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Wednesday, January 12, 2011

*** Thanksgiving Feast ***

Happy New Year!!! I know am a little late to wish all of you. But hey I just got from a months vacation, yes was in the Gods Own Country for Xmas and New Year. It was nice to be home with parents and get pampered. More details on the vacation would be on the postings about something we adapted from Kerala. Now its back to my pending postings since Nov 2010.

Lets go back to the Thanksgiving Day. Now Thanksgiving Day is of course celebrated as a harvest festival in North American countries. Americans and Canadians celebrate it to thank bountiful harvest for the year. Thanksgiving is celebrated in America on the fourth Thursday of November. Traditionally there is a Turkey feast prepared on this day and the whole family meet to celebrate. Now why Turkey on this day, well this made me curious and did some research on that. There were many stories around, two reasons sounded sensible for me. One is that cows and hens were more useful way back than just meat like milk and eggs. Also commercial beef was more available only by the 19th century. The other reason was Turkeys usually born during spring will eat around worms and insects from the farm and will be ready for slaughter by fall season and also they were cheaper.

Now for us Thanksgiving Day is an awaited long weekend and also great day for shopping. I was really thankful this year for many reasons. We had a splendid dinner at my sister in law's with the tradional turkey feast on the eve of Thanksgiving. So I decided to make the Thanksgiving lunch. Of course didnt want to have the turkey feast again, so settled for the roasted chicken. I did have a helping hand for this day. One of our friend Jay and their little princess Vrinda got 3 dishes. We definitely had a feast. Here goes the menu - Oven Roasted Chicken, Chicken Stuffing, Baked Garden, Cuben Rice (Vrinda & Jay), Potato Skins (Vrinda & Jay) and Apple Pie (Vrinda).

Doesnt this look delicious?....




Lets start with the recipies..

Oven Roasted Chicken

Ingredients:
- Whole Chicken
- 1 Lemon
- 1 whole Garlic (10 cloves)
- 2 tble spn Chilli Powder
- 2 tble spn Corriander Powder
- 1 tble spn freshly grounded Pepper
- Bunch of Corriander Leaves
- 2 tble spn Olive oil
- Salt to taste
- String

Method:
1. Wash the whole chicken with skin thoroughly and pat dry with a cloth. Rub the chicken with olive oil.
2. Preheat the oven at 450 degree.
3. Mix all the powdered masala and salt with half lemon juice, set aside. Stuff the chicken with the half lemon, garlic cloves and the corriander leaves.
4. Apply the masala paste on the chicken. I have given this an Indian flavor, thus spicy. You may add the spices according to your taste.
5. Catch the ends of the legs and tie it with the strings so that the stuffing stays in tack. Keep it aside for 15 mins.
6. Transfer the prepared chicken to a baking dish and place it into the oven. Roast the chicken for almost 45 mins. For every pound it takens about 15 mins to cook. So set the time according to the weight of the chicken.

Volaa here is the oven roasted chicken...




Chicken Stuffing

Ingredients:
- 1 pack Boneless Chicken
- 2 tble spn Olive oil
- 10 small Mushrooms
- 1 Bell Pepper
- 1 large Onion
- 2 tble spn crushed Pepper
- 2 tble spn crushed Paprika
- 1 tble spn Soya sauce
- 1 tble spn hot Chilli sauce
- Salt to taste

Method:
1. Wash and clean the boneless chicken. Cut the chicken into very small peices. Set aside.
2. In a large wok, add olive oil and heat for 1 min. Add finely chopped onions, bell pepper and mushrooms to this. Saute for 5 mins.
3. To this add the cut chicken and cook for another 5 mins. Cook without cover.
4. Add crushed pepper, paprika, salt, soya sauce and chilli sauce. Saute well
5. Cook the chicken for another 10 mins and serve hot. Its basically stir frying the chicken with the veggies.

Since the chicken is cut into very fine peices, it cooks faster.



Baked Garden

Don't get scared on the facy name I gave the dish. Its just oven baking the fresh veggies. I added the veggies which I had in the fridge like potatos, french beans, onions, bell pepers, broccoli, carrots. Cut and wash them thoroghly.

Sprinkle some oil, salt and crushed pepper. Bake them for about 15 mins and its ready. This is a very healthy dish and assure you any veggie hater would love this.




The Cuban Rice and Potato Skins will be in the next part of the Thanksgiving Feast. Since I am not the source of these two recipies, it will be posted shortly. For the apple pie, you can refer to my posting Crostata. You just have to use apples here.

Enjoy the feast and meet you shortly with the rest of the recipies !!!!!

1 comment:

  1. we are going to try Oven Roasted Chicken...:))

    Suresh, Sindhu & Aditya

    ReplyDelete