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Brawnfire
Jul 13, 2004

🎧Listen to Cylindricule!🎵
https://linktr.ee/Cylindricule

My wife and I had a friend over for a thanksgiving-style meal, so I decided to do all my cranberry stuff in one glorious weekend. I started saturday with prep, and didn't really stop cooking (actively or inactively) until dessert. So, that was fun. Now I get to go back to work tomorrow.


The menu:

Turkey Wellington
Vodka Cranberry
Butternut Squash Ice Cream with Cranberry Swirls and Chestnuts


TURKEY WELLINGTON

Cranberry sauce:


feelin' mighty zesty

cooking

popping

throw in some fresh ones, and let cool



The turkey:

One fine, supple breast

trimmed

RAARRRRRGHHHH


Cranberry sauce!

roll up the breast and give it a tie, put it in the pan, ready to fry
not a great picture, but I enjoyed my little setup here. Really made things easier.



The stuffing:
seasoned bread crumbs (from homemade bread!)

sausage

onions

toasting some chestnuts for to be CHOPPED!!!

throw it all together

add some egg and chill for a bit

The pastry:

wow this is a bad picture: mixing frozen butter chunks into pastry dough

rolling it out


Assembling the wellington:


BACON

STUFFING

TURKEY LOG

WRAPP'T

THE BIGGEST BURRITO


Chilled, and ready to bake:


The sauce:
Browned some onions, added honey and rw vinegar and half a bottle red wine

boil, reduce half, add stock, boil, simmer

butter and flour, boil, simmer, strain
it never really looks different, just sort of thicker and darker so I stopped photographing
Baked:


Cut open:




A slice:



COCKTAIL HOUR

Juicing:


Making a simple syrup:

boiling/steeping cranberries for juice:

straining

Ice cubes have cranberries, even! Glaivin!


The drink:

Oz vodka

Cranberry juice

simple syrup

Stir, add ice


ROASTED BUTTERNUT SQUASH ICE CREAM W/CRANBERRY SWIRLS, CHESTNUTS

Roast your butternut squash


Steeping spices, vanilla bean in milk:

Oh don't mind me just makin' some custard

Mix custard into butternut squash guts:

Chill that poo poo overnight.

Pop it up in a fine ice cream maker:





Throw in some cranberry sauce and chestnut bits towards the end:


Ice cream:

nice photo, genius


Thoughts:

1.) The Wellington is delicious. It tastes like a colonial thanksgiving came in your mouth. Everything tastes like turkey, and like sausage, and like bacon, and like pastry, it's just... I almost cried.
2.) The cocktail I'm really happy with. It tasted like drinking cranberry sauce, and we got pretty buzzed off a few.
3.) The ice cream turned out a little frostier than I expected, but the flavor profile was out of this world. So much happening, it was like a story unwinding. A+, would make again.
4.) I've never made custard before, I curdled it a bit but I think it came out great in the end!
5.) I've also never made puff pastry before. Delicious, and so easy! I'm going to do this more often!
7.) Somehow, while cooking and steeping the cranberries to make juice, the lid became steam-sealed to the pot. I had to use a flatbar to get it off. I actually think the pressure made the juice better, so use a pressure cooker I guess?
8.) Rolling out bacon is really funny.

Thank you so much psychokitty for starting this NICSA, it was a lot of fun and I learned at least three new things! Looking forward to seeing what others have got, and also looking forward to the next one!

Brawnfire fucked around with this message at 16:32 on Nov 23, 2015

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Suspect Bucket
Jan 15, 2012

SHRIMPDOR WAS A MAN
I mean, HE WAS A SHRIMP MAN
er, maybe also A DRAGON
or possibly
A MINOR LEAGUE BASEBALL TEAM
BUT HE WAS STILL
SHRIMPDOR
This looks excellent!

Brawnfire
Jul 13, 2004

🎧Listen to Cylindricule!🎵
https://linktr.ee/Cylindricule

Suspect Bucket posted:

This looks excellent!

Thanks very much!

Cavenagh
Oct 9, 2007

Grrrrrrrrr.
Good looking cranberrying.

Did the bacon cook okay? It's fat is good for the turkey, but I would be worried that it wouldn't render out that well and you rubbery bacon fat and bacon in the Wellington.

Brawnfire
Jul 13, 2004

🎧Listen to Cylindricule!🎵
https://linktr.ee/Cylindricule

I rolled it out between two pieces of cling wrap until it was very thin, so in the end it cooked through perfectly. It was soft enough to fork through.

psychokitty
Jun 29, 2010

=9.9=
MEOW
BITCHES

Fantastic entry. Very creative and A+ for effort.

rysfade
Mar 31, 2009
I want to eat all of that, but especially that Wellington. Good job!

Brawnfire
Jul 13, 2004

🎧Listen to Cylindricule!🎵
https://linktr.ee/Cylindricule

psychokitty posted:

Fantastic entry. Very creative and A+ for effort.

Thanks! I felt like challenging myself, haha


rysfade posted:

I want to eat all of that, but especially that Wellington. Good job!

This was my first Wellington of any sort (Beef or turkey) and it was worth every bit of effort. What a showpiece, too!

Ben Nevis
Jan 20, 2011
Yeah, love the Weillington, that just looks great. The ice cream sounds really nice as well. There probably ought to be more ice creams with cranberries.

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Brawnfire
Jul 13, 2004

🎧Listen to Cylindricule!🎵
https://linktr.ee/Cylindricule

Ben Nevis posted:

Yeah, love the Weillington, that just looks great. The ice cream sounds really nice as well. There probably ought to be more ice creams with cranberries.

I'm actually surprised there isn't, it's an amazing flavor. Especially with the butternut squash ice cream. If I did chestnuts again, which I might not, I'd either mince them more finely or sprinkle them atop the scoop.

Thanks for the comments!

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