Thanksgiving in Americatown

There may be quite a few things about my home country of which I'm not proud, but I find that many of these are offset by the 4th Thursday in November, more commonly called Thanksgiving. I'll not go into the fairly ignominious origins of the holiday and its 400 year old history, but rest assured that these days its focus is firmly on the 4 F's: Food, Family, Friends, and (American) Football. No other distractions such as religion or its ilk to get in the way. 


And as is the tradition, we always come back to my home country for the ultimate in food indulgence. The other, newer custom is that I cook nearly everything given my background. It's unsurprisingly something that I love to do, not least of all because I don't pay for ingredients. 


Ahhh, turkey. Here in Britain we don't eat nearly as much of it as in the USA, but that's probably because it's not exactly the juiciest, most flavourful bird. I tried brining the beast last year and found the results to be distinctly meh. So this time around I took a more straightforward approach: rub about 8 tablespoons of butter under the breast skin, cover the entire breast in foil for the first 2 hours, and leave it in the oven for about 4.5 hours of total roasting time at 160°c. (Mr. Turkey tipped the scales at 8.1kg) Oh and I gave it one obligatory basting. Finally, and I'm sure this is filed under the "news to no one" category, but I rested my fowl friend for 45 minutes once out of the oven to let all them glorious juices ingratiate themselves from tip to tail.


And when it came time to carve the bird, it was still very hot all the way through. And much to my pleasant surprise, the first slice through the breast unleashed a lovely rivulet of clear juice, a theme that repeated itself throughout the carving. I suppose there IS something to this whole local, free range, fresh bird thing ;) Instead of the traditional slices along the breastbone, I prefer to remove the whole thing in one go and then make thicker slices along its width (thank you, Caroline Waldegrave) - always seems to look nicer this way. Carving complete. 

I lamented the fact that my frame wouldn't fit in the roasting pan, otherwise I would've bathed in the leftover juices. (file that under "Too much information" perhaps) Despite the fact that the bird was full of moisture, there was still enough juicy goodness to go around to ensure that it, combined with the butter of course, lay nearly an inch deep in the pan. A quick deglaze to remove all of the lovely scrapings still stuck to the bottom and I was ready for Operation Gravy. I feel that simple is best when it comes to this dish; so I started with a quick roux using the turkey/butter fat instead of fresh butter and then slowly added all of the drippings plus some extra (and yes, I admit store-bought) turkey stock. Seasoning, and we're done. 

Stuffing was semi-prepared a day earlier: onions and celery (with leaves) slowly sautéed in a healthy dose of butter, combined with bread crumbs, stock, parsley, thyme, rosemary, sage, salt, pepper, and put straight into the oven once the turkey came out.

Perhaps the most labour intensive dish was the mash - nothing complicated about it, just some nice Yukon Gold spuds boiled correctly, but I have an issue with lumpy mash.  I abhor it. Even when cooking for my 1- and 3-year olds, I can't abide by non-smooth mash. Cue me pushing nearly 5kg of steaming starch through a fine sieve. Ugh...oh, hello sweaty face. Butter, milk, salt and pepper complete the dish, but if I throw my humility to the side for one sentence, I can say that they were fantastic and truly worth the effort.  However I might ask Fat Xmas Man for a drum sieve. 


Finally, some homemade cranberry sauce, as well as some store bought cran (gotta have both), maple glazed carrots and freshly baked cornbread completed the feast. I ate too much.

Forgot to take snaps of the blueberry bread pudding, the pumpkin cheesecake and the chocolate chip cookies (see, I told you I was in the USA!); was that due to the Thanksgiving cocktails? Perhaps we'll never know. But it was a lovely day with family and friends, and I believe that the leftovers the next day might have been even better.


I'd love for Thanksgiving to come over to the UK - it wouldn't be the same, but I am confident the Brits could do a great adaptation of it. Perhaps that would start to make up for us heaving insufferable celebs upon you (I'm looking at you, Madge & Gwyneth), and yes, I could go on... 


Thanksgiving
USA (map) 
Fourth Thursday of November, yearly
website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving 


geek note: other than the image upload, which I was unable to do, and some minor reformatting, I was very excited to do this entire post on my new iPad. Thanks google.

MEATliqour

I openly acknowledge that my carnivorous street cred -- if such a thing exists, and I sort of hope it does -- has taken a beating lately.  Prior commitments and poor timing have conspired against me, and it was only today that I made it to MEATliquor.  Now those who don't fit into the aforementioned category will say, "Umm, what?  First of all, wtf kind of name is that, and second, didn't it just open officially last Friday?"  

To which I will reply, "Yes, it did, although there was a private opening, plus it unofficially opened the middle of last week, and, well, I like the name so consider us no longer friends."

However, there are those people, most probably the 3 of you reading this now, who are thinking, "Sucker, I've been 5x already....you're slow and pathetic."  No argument there.  But I made it, I did!

And man was it worth the wait.  It was slightly disconcerting upon entering, as there was sunlight (!) streaming through the windows, and the volume of the music was probably not even halfway to eleven.  As Yianni said to me when I ambled up to the bar, "You need to come back at night for the full experience."  And come back I shall.

The space strikes a clever balance between chaos and order: vivid, exciting and insane imagery paper the walls and ceiling (including the domed centrepiece); even the delicate arches have been splashed with black, red and white paint.  But the layout is very comfortable, with big booths lining 3 walls, and the rest of the seating is comprised of small round tables and high rectangular wooden blocks with stools scattered on their edges.

Anyhow, on to the business end: I had a quick chat with Yianni about the liquor menu, and seeing as I'd read multiple accounts of the English Breakfast Martini, I decided on that.  He informed me that they make their own vermouth, and when I enquired about the coating on the quail's egg, he said it was a sort of "bacon dust."  The martini itself was splendid; I'm not sure what recipe they used for the vermouth, as I've seen them contain anywhere from 2 to 25 herbs/berries....but this one definitely had some fruity/earthy aromatics, and it was lovely.  I was much less impressed with the quail's egg, as the coating tasted much more of dust than bacon sadly.

Now, the main event: based (again) on the many write-ups I've already drooled over, my menu was decided well before I stepped through the door: fried pickles, buffalo chicken burger, and a cheeseburger.  The pickles came first, and they were no disappointment: impossibly light and crisp batter gave way to a lovely thin slice of pickle, the taste of which reminded me very much indeed of the American brand Claussen -- not that it's a bad thing.  I grew up on those pickles, among many others.  But that batter: such a light coating - much more tempura than fish & chips - and perfectly seasoned.  Once dipped in the blue cheese sauce, it was the perfect combination of salt, vinegar, batter, cheese and involuntary low groans.

They were served on a bed of insipid, slightly browning chopped iceberg lettuce, which was a shame, as I would've used it to shuttle even more of the blue cheese sauce into my mouth.  

With that palate teaser out of the way, the burgers arrived shortly after, perched on a plastic tray covered in red/white patterned wax paper.  As the burgerer (what's the male equivalent of burgerette?) slid it onto my table, he said, "You made a very good decision."  Soon after, I couldn't agree more.  I've had the cheeseburger many times before, and I knew what to expect, but even so, that first bite was heavenly.  I love all sorts of burgers (as long as there's no egg, breadcrumbs, etc. involved), but these are my ideal.  I haven't yet made it up to Lucky Chip, so I can't make the side-by-side comparison that most do, but damn this was delicious - perfectly cooked with a glistening pink centre, and the salty crust on the top and bottom complementing the fatty meat well.  And this was a lovely coarse grind with a fantastic beefy flavour.  Atop the patty oozed a slather of melted American cheese goodness whilst below it lay some pickles, lettuce and red onion.  Yellow mustard and ketchup completed the innards, all delicately placed inside the signature bun - soft and yielding while somehow refusing to completely yield to the collective juices conspiring to tear it apart.

And then there's our friend the buffalo chicken burger - if that sounds even the least bit appealing to you, then I implore you, GO.  Actually, scratch that, the queues are growing exponentially day by day as it is.  But this is truly une révélation de poulet.  The chicken breast is the antithesis of the ubiquitous cottage/shack varieties that sponge up liquor at 2a.m.  Oh no, this is a plump, juicy number coated in a lovely breading, slightly thicker than that on the pickles, and then covered in a tangy buffalo sauce.  A slather of mayo and a bed of lettuce top the chicken, all of which are stuck inside that same perfect bun.  The vinegar in the sauce gives it acidity, there's a peppery element (sadly not spicy) to it as well, and then the mayo balances it out.  And what a poor description that is of such a spectacular sandwich.  To sum up: I sort of loved it.

So there we go: tons of food, all delicious, a good stiff drink, and I find myself £24.50 lighter -- that's without tip, and I most definitely added a deserved gratuity for the quick, friendly service.  I will be returning shortly, and often, and in the process I hope to (re)gain some of that precious meat cred that I so cravenly covet.  

Apologies for the rubbish pics; my camera battery was flashing "I'm dying!," and I snapped these clearly in haste and darkness.

MEATliquor

Henrietta & Welbeck

W1G 0BA (map)

http://www.meatliquor.com/

Tues - Sat, 12.00pm - 2.00am

WichThursday, Andrew's Café

Six years ago I was lunching with a bunch of my relatives in a posh hotel restaurant in Palm Beach, Florida.  We were discussing food options in London, and I moaned that "I have yet to find a good deli sandwich in London." An elderly gentleman passing our table leaned in slightly, and without breaking stride, said sadly, "And you won't."  

Hilariously well-timed as his response was, it rang (mostly) true for me for my 7+ years here.  It would appear, however, that the tide is turning.  The recently opened The Deli West One appears to have some promise (a mixed review here), and it's safe to say that everyone and his food blogging brother are eager for the imminent opening of Mishkins -- and based on the constant tweeting of menu-testing images from their kitchen, it looks damn good indeed.

Which brings me to last night.  Daniel Young, of youngandfoodish.com, organises some of the most fantastic one-off food events, most notably his Burger Mondays (some great reviews of which can be found here (Burgerac), here (the fork & corset), and here (Burgerme).  These sell out ridiculously fast; you snooze, etc. etc.  He has other events, CoffeeSaturday, PizzaTuesday, and SpaghettiWednesday, but this was the inaugural WichThursday.  The rundown was the following: get Dan from De Gustibus bakery to come and serve his amazing (and house-brined, not store-brought pre-brined rubbish) salt beef.  Daniel's other specs:

• I asked that his crusty, twice-baked sourdough rye be used instead of ciabatta
• I wanted authentic New York-style deli mustard in place of English, Dijon or grain mustard
• I requested that Andrea, De Gustibus’ best carver, set up a pop-up carvery in the middle of Andrew’s and hand-carve all the hot salt beef sandwiches to order.
• I demanded that Andrea leave all the fat on the salt beef. No unnecessary trimming.

(from: http://youngandfoodish.com/events/wichthursday/wichthursday-pops-up-with-de-gustibus-salt-beef/ )

Note that everything is a request up until the last one -- kudos, Daniel for standing firm on that one, for as we know, fat = flavour.

We hadn't even removed our coats before chilled Pale Ales from The Kernel brewery appeared on our table.  As I'm much more partial to bourbon than beer, I can't offer you an in-depth description of how its palate was redolent of a south facing hilltop meadow, but I will say that it had a slightly fruity taste, but not unpleasantly so, and that the 7.5% ABV became, err, more noticeable.

Starters were listed as "pork sliders" - there were 2 of these little fellas, one of which was a porchetta & salsa verde slider on a whole wheat bun, and the other was a chorizo version with a red cabbage salsa on a white bun.  These provided a couple of tasty bites each - the porchetta was very tender and porky, and the salsa verde, whilst not the strictly traditional version with anchovies and capers, was fresh and a good counterbalance to the fatty little pig piece.  The chorizo was also much closer to an Italian version, subtly spiced and almost pillowy soft.  Cabbage salsa went with it quite well, although the salsa on its own could've used perhaps a touch more seasoning.

On to the main event.  The carving station was in fact set up amongst the tables out front, and sadly I was not invited to pull up a chair and just have a go at eating it all myself.  Andrea clearly had been around a brisket or two before, his knife flashing through the tender meat, a mound of near-identical slices piling up rapidly.

Here's where prose (well, mine, at least) fail to deliver.  The rye, holding its own before finally yielding to my bite, the first hit of the subtly spiced mustard, and finally the soft, moist, unreal-oh-man-this-is-ridiculously-good meat....holy mother of jebus it was fantastic.  No need for a pile of garnishes, this was a perfect balance of 3 ingredients having a very jolly time together indeed.  There were some tasty bread & butter-style pickle slices on the side, and a plate of forgotten chips completed the lineup.

Finally we were served a brioche & butter pudding.  My dining companion for the evening is not a cinnamon fan, and despite the liberal presence of said spice in the dish, he, too finished his.  The brioche was very well made, light and airy and not suffering from the heaviness that afflicts those prepared with less care.  It was surprisingly not heavy, and it proved to be a very tasty end to the night.

We sat for a bit longer finishing our beers before finally waddling out, sated and happy but not too full at all.  I easily could've had another sandwich, but that's down solely to the fact that it was so damn good.  I eagerly await the next WichThursday, and I am happy to alert the gentleman from Florida that he is in fact mistaken.

WichThursday

Andrews Café

160 Gray's Inn Road

WC1X 8ED (map)
http://youngandfoodish.com/events/