Thanksgiving Dinner--At Last!

I cooked Thanksgiving dinner on Friday night, one day late. It turned out perfectly.

I roasted the turkey with pearl onions--at Lou's request--and celery. I pasted the top of the breast with melted butter, salt and pepper and cooked it for about an hour and fifteen minutes at 350 degrees. The top of the breast lightly browned and the meat turned out to be moist and juicy. Lou and I ate two slices each (probably no more than a half a pound, and it was a 5 pound turkey).

The sides also turned out well--mashed potatoes with garlic, mascarpone, covered in butter soaked leeks and broccoli rabe lightly sauteed in olive oil with a dash of salt, pepper and red pepper flakes. It was a hit. Lou liked the dinner, and he's no easy critic.

I was most pleased with the results of my biscotti, which I had made on Wednesday afternoon and evening before getting sick. Though not darkly browned, the biscotti were soft and crumbly both on Thursday when Lou first tried them (I was still too sick to eat them) and on Friday when we finished them off with the Vin Santo. I used the Zuni Cafe cookbook recipe, and my only displeasure with them was that I found the licorice flavor overpowering to the flavor of the pistachios. I would have preferred a better balance or an outright pistachio flavor. Lou disagreed and thought they were perfect. I was just happy that they didn't turn out hard as bricks.

What I think is funny about the whole process is that unlike with most everything else--turkey for example--the trick to cooking biscotti well is not to worry about overcooking them, but to worry instead about undercooking them. Judy Rogers instructs her readers not to undercook them, so I was sure to let them stay in the oven longer than called for--about 25 minutes in all, which was at least 5 minutes more than she recommended--and even then I was afraid to pull them out because of softness of the dough. It seems that cooking them properly requires cooking them long enough for the baking powder to do its job--whatever that is--and then allowing them to cool and harden outside the oven.

Given the speed with which Lou ate up the biscotti on Thursday and Friday, I think I'll be sure to try making another batch some time soon.