Thanksgiving Preparation

Last night, after a long day and some time recovering from it on the sofa, I got up and went back to the kitchen. It was time to prepare some of the food I would need in order to assemble the dish I am taking to some friends’ gathering for Thanksgiving dinner. It was very nice of them to invite me and so I am making something special to take along to contribute. It has been a busy semester, so it is nice to put aside a bit of time to do some slightly more elaborate culinary endeavours than normal. (Click any photo for a larger view.)

Round one.

First off was a preparation of a salsa roja, which I prefer to make from scratch and have a fresh warm flavour to it. You can see in the photograph most of my ingredients laid out, ready to go for quick assembly. This is all about intense flavours combining together and letting each other shine through, and not making something that is overwhelming in one aspect, like too much of one type of pepper or another. I’ve ground some cinnamon (actually, cassia bark – see recent post) to simmer into it as well, which I think will help the salsa bring a lovely component to the whole dish once it is assembled later today. One starts with sautéing of the onions for a while (in olive oil), later adding the salt, cumin, cinnamon, and so forth. Then once that’s all nicely translucent, it is time to add the chopped tomatoes (from a can – my Summer tomato crop from the garden is over), then the pureed chipotle I prepared in the blender (from canned chipotles I found in my local Jon’s), and then let it simmer slowly for 25 minutes or so.

Round two.

Ah. One of my favourite things to make. Polenta. I’ve got the ingredients all laid out again, and most of the work in making polenta is in being patient. Once the water boils, one has to be on call for the next 25 minutes. I use a whisk, moving fast all the time, to stir in the corn. I pour it in by making a thin waterfall of it, which I whisk in gradually until it is all in. If you just dump it in, you’ll get a lumpy mess. Not good. Then a bit of salt, and then a lot of stirring, with it on low heat. And when you think you are done stirring, stir some more. You’re getting all that moisture to go away, getting it absorbed into the corn. At some point they’ll have transformed, having puffed up into nice plump soft grains. Stir some more. In fact, hardly ever stop stirring since it will immediately begin to burn. Not good.

Eventually, after about 25 minutes, you’re at the point where your spoon can stand up in it forever. It is ready. Then I turn off the heat and stir in some pepper, cheese (this time some smoked mozzarella and some parmesan – both grated of course) and a bit of cayenne pepper. I quickly turn it out into a buttered 9×13 baking dish and flatten it out evenly as best I can.

Ok, that is the preparation done. Later, I’ll make the actual dish, which will combine all the above with more ingredients into a tasty final product, which can be a main dish on its own, but today will be a side at my friends’ Thanksgiving gathering. I wonder if you can guess what it is going to be. (For those interested in doing a similar dish, I’ve mostly followed the ever-wonderful “Field of Greens”, by Annie Somerville, which I’ve featured on this blog before.)

I’ll update you on it all later. If you are celebrating it – Happy Thanksgiving!

-cvj