I liked the crispy bits, myself.
Like you, I’m changing the main dish for our Thanksgiving dinner this year. Since I’m only feeding my Gang of Five, unless we round up a few strays, I’ll probably roast a couple of chickens (or maybe Cornish hens? That would be awesome!) instead of a big honking turkey. My crew doesn’t care much for turkey unless it’s fried, and the oil for that is so freaking expensive! Besides, baking smaller birds frees up valuable oven real estate for the good stuff: cornbread dressing, veggie casseroles, etc.
My other innovation for this year’s menu is that I’m going to try my hand at homemade croissants. Figured I’d use Martha Stewart’s recipe from her Baking cookbook. The woman is so anal retentive that I expect her to explode any day now, but she can’t be topped for step-by-step instructions. (And if they’re horrifically ugly, only my nearest and dearest will witness my failure.)
Besides, if I round out the meal with my world-famous (not really) pecan pie, and homemade banana pudding (daughter’s request - she doesn’t care for pecans - family recipe courtesy of the Nilla Wafer box,) who’s gonna complain about ugly bread?
There are NO DEVIATIONS ALLOWED in the family Thanksgiving and Christmas menus. The one time my Aunt G tried, there was a near-riot.
“Duck? What thehellisthat??”
“No spinach casserole? Where’s the spinach???”
“Whadyamean there’s no hawaiian rolls?”
IT WAS UGLY. Aunt G hasn’t dared attempt a change since.
The menu: turkey, scratch gravy made directly from the drippings, stuffing (no celery), mashed potatoes, oyster stuffing (added 20 years ago for my BIL, who is the only one who eats the nasty stuff) sweet potato casserole, spinach casserole, relish tray, cranberry jelly, hawaiian rolls and butter, gewurztraminer wine, mincemeat pie, hard sauce, pumpkin pie and whipped cream.
You may add from time to time (oyster dressing :eek:), but thou shalt not **substitute **nothing.
Every year since I’ve been married, my husband has gotten us a Greenberg turkey shipped. He’s been a fan since his grandfather bought them as a child. A couple (several?) years ago, Oprah even profiled them on one of her “Favorite Things” episodes. They’re that good.
Everything else is pretty much up in the air, but the requisite dressing and potato salad.
Different details, but I am in the exact same boat. My family insists on: Turkey with (get this) Pepperidge Farm stuffing. No homemade stuffing, no sirree. Ocean spray cranberry sauce out of the can – it has to be slipped out of the can into the traditional dish so that the grooves from the can shape are still visible. Sweet potato casserole – a very nice one, I might add, which I got from the King’s Inn in Williamsburg VA, no marshmallows, brown sugar topping broiled on.
I am allowed to vary the other side dishes, but once something is approved of it must be continued. I think the latest addition is scalloped potatoes. Green and black olives are required, the kind without pits so that they can be posed on the end of your finger as a puppet. (Yeah, we’re weird.) There must be homemade bread, two loaves, one with raisins and cinnamon.
And of course, pie. Must also be homemade. One year I bought some excellent pies from a new local bakery and the response was pretty much, yeah they’re OK but not as good as yours. Personally, I thought the purchased ones were better than mine. I’d had a long chat with the pie-maker; he uses top-notch ingredients and the piecrust is perfect.
I think I’d like to cook a duck since I’ve only done it once and it didn’t turn out so well. Not to high jack (much) but has any one tips for crispy and delicious duck?
Truly veering off the path-- the first turkey I ever roasted was a practice bird. Everything was great until I went to lift it out and the foil pan buckled (I’ve learned better now). The turkey splatted onto the floor, carommed off the wall and shot down the hallway.
The cats materialized from who knows where and chased it the whole way. After basting myself with the juices, I tossed the pan into the sink and ran to tackle the bird before the cats got it. Of course I slipped, slid foot first into the turkey, propelling it through the open sliding glass door and onto the balcony.
It was teetering on the edge when I managed to grab hold of it and prevent it from being my neighbor’s uninvited lunch guest. Fighting off the cats, who were trying to climb me, I picked it up, sans oven mitts, and sort of juggled it back into the kitchen. Why? It couldn’t be salvaged. Poop!
Are you dead set on roasting it whole? This is not ideal in my experience.
I section a duck into 2 leg quarters and 2 skin on boneless breasts. The trimmed fat from the sections and carcass gets rendered. The legs are browned and then slowly roasted in the fat - like a cheaters confit. The breasts are scored and browned very quickly in the fat and served rare, sliced nice and thin with a nice piece of crunchy skin on each slice.
I always tell myself that next time I’m going to put in the effort and make stock out of the carcass but I never do.
editied to add: If you can get your hands on a fresh, never frozen duck, you’ll be suprised at the difference in quality of the end result.
Ina Garten recommends that you boil the duck first to render a lot of fat off of it and get the meat cooked and juicy, then finish it in the oven at a high temperature to crisp the skin. I tried this one Christmas. I ended up with about an inch of duck fat floating at the top of my stock pot, good stuff. I can’t say that I’m big fan of duck, though.
Did your guests wonder why you had macaroni and cheese for T-Day?
Did the katz lick the entire trail off the floor?
“Why are your katz making that strange growling sound? And are they licking the FLOOR?”
I can see me standing there, under those circumstances, turkey juices staining my clothes, bruises starting to form, holding this still-steaming turkey carcass to my chest, wild hair sticking up all over, greeting guests with, “JUST NEVER MIND! I DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT!”
~VOW
I’m getting major a-has! zoid and Sattua. I totally botched the rendering last time it seems. Should it be lacquered like Peking duck or left natural? WWJuliaDo?
Just the roomie and me this year, so it’s either turkey drumsticks or we’ll just roast a chicken. Mashed potatoes, sauteed green beans and dinner rolls to go with, and I’ll do a cranberry pie for dessert. Roomie has promised to do the dishes. I’m good with this arrangement.
