The kalkoen (turkey) was 4 kilos, or almost 9 pounds and ridiculously expensive at 12.50 Euro per kilo. It also required a fair amount of prep, including pulling the lungs out. My Thanksgiving gratitude surrounded the fact I had recently watched an episode of Masterchef: The Professionals in which they prepared a wood pigeon, so I could identify this organ.
At the price of prime rib, I was terrified I would ruin the turkey, but it turns out I cooked it beautifully. I prepared it by rinsing it thoroughly and pulling out all the gross bits, rubbing it with a lemon, stuffing it loosely with a red onion, some sliced leaks, celery tops a couple of cloves of garlic and a few slices of lemon. Then I rubbed it with olive oil and a mixture of course salt and paprika. I placed a piece of british bacon on the breast and back and trussed it. Thankfully the legs fit nicely in the little flap of skin on it's bottom and the wing tips were already missing, so trussing it was really easy. I cooked it breast down, started it at about 450' F, then roasted it for a couple of hours at 350' F, then turned it over and convection roasted it for about a half hour. It was moist and juicy and flavorful. Sorry, no photos. I was a little busy with the cooking and totally forgot!
I also made cranberry sauce (this was supposed to be an activity for M and his friend West Coast L, but they basically snubbed me when it was time to make the cranberries, so I ended up making it myself. It came out really nice despite the fact that it had a very strange smell during the cooking process (maybe this is normal--I had never made cranberries before).
I served it with a pinot noir. One of the bottles broke as I opened it, but there was plenty for the four of us in one bottle, especially since one guest preferred white wine.
For desert we had HEMA appelvlaai (pictured) with some cream that Peter whipped by hand.
