I volunteered to be the chef this year. This is the first year ever that I took the lead on preparing this festive meal. I have contributed dishes from time to time – but never took the lead on the majority of dishes. I was very excited to organize all the prep and carry through with the meal development. Aside from dessert and squash casserole (both managed by Leslie) I took the lead on: Turkey, Stuffing, Gravy, Cranberry sauce, Cauliflower casserole, Mashed Potatoes, and Green Bean Casserole.
So that I can focus on continuous improvement moving forward, here is my rundown of these dishes.
Turkey: C
After a bit of reading dissertations on dry-brining and wet-brining, I opted to dry-brine the turkey. I was hoping to at least equal the excellent, juicy turkey Leslie baked last year. Well… the turkey was OK, but it was slightly salty, dark meat even more so. It also had to sit after cooking for over 2 hours because I did not time it very well – the turkey was done cooking an hour earlier than expected, and most of the guests arrived at the latter part of the time window we communicated.
Stuffing: C
I made corn bread stuffing with bacon, and white bread stuffing without meat for any vegetarians in the crowd. While I thought the bacon would add a lot of value, for whatever reason, it didn’t really enhance the flavor – just made it more salty. The white bread stuffing wasn’t too bad, but no one seemed to eat it.
Gravy: F
I had a full 4 cups of au jus in the roasting pan (I started by adding a little water in the pan, since the narrative on dry brining indicated some extra liquid in the pan will keep the drippings from drying up). I thought this was my lucky day – I will just use the au jus, add some corn starch (rather than flour to accommodate the gluten sensitive guests), and go with that. Which I did – without even tasting it. If I tasted it before sitting at the dining table I would have realized the au jus was heavily influenced by the dry brine salt – Yuck! It was REALLY salty. Effectively worthless to all. I didn’t react quickly enough to go make a new batch based on some other broth I had – so I completely blew it on the gravy.
Cranberry Sauce: B+
I’ve made this many times. Aside from being a little on the sweet side, it was very good.
Cauliflower Leek Casserole: C-
I have made this dish many times before to very pleased crowds – I thought this would be a guarantee. Not! I still haven’t really figured out what went wrong, but my prevailing theory is I tried to bake it at the 350 degrees consistent with all the other dishes, while I usually bake this at 425 degrees. So, I don’t think the cheese thinned enough to penetrate the casserole and it therefore stayed bunched at the top of the dish and didn’t properly integrate with the rest of the dish.
Mashed Potatoes: C
The recipe seemed like a real winner – but the result was too lumpy and too dry. The recipe explicitly directed to not use an electric mixer – which I agree with, but I needed to do a better job hand mashing. I also should have added more liquid to the mix. Seems pretty easy to improve – but didn’t get it right this time.
Green Bean Casserole: A
Thank goodness for old standards. I’ve also made this one many times in the past, and nothing really went wrong with this – so the guests seemed to really like this one.
Next Year
With these learnings in mind, I am very excited to volunteer again next year, and leverage this year’s experience to raise the bar.
In Closing
The guests (family) were kind and forgiving (and fortunately, most had an earlier meal as well), so we all had a great time together – the thing I really am thankful for.
