Thanksgiving, pt. 4

It's a good thing I divided up all the cooking and did as much as I could ahead of time, because I think I spent at least 6 hours in the kitchen on Friday before the guests arrived (and quite some time even after).

I started by preparing the iced tea that would later go into the Boston Iced Tea. I boiled 2 liters of water, let 15 bags of plain black tea (Lipton Yellow Label) steep in the hot water for 10 minutes, and then removed the bag and left the tea to cool while I went to the store to pick up a couple things that were missing. Then I proceeded to make up the 4 side dishes that would go into the oven after the turkey. Making them ahead of time and in casserole form seemed crucial to being able to get everything ready all at the same time. This also required a trip to IKEA last Saturday where I carefully measured one of their oven forms to make sure they were big enough to hold these side dishes but small enough to fit 4 at a time in my oven. This is serious business!

The four side dishes are such classics that they sort of require no recipe in the sense that everyone has their own for them. So the following recipes are mine, but I obviously win no originality prizes for most of them. They are as follows:

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Bread Stuffing
Stuffing is my absolute favorite. There are so many different kinds, some with fruits and vegetables and others with sausages and giblets, but the regular bread stuffing is the kind I go for and the sage is the most important ingredient. Contrary to the name, though, I don't stuff it; stuffing the bird is a bacteria hazard (or, if you cook the turkey long enough for the stuffing to get hot enough to kill the bacteria, you've overcooked and dried out your bird), plus the stuffing get so very fatty and soggy, so I keep it on the outside.

1/2 cup butter (100 g smör)
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped (2 finhackade vitlöksklyftor)
4 celery stalks, chopped (4 hackade seleristjälkar)
1 onion, chopped (1 hackad lök)
1 loaf white bread, cut into small cubes (1 limpa mjuk vit rostbröd, i små kuber)
2 t chopped sage (1 1/2 tsk hackad salvia)
1 t chopped thyme (1 tsk hackad timjan)
1 t chopped rosemary (1 tsk hackad rosmarin)
2 t chopped parsley (1 tsk hackad persilja)
1 t salt (1 tsk salt)
1/4 t peppar (1/4 tsk svartpeppar)
1 cup chicken broth (2 1/2 dl hönsbuljong)

Melt butter in a large pot. Cook garlic, onion and celery for a couple a minutes; they should still be crunchy. Remove from heat. Add all other ingredients except chicken broth and stir until well mixed. Add chicken a bit at a time and mix until the stuffing is not dry but not too wet; you want the stuffing to sort of "stick together" but not be soggy.

The stuffing can be eaten right away at this point, but I poured it into a casserole dish (the ones I used were IKEA's Koncis 26x20 cm, which hold a bit more than 2 liters and 4 of which can fit perfectly into a typical built-in oven) and, after it had cooled, covered it with tin foil. Instructions on how to handle all 4 side dishes once they've been popped in the oven comes later.

Garlic Cheddar Mashed Potatoes
This is a recipe I started making after coming to Sweden, so a key ingredient is a type of cheddar-flavored cream cheese spread that I can't be sure has an equivalent in the states. However, I'm sure there's something that would make an excellent substitute and probably be even more cheddary.

4 pounds mashing potatoes (2 kg mjölig potatis)
8 garlic cloves, peeled but not chopped
1 cup milk (2 1/2 dl mjölk)
6 oz. cheddar cheese spread (1 paket Creme Bonjour med cheddar smak)
1/2 cup butter (100 g smör)
1/2 t salt (1/2 tsk salt)
1/4 t white peppar (1/4 tsk vitpeppar)

Peel and boil the potatoes along with the garlic cloves (about 25 minutes). After draining them well, mash them up. Make sure you have a really big bowl so it'll be easy to stir. Add the other ingredients and stir until smooth.

Again, this would be the end of the recipe if you were just making it for a normal dinner (although you'd probably make half as much or less), but for me it was into the casserole dish, and after it cooled, on with the tin foil and into the fridge. This one had to be heaped a bit to fit in the dish, but that was no problem.

Green Bean Casserole
I can only guess that a recipe for this dish was on the back of some Durkee French Fried Onion can like 60 years ago, and it's been a favorite of American housewives ever since. It's just one of those brand-name things. Durkee onions are puffier and softer than the Swedish "rostade lök" that are normally used as a hot dog condiment here, and canned green beans don't seem to come in the "French cut" variety here, but I find the dish tastes and feels just the same after preparation.

3 cans green beans, drained (3 burkar haricots verts, avrunna)
2 cans Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup (2 burkar Campbells champinjonsoppa)
3/4 cup milk (2 dl mjölk)
1 cup Durkee French Fried Onions (2 1/2 dl rostade lök)

Just mix everything together and pour it into a casserole dish. Normally you would want to bake this -- about 25-30 minutes at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). I poured it into the casserole dish, on with the foil, into the fridge.

Sweet Potato Casserole
This is another one that seems like such a mysterios mix that everyone wonders about its origins and I suspect it was on the back of some marshmallow package somewhere. Mini marshmallows are much easier to deal with, but I could only find big ones so I had to do a little cutting and arranging. I suppose something spiffy could be done with marshmallow fluff (oddly, easily found in a lot of Swedish stores, usually near the peanut butter and Nutella), but I didn't want to experiment just this time.

3 lb sweet potatoes (1 1/2 kg sötpotatis)
1/2 cup milk (1,2 dl mjölk)
2 T butter (2 msk smör)
1/4 cup brown sugar or molasses (1/2 dl muscvado socker eller mörk sirap)
1/2 t salt (1/2 tsk salt)
1/8 t pepper (1 krm svartpeppar)
Mini-marshmallows

Peel sweet potatoes and cut them into pieces (about as big as normal boiling potatoes). Boil for
15-20 minutes or until soft. Mash until no lumps remain, and then stir in remaining ingredients except marshmallows. Pour potatoes into a casserole dish. Normally you'd want to bake this for 25-30 minutes at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C), the last 10 minutes of which you throw on the marshmallows (enough to make one layer over the top; cut up big marshmallows and arrange on top if you can't find minis). The marshmallows should puff up and become a bit brown. But again, I poured the potatoes into my casserole dish and popped them into the fridge with foil on top.

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All of these recipes are about the right size to serve 12 people at a buffet-style dinner. If you want to make them as a main side dish for 4 people, you'll want to cut the recipe in half.

I started preparing these dishes at about 10am and was finished and ready to take a break at 2pm. And I mean very ready for a break.