While Thanksgiving evokes traditions of a juicy turkey roasted for hours, basted in its own juices, stuffed with bread and seasonings and trimmed with all of the other fixings, the holiday also presents an opportunity for International adventure. We are, after all, a country built on immigrants bringing their own traditions and their own flavors from all over the world. Why not honor our diversity?
My family has been doing just that since I was a child. My mother infused our Thanksgiving dinners, year after year, with her Sicilian heritage. She added succulent Italian sausage to the stuffing. She slipped in an octopus salad alongside steaming sweet potatoes, and she never served a meal with out fresh-baked Italian bread from Cantoro Italian Market in Livonia. She also never served a holidy meal, whether it was Thanksgiving or Christmas, without her authentic arancini.
From time to time, my mother's culinary curiosity crossed borders of her own heritage. I recall her giving our Thanksgiving meal a little British twist with the addition of Yorkshire pudding. In other years, she experimented with different recipes for stuffing.
My husband, Jay, and I continue the tradition of bringing diversity to our Thanksgiving table. Our first Thanksgiving on our own, we took every traditional dish and gave it a gourmet twist. We soaked our turkey in a brine. That became Jay's pet project for the holiday starting the night before. We added a gourmet twist to the stuffing by adding pinenuts and apples. I contributed the meal with delicious creme fraiche biscuits that I shaped into leaves with cookie cutters. Another year, we chose a variation on an Asian theme. Because it was just the two of us, we we used a turkey breast instead of a full turkey. Jay gave the turkey breast a Thai twist with peanut sauce. I made an Asian-style crandberry sauce with a hint of ginger. In addition to giving us an opportunity to experiment with different flavors, Thanksgiving gives us the opportunity to have fun in the kitchen together. When that happens, the result is always something good and unique.
Below is an easy ginger almond cranberry sauce to diversify your Thanksgiving table.
Ginger Almond Cranberry Sauce
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
1 12 oz. bag of cranberries
1/2 cup of slivered blanched almonds
1/2 teaspoon orange zest
1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
Method
1. Rinse and pick over cranberries. Bring water to boil in a saucepan and stir in sugar. Stir in cranberries and bring to boil. Reduce to simmer until cranberries burst.
2. During simmer, add almonds, orange zest and fresh ginger.
3. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature. Chill before serving.
Comments