The turkey thing was easy. Clean it, sprinkle a bit of seasoning on it, stick it in the oven at the same temperature as everything else but a good slice of time beforehand, and forget about it.
The sweetcorn thing was a recipe
scarlatti lifted out of the Washington Post from Wednesday of last week.I've translated the quantities in the newspaper into the sort of way I use to measure quantities at home, and described the ingredients using British English.
Take an amount of onion about half the size of a fist, and cut it into bits about the size of sweetcorn kernels.
Melt a bit of unsalted butter about the size of two thumbs, and use it to cook the onion until it softens and goes transparent.
Get a half-kilo bag of frozen sweetcorn and put it into boiling water for a minute or so -- long enough to make it warm and ensure that it's not frozen any more.
Get a bowl. Beat a couple of eggs with about the same volume of cream. I used "heavy whipping cream", but in the UK I'd probably use double cream. Add the sweetcorn and the cooked onion with its butter. Add about a quarter of a pound of grated cheese. If you feel like it, add some chopped parsley, some marjoram, whatever else comes to hand. pour it into a buttered dish and sprinkle paprika on top, and put it in the oven at 350°F (180°C) for 45 minutes.
The sweet potato thing was a recipe from a ring binder full of things in
scarlatti's mother's handwriting.Cook some sweet potatoes in their jackets, then peel them and mash them with butter and cream. Throw in a solid quantity of brown sugar -- about an eighth of the amount of sweet potato you're using. Make sure it's well mixed.
Put the result into a dish and then sprinkle small marshmallows on top. Put it in the oven and let the marshmallows melt and go a little brown -- about 20 minutes at the same temperature as the other things being cooked.
The croissants came prefabricated in a little cardboard tube with the Pillsbury Dough Boy on the outside. Just tear the goo inside into separate triangles, roll them up and shape them, and put them on a baking sheet in the top of the oven with everything else. They need about 12 minutes.
So that was Thanksgiving lunch, as prepared by myself in
scarlatti's kitchen. Go us.Butterscotch Banana Cheesecake later.
