I’m back. Thanksgiving.

I don’t know why I felt compelled to blog tonight despite my long absence.  Maybe it’s because I am sadly attached to a pager and have run out of things I can do with a pager (no inebriation or long, fruitless subway rides for me……)

But Happy Thanksgiving!!!!  This year, 2/3 of the Ying clan was MIA, so it was up to big sis and me to uphold the Thanksgiving tradition.  We are both not what you would call domestic, but over the last year or so, I have been cooking a lot more than I use to.

As there were only 3 adults and 1 child to cook for, making a big turkey seemed too effort-laden to be worth it so this was the menu:

1. Thomas Keller’s Simple Roast Chicken (so simple, so good)

2. Momofuku style brussel sprouts (more on this later)

3. Latkes – a classic

4. Sweet potato + normal potato fries

5. Apple crumble with vanilla ice cream

First up, Thomas Keller’s roast chicken.  This is one of those internet food memes (along with that no knead bread recipe I’ve been meaning to make…….someone buy me a dutch oven! Wait! Someone buy me an apartment with a kitchen large enough to hold a dutch oven and I’ll buy the pot myself…..and make you bread as often as you’d like) that you hear about over and over and when you try it you are still blown away.  The simplicity is mind boggling.

The ingredients list includes:

1 chicken

salt and pepper

….that’s it. The thyme, butter, and mustard are optional.  I opted only for the thyme.  In fact, I picked up some lovely very lemony lemon thyme from St. Lawrence North Market yesterday morning.  I made my sister buy the chicken, and of course she wanted antibiotic free which Loblaws sold out of, and so she picked up the 3 lb fowl from Cumbrae’s. Fancy.  I S&P’d the chicken and one hour later I took the little clucker out of the oven and sprinkled some thyme on…..divine.

Next up, Momofuku brussel sprouts.  Now I haven’t actually eaten at any of Thomas Keller’s restaurants (but I did have a bite of my brother’s brioche from Bouchon Bakery and stalked Per Se, made googly eyes at the menu and took pictures with the blue doors) but I have eaten the original Momofuku brussel sprouts on a visit to New York earlier this year.  I still remember my reaction of incredulity when the pretentious waiter from Momofuku Ssam suggested the brussel sprouts as a classic fav.  He was right.

Now, not to get all stream-of-consciousness on all 5 of my readers, but I think this was how things unfolded:

Waiter puts brussel sprouts dish on the table. WTF? This dish does not look un-maggoty……..I am highly skeptical. First bite of sprout taken.  Proceed to stare at the dish as if my eyes will shoot out lasers and set alight a brussel sprouty inferno. What is going oooooooon?  This is amazing. Transcendent. No. Really. What is going on?  Is this some kind of trick?  Another bite taken. No, that last bite wasn’t a dream, these sprouts are real…..

This kind of went on for the next 10 minutes or so.  Since that time, I have made the dish a few times at home (with a few adjustments obviously) and it is a tweenietoes staple.  So easy to make and relatively healthy as I don’t deep fry the veggies like they do at Ssam, but rather bake the sprouts until their natural caramel-y sweetness surface.

Here is a pic of the original dish and the dish I made for Thanksgiving tonight:

Next, I asked that my sister and her hubby make a couple side dishes, and in the true autumnal spirit, they made latkes and sweet potato/normal potato fries.  The fries were seasoned with a pinch of cinnamon and cumin to give it some warmth and latkes…..what can I say? True comfort food.

We finished off with some apple crumble (I have made a ridiculous number of these this season) and vanilla ice cream.  And my 21 month old niece made some birthday cupcakes for me (my birthday is in January).

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Tags: thanksgiving