My Cousin and I decided that we would prepare this year's Thanksgiving feast! We made our list and bought everything we needed and man did it add up. Especially on the day of when we decided to buy Cambodian rice noodles aka kathew phnom penh for breakfast, But it's ok we were happy to do it plus we were starving.
I was in charge of the turkey this year! It isn’t my first time preparing the turkey but it was my first time brining it. My mom offered to buy the turkey and she bought like the biggest one she could find it was a 23lb bird! I had a few choice words that I won't mention while preparing the turkey having to carry it back and forth from the garage to the kitchen so many times.
The recipe we used is from Alton Brown’s Good Eats Roast Turkey. I’ve never tried this recipe before and had no idea how it was going to turn out. It was very easy preparing the brine for the turkey it just took a lot of time to cool it off. I had to add half more of every ingredient since the turkey was so large.
Preparing the brine for the turkey
The turkey is in!
The night before Thanksgiving we made the mash potatoes. While we were peeling the potatoes we told our mothers and grandma ahead of time to not do anything and relax but of course they would come into the kitchen and try to do somethings. It started with my grandma then my mom, my aunt stayed on the sofa so I was glad she didn’t try to come into the kitchen.
While waiting for the potatoes to boil we ended up playing some card games and tried this Korean drink called makgeolli for the first time. I had no idea what to expect but I expected not to like it since soju is a pretty strong Korean drink as well and the first time I had soju it K.Oed me. But! I did like it! It was smooth tasted like a light beer like watered down beer. Mixing the makgeolli with sprite makes it 10x’s better! Do it! Another drink we had for the night was Pineapple Soju. I love pineapple and I figured pineapple soju would be great and it was! It was so good I could probably drink that whole bottle to myself. Not that I would…. Anyway, it’s sweet and goes down easy delicious!
So on to the potatoes, my cousin in law made it by adding garlic powder, salt, and heavy whipping cream. It turned out amazing very smooth and creamy.
While waiting for the potatoes to boil we ended up playing some card games and tried this Korean drink called makgeolli for the first time. I had no idea what to expect but I expected not to like it since soju is a pretty strong Korean drink as well and the first time I had soju it K.Oed me. But! I did like it! It was smooth tasted like a light beer like watered down beer. Mixing the makgeolli with sprite makes it 10x’s better! Do it! Another drink we had for the night was Pineapple Soju. I love pineapple and I figured pineapple soju would be great and it was! It was so good I could probably drink that whole bottle to myself. Not that I would…. Anyway, it’s sweet and goes down easy delicious!
So on to the potatoes, my cousin in law made it by adding garlic powder, salt, and heavy whipping cream. It turned out amazing very smooth and creamy.
We turned in for the night after finishing the mash potatoes and in the early morning guess who came banging on my door and telling me to get the turkey in the oven because it takes 8 hours for a turkey that size… My aunt… In the end, all 3 of them butted in one way or another. We'll never get our parents to relax. haha.. The turkey only took 5 and a half hours
Anyway, after I agreed so she would quiet down. I went downstairs to chat with my cousins before getting the turkey ready. That morning the whole house was so cold! I had my cousin help me carry the turkey from the garage to the kitchen it was so heavy and overfilled with liquid we had to be so careful to not spill anything. When we finally got to the kitchen I had to get it out of the freezing ice cold water my hands got numb my left pinky and ring finger stayed numb for a couple of hours after dealing with the turkey and I did get a little worry. But it’s ok. So I washed the turkey and dried it well, added the aromatics, and rubbed it with butter then stuck it in the oven.
A couple hours later we worked on the ham. I’ve never used this recipe either but it came out amazing. I never favored holiday ham but this one was great! I will leave the link to the turkey and the ham recipe at the bottom of the post.
After the turkey and ham came out we left it to rest while we warmed up the mash potatoes and made the stuffing. I was so tired from cooking and waking up so early my body ached and I thought, wow my mom used to do this every year with barely any help. Much respect because I was sore all over.
When everything finished we had dinner and everything turned out so well! The turkey was moist the ham was flavorful, and everything else was on point. It was tiring but in the end, it was all worth it! Barely any leftovers compared to other years when we just bought pre-cooked turkeys.
Who knows we might do this again next year. But next year I will just sacrifice the big turkey and do 2 medium size turkeys instead. I did end up spraining my wrist dealing with that turkey but it’s better now after wrapping it for a couple of days.
I hope everyone who celebrated Thanksgiving had a wonderful time with their friends and family!
The end result to our Thanksgiving Feast!
The rest of the makgeolli and soju we saved for Thanksgiving day.
The peach makgeolli is sweet I like it and the grapefruit soju is good but has a little bitter taste to it.
Don't mind the background some people were playing pool
Here is the link to the Turkey and Ham recipes.
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/140279/cola-easter-ham/
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