I know, I know, I know...its been ages since my last post, but finally, I have the Thanksgiving pictures ready. Thanksgiving ingredients were fairly hard to come by here and so buying a turkey was alittle like making a drug deal. I saw an add on thebeijinger.com website asking if a group of people wanted to get together to make a mass turkey buy. On the appointed day and time, I met my contact in front of the People Daily Paper building and pick up my 6kg turkey. the price was 18 RMB per jin (roughly a pound, but more accuratedly half a kilo), so it ended up costing about 240 RMB, or 35$ dollars, for a 12 lb turkey. This was a pretty good deal, as it was a Chinese turkey, rather than an imported one, which would have cost about 40 RMB per jin. I ended up marinading the turkey for a day in white wine, apples, carrots, onions, garlic, fresh thyme and rosemary.

And here she is...it was definately packaged Chinese style. First, the guts were not in a nice sanitary paper bag...they were still attached to the cavity of the bird!!! I had to wrench the heart and kidneys free--pretty gross. Also, while the neck was detached from the bird, the nec skin had not been trimmed, so my turkey had a big turtleneck. the breast was not as plump its american counterparts (which could be a general statement about the differences in China and the US).I couldn't find bread crumbs for stuffing, so I made my own. I took a couple french bagettes and tossed them with garlic, thyme and rosemary and olive oil. Usually I would make stuffing with sausage, pecans, wild rice, celery, green onion and carrot, but since we had a vegetarian, a buddist and someone allergic to nuts, I had to skip the first two.

I also make a plate of grilled balsamic veggies for an appetizer...it included red onions, zuchini, squash, green peppers, mushrooms and a couple of cloves of roasted garlic. I topped it with a string of tomatoes still on the vine....it was really delicious.
We invited a dozen people to join us...evenone had to bring a bottle of wine/booze and a dish to pass. We started out with bloody marys and mimosas and then quickly moved on to mojitos (made by a venezuelan!!).

One of our guests, Maggie, brought mashed potatoes. She originally was just going to bring a recipe-derived mashed potatoes with olives, but as one of my american classmates told her, "Don't bring that, it will ruin everything", she opted for half olive potates and half wasabi potatoes. With alittle help from Oscar, she served some great mashers.The turkey was the star, of course. I ended roasting it upside down for a couple hours to increase the juiciness of the white meat. Most Chinese don't like turkey because its so dry, so I really worked hard on getting the meat perfectly juicy.

As you can see below, the 12 lb turkey was a close fit for my oven.The upside down roasting doesn't ensure perfectly browned skin, but Cliff and I aren't skin people, so it doesn't both us.

After removing the bird from the oven, I let it rest, breast side down, for about 30 min. Then, it was carving time!!!The food looked great, we hard turkey, stuffing, brie cheese, two salads, mashed potates, sweet potatoes and mashed spiced sweet potatoes, and a parmesean rice dish.


We all enjoyed our dinner...I got some great compliments on the dishes.


We also has dessert. I made pumpkin-mascarepone cheese mousse, topped with spiced walnuts.
Our German friend, Verena, brought a homemade German apple cake. She served it with vanilla ice cream--it was sssssssoooooo good.

Since it was the start of the season and almost everybody knew we shipped a xmas tree, we had several requests to decorate during the party. Cliff and maggie spent dessert time putting up the tree.

and, what party would be complete without alittle rock band?
We had a great first Thanksgiving in Beijing with our new Beijing family. The food was great, the drinks flowed freely, but of course, it was the company that made it a night to remember.