Thanksgiving in Paris

The first big thing V and I have done since I moved over to Paris eleven days ago was to plan a Thanksgiving dinner for our (read: chiefly her but also becoming my) friends. In theory, it seemed kind of complicated to me: I had in my mind visions of Sinister House galas, twenty-five people spread out across living room and kitchen happily devouring a plethora of pot-luck meals, and I didn't really know how we could equal that glory, especially in our smaller dining space (which is not small by Parisian standards, but is easily dwarfed by the SH kitchen, which dwarfs many things, including elephants). Thankfully, V insisted a week before I moved over that if we were to do it at all, we needed to plan it now.

So Thanksgiving it was going to be. I felt that we couldn't fit many people in the house (the dining table only holds 6 to 8) and imagined an intimate dinner with 5 or 6 close friends chatting face to face across the table. But the guest list expanded as we created it and we discovered that there were no less than 14 people we couldn't not invite. So be it--we could figure out space later.

Initially, too, we tried to arrange for a pot-luck affair in order to divvy up the cost and labor of foodmaking, but since many of our friends don't get out of work until at least 7pm and for some reason the French government hasn't set aside holiday time for Thanksgiving, this didn't work out. In the end, our friend Nusha, a pastry chef in training, made the desserts (wow, did she ever!) and V and I planned and cooked the main meal with a bit of later help from Nusha and Marie.

To sum up so far: the initial idea, a small potluck dinner for 6 doubles in size and becomes a feast for 13 (1 couldn't make it) cooked by 2 with dessert by a 3rd.

Now, I know my stepmother frequently manages large gourmet meals for family and guests completely on her own, but she's a very practiced and dedicated amateur chef. I love cooking, but I do not have her experience or skill. So what surprised me tremendously, after researching recipes (thanks, AllRecipes.com!), was how amazingly doable a Thanksgiving feast is (given, of course, time).

Granted, desserts would have required a good deal of additional planning, and perhaps another day of preparation, but in the end, the process wasn't bad. I made the cranberry sauce (actually, sauce aux airelles because we couldn't find cranberries) the night before because it was easy and needed chilling. I also cut up some baguettes for stuffing and laid them out to air-dry a bit. Thursday, while Virginia was at work, I made the rest of the stuffing (celery, onion, herbs & spices, chicken stock) and began to prep the mashed potatoes. When V got home, she set about making corn bread and I seasoned the turkey and set it in the oven. Then she finished the potatoes while I cleaned. Nusha came over and made a salad and then I made gravy.

By this time, most of the guests had arrived and were getting hungry so we let the turkey out of the oven to play with some carving knives before serving everything. Along with the several bottles of wine that showed up with the invitees, we had a pretty savory meal. Thirteen people crowded around two tables stretched between dining and cooking areas, the room filled with banter and conversation.

Chef's Review
As I noted above, most of the recipes came from AllRecipes.com, and practically all of them were both good and fairly uncomplicated.

Cranberry sauce is pretty much just cranberry sauce--the recipe I found didn't differ significantly from the one printed on the backs of Ocean Spray cranberry packs, and we only added orange zest at the end because we could and to account for the slightly sweeter taste of the airelles. (I added a little extra sugar at first because V found a source on the Web that suggested airelles were a bit sourer than cranberries. In retrospect, I think this wasn't necessary. Also in retrospect, more flavor might be pulled from the orange zest if it's added before cooking the cranberries.)

The mashed potatoes were excellent: light, fluffy, and full of flavor. Virginia got amazing compliments on them and many questions about what went into them.

The homemade stuffing turned out well, but possibly could have used some more salt or broth to flavor it. Maybe if we had found space inside the turkeys....

The turkey was probably the best Thanksgiving turkey I've ever had. Due to issues of availability and oven size, we used two 3kg birds, frozen and prestuffed with some sort of giblet-and-chestnut mixture. They thawed easily and cooked simultaneously in 1h40m. I think their small size helped them cook well without losing too much moisture; the herb and oil rub specified by the recipe became a sauce that we used to baste the birds, and probably also contributed a lot to their moistness. And the flavors...wow.

The gravy was also good, but it started off very liquidy and reducing it took a long time. We shortened the process by adding in a "dry roux" (thanks, Nusha!), basically a tablespoon or so of butter and the same of flour mixed together, moistened with a few spoonfuls of the gravy, and then mixed in. I used chicken stock instead of turkey, but added pan drippings from the turkey for extra flavor.

Only the cornbread disappointed me and V, though no one else offered complaint. It was a decent recipe but not spectacular, just slightly too salty and powdery, not sweet enough for me and too sweet for Virginia. We chose the recipe because we couldn't find vegetable shortening in the stores here.

Even with 13 people, we still have leftovers, though by now they're down to some remaining stuffing and a little bit of turkey. Last night we took care of most of the meat by making a delicious turkey pot pie. (That's your cue to get jealous.)