NFL WEEK 12: A WHITE CASTLE THANKSGIVINGI've been reading, hearing and dreaming about a Thanksgiving turkey stuffed with White Castle sliders. This Sunday, that dream became a reality...Step One: Procure a turkey and 15 to 30 White Castle sliders, along with the ingredients to make whatever other festive holiday sides you're in the mood for.
Be warned: the most difficult part of this recipe will be not eating all of the White Castles before they make it into the bird. Luckily our bird would only hold 12 burgers so the 30 piece "Crave Case" we bought held up to the initial snacking period before the bird stuffing commenced.
Just holding the Crave Case is guaranteed to bring a smile to your face...
Step Two: Prep the bird and the stuffing. Lauren scrubbed our 12 pound turkey with coarse salt, a tip forced on her by a woman in-line behind us at the grocery store on 125th street last Thanksgiving. In a trend that would continue throughout the day, I took on the easier task: quartering the sliders to make the stuffing. Although using just White Castle would probably have tasted pretty good, we bolstered the stuffing with the traditional ingredients of chopped celery, onion, an egg and chicken stock. I also tossed in a couple of diced habañero's (couldn't resist)
Managed to eat another 3 burgers during this phase of production...
Step Three: Buttering and stuffing the bird. Before we shoved our burger-slurry into the cavity, we took measures to prevent the dreaded turkey dry-out that's plagued Thanksgiving for centuries. We roasted 3 heads of garlic with a little red-pepper and mashed it mashed into a stick of butter; This bowl full of fresh garlic-butter was then massaged into the bird both under it's skin and inside it's cavity. Now comes the fun part - We were able to compress 12 chopped sliders into the turkey. Then we garnished it with an additional 2 burgers peeking out the cavity and another two tucked under the bird's wings just for looks. We also tucked 3 or 4 thick slices of slab bacon under the skin, just to keep with the theme of excess.
The fully prepped raw bird, greased, stuffed and ready to rock...
The Side Dishes: A non-traditional turkey deserves some non-traditional side dishes and plenty of them. Ben took his mainstay mashed potatoes to the next level by concocting what we could only describe as "seven-layer twice-baked potato casserole". This side was a meal in-itself; Garlic-onion mashed potatoes layered like lasagna between pork, cheddar, bacon, jalapeño's and too many mouth-watering indulgences to recall. This was then baked and finished with sour cream and fresh chives.
Layering in the cheddar...
Lauren's twist on dressing involved the most neglected form of cheese: orange flavor-dust. Her Cheeto-chirizo, stuffing left out the predictable stale bread crunch and went for Chester the Cheetah's favorite cheesy crunch: Cheetos! She also spiced it up a bit by replacing the traditional sausage with chirizo and of course snuck some habeñeros in there...
In the words of Chester: "It ain't easy being cheesy"
Appetizers: As if we didn't have enough food, Lauren made a modified version of the empanadas from week 9. She crafted 2 batches: The first contained seasoned beef, peppers, onions and raisins with a melty Gouda surprise in the center, The second consisted of chirizo with jalapeños and monterrey jack.
Lauren's "Pilgrim's Pockets"...
The Thanksgiving Feast: Our bird emerges from the oven as the guests begin to arrive. Jamison and Andrew have been slaving away on not one but too desserts: Andrew's mother's tried and true apple crumb pie and a traditional pumpkin pie. Both pies featured a labor intensive homemade crust. The apple crumb pie kept with the brand-name food trend by using an unexpectedly delicious topping of crumbled Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Unlike the Cheetos and White Castle junk-food elements the Cinnamon Toast Crunch was subtle and effective; If you weren't looking for it you never would've realized you were eating a children's breakfast cereal.
Andrew and Jamison's apple crumb pie...
Phil arrived home from work (on a Sunday?!) just in time to carve up the turkey, while Ben sliced up his monumentally thick potato casserole and I put the final whisks on the turkey gravy. Keeping with the holiday tradition, moments after the last plate had been cleared, more than one of us were snoring away on the couch - the tell-tale sign of a perfect Thanksgiving Feast.
The finished product...
Buffet-style service...
5 points for plating and yes, that purple disk is the classic "jellied" cranberry suace...
The Titan's finally lost, and the Lions... well they'll have another chance to get off the snide on the real Thanksgiving...
