Assembling the Ingredients
Throughout the past week and because his work season is now over, John’s been making sure we have, or acquire, all of the necessary ingredients for our Christmas dinner. As of today, we do.
Well, everything except the turkey. We’ll be picking it up tomorrow.
The recipe for the Morton Thompson turkey has 39 ingredients and at least four prep bowls (three bowls for the dressing alone!). You can see why we’re assembling the ingredients ahead of time. We do not want to get to cooking day and discover we’ve forgotten something or thought we had it but didn’t. That’s been known to happen around here.
Since this is our first time cooking a turkey this way, we’ve decided to cook it pretty much exactly as written. Then, if there’s something we’re not thrilled with, we can “revise” the recipe next time, if there is a next time.
The ingredients…
This is a tray of all the spices (minus the marjoram and turmeric we picked up today). On the tray are cloves, dry mustard, caraway seeds, celery seeds, poppy seeds, oregano, bay leaf, black pepper, mace, savory, poultry seasoning, paprika, coriander, cayenne, and pepper.
And a few more of the required ingredients: an apple, an orange, a lemon, fresh parsley, crushed pineapple, water chestnuts, and candied ginger. The recipe actually calls for preserved ginger but John decided to go with candied. It’s all preserved ginger as far as he’s concerned.
We’ve decided that Turkey Day will be Christmas Day; we had thought about doing it for Boxing Day but it has been decided. On Monday, I’ll be making the dinner rolls and whatever else I can prep ahead of time.
Along with the turkey, we will be having mashed potatoes (the potatoes are from our garden), roasted Brussels sprouts with grapes and walnuts (we had the same dish last Christmas and it was delicious!), carrots, sweet potato (John’s Christmas must-have), bread sauce (another one of John’s must-haves… definitely not one of mine!) and cranberry sauce. I think that’s it.
And there will be wine.
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I read some pages on this Morton Thompson turkey and it surely is an ambitious undertaking. Assuming you get through the turning over part without any great mishaps, I'll be interested in how it actually works out. It's supposed to be tender as well as tasty but some of the remarks about tenderness make it seem almost mushy. Of course, I may be reading it wrong which is why I'm looking forward to your report, Ev. I doubt I'd ever make this myself even if you tell me it makes a heavenly turkey.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, thanks for continuing to blog and let those of us who've been reading since forever keep up with you. May you and John have a wonderful Christmas season, followed by a happy and healthy 2013.