The Thanksgiving menu is pretty much written in stone and what each person expects from year to year. A surprise or two is OK, but don’t fuss with the basics and for us that means:
*A huge turkey with sausage stuffing (archive recipe)
*Lots of gravy
*Chunky fresh cranberry sauce (archive recipe)
*Jellied sauce cut into crescents
*Homemade russet mashed potatoes
*Rutabaga mash
*Green peas
*Sautéed mushrooms
*Creamed onions
*Brussels sprouts (I insist)
*Relish tray (green onions, radish roses, cherry tomatoes, green olives, black olives, sweet midget pickles and whatever looks good in the pickle section)
*Crescent rolls and corn muffins
*Pies: pumpkin, pecan, apple, lemon meringue and chocolate silk are possibilities
Notice there is no first course. You want everyone to be absolutely ravenous for dinner. The only up-front I serve is a large tray of very retro shrimp cocktail served on the cocktail table in the main room. This location keeps non-working males out of the kitchen. Buy the large 21/25 shrimp, in the shell for best flavor, boil until just barely done in a pickling mix broth and serve with a sauce made from catsup, horseradish, and plenty of lemon juice.
Buffet style
Serve the food buffet-style and have additional tables set with place settings for each person. If you are going to be using folding tables in addition to your dining room set, unify everything with the same color tablecloths. Smart & Final carries a heavy cotton felt cloth for 5.99 in a deep forest green with matching napkins that look very nearly like cloth and will save a lot of washing and ironing.
If your guests offer to bring part of the meal --let them! If someone wants to contribute and is a total non-cook, let them bring the relish tray.
Now that serving fine wine is so much a part of entertaining, it is very important to have filled water glasses at each setting. Pellegrino or Perrier is special and you won’t believe how much of it will be drunk. If you’re having eight or more guests, buy at least a case of the large bottles and put 2 or 3 bottles right on the table.
Keep it simple
Simple centerpieces can be made from baskets of fresh fruit with autumn leaves stuck here and there and some votive candles scattered around. In addition, put the rolls, corn muffins, butter dishes and the relish tray on the main table. At each place setting put the silver, bread plate, white and red wine glasses and the water glasses. The table will be beautiful.
The roasting turkey will take up the entire oven for most of the day so you have to make as much ahead as possible. The crescent rolls can be made ahead and frozen. Hit them with an egg wash and celery or poppy seeds before baking so everyone will know they’re homemade.
Plan ahead
The day ahead, make the pies, the cranberry sauce and the stuffing. Don’t stuff the bird itself until Thanksgiving morning. Save the trimmings from the onions and celery used in the stuffing to flavor the giblet stock. While the bird roasts, simmer the giblets, the vegetable trimmings and water together and use the stock to make the gravy.
Food writers generally try to make roasting a turkey sound like the most complicated possible task. It isn’t. Stuff the bird, tie the legs together, turn the wings under the backbone, brush the bird with melted butter, season with salt and pepper, put in a heavy roasting pan, add 2 cups of chicken broth to the pan, cover all with heavy duty foil and cook at 375 until the center of the stuffing reads 160 degrees. Take the foil off for the last 40 minutes to brown. Let the bird sit for at least 15 minutes before carving and the meat will be tender and juicy.
You can cook all the food except the potatoes while the bird is roasting and keep in pots to heat up just before dinner. I have yet to find a good way to reheat mashed potatoes so I make them at the last minute.
After-meal digestif
After the crowd has eaten way too much of your magnificent dinner and they swear they can’t possibly find room for the pies and “Wasn’t that the best turkey ever?” have a tray of port wine glasses or champagne flutes ready, add some crushed ice to each glass and add a shot of Chambord (raspberry) or Cranberria (obvious) and serve with a short straw as a digestif. It’s a little bit of fussing that is worth doing.
The whole point of the day is to enjoy the food and your friends so if one or two little things go wrong, so what. Make the preparation as easy as you can on yourself and have a great day together.