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Heidi was an Au Pair from New York who was in Berlin for a year. Her family "ordered" a complete Thanksgiving dinner and have invited friends and family to the feast. She has often helped—and eaten—Thanksgiving dinner, but never prepared one completely on her own. Since I have been doing Thanksgiving dinner pretty much every year for over 30 years, here are my tips and recipes for her. I also include an Excel sheet that calculates your turkey cooking time and presents you with a timed list of when to do what.
The Turkey:
You need an approximate head count to decide the size of the turkey. You can get large ones in Germany if you order 3 weeks in advance. Smaller fresh ones can be obtained with just 2 days notice (except Christmas), either at turkey wagons on the open-air markets or at the organic butcher's shops, which are pretty much the only butcher shops left in Germany. Be prepared for them to remove the neck and the skin, as this is part of the automated dressing process. I have tried over and over to get them to leave the neck skin on to no avail. Once I managed to get them to give me the neck, which is important for the gravy. I keep a cloth diaper that I sew to the skin left to make a pocket to put the stuffing so the breast meat gets some flavor.
How big a turkey? Better Homes and Gardens says 300–450 grams per person for a smaller turkey (up to 6 kilos), 250–350 grams per person for big birds (I managed to get an 11 kilo sweetheart once, but normally the largest I can get is 9 kilos). You will need between 4 and 7 1/2 hours depending on the size of the bird (4–12 kilos) at 170° C.
Do you have vegetarians? Plan on some refrijoles.
Dressing:
This is a religious question. Each family has its own dressing, handed down for generations. There are fights between newlyweds at turkey time. For many years I prepared Thanksgiving together with a friend from the wrong end of Pennsylvania. His family did giblet dressing, we did sage. We could not agree on one or the other, so we alternated years. Our family sage dressing needs cubed white bread (I like to do two loaves so there is plenty). Cut it up the day before, let it dry out. Chop a mess of onions and celery, fry in lots of butter. Put enough salt and lots of dried sage on the bread, pour the onions and celery over, and then enough chicken broth to moisten. Wash the turkey cavity, salt it, fill loosely with dressing, tie the drumsticks (the Germans cut the tail stripe off, too). Sew a cloth diaper over the breast cavity, salt the meat, and fill. Put the rest in another cloth diaper or a cotton dishcloth, this goes in the oven the last hour.
Since Germans have never heard of self-basting turkey, you are now a slave to the stove. Twist the wings behind the turkey so it is stabilized, and put in on a rack with the drippings pan underneath. Make a tent for the breast with aluminum foil, and two more for the wingtips. Rub the skin generously with olive oil, put the tents on, and get the turkey into the oven. Every 15 minutes, your job is to baste, either with a turkey baster or a brush. Add more oil as necessary, and as the drippings gather, cut an onion into the oil. Put the innards and the neck, if you have it, in the pan as well, for the last 2 hours or so.
Do-aheads:
Anything that can be done ahead is a big help! I usually do a pumpkin pie and an apple pie. I also make the cranberry relish two days earlier. You can get cranberries many places now in Germany. Get two bags (there are usually bad ones in a bag). Wash, remove the rotten ones, put in a big pot with raisins (which can be soaked in rum if you are having an adult-only dinner) and a navel orange peeled, skinned and chopped. Add some orange juice and the use German Gelierzucker as if you were making jam, only use a little bit less sugar than the package calls for. Cook according to the sugar directions, and add chopped walnuts before putting the relish in a form to cool. You can also just use cranberry juice and Gelierzucker and make a clear cranberry jelly. I also make the cornbread the day before, unless I can coax a neighbor into loaning me their oven.
You can clean and chop the crudités (cauliflower, bell pepper, celery, carrots) the day before and put in one of those big tupperware things you got from your mother-in-law. Pour on some ice water, seal the box and put it in the fridge. I don't make my own pickles like my Grandma did, although I do have her recipies. Maybe someday when I retire, but until then I just buy and put on the table.
The rest of the menu:
I like to serve a salad, succotash, a second veggie, mashed potatoes, yams, clover-leaf rolls and butter, and gravy.
For salad I buy a bag or two, wash, add cherry tomatos, done.
Succotash is simple: canned corn and "dicke Bohnen" that you can get at a Turkish grocery. Add cream and butter, cook for about 5 minutes before serving.
Mashed potatoes are done with cooked potatoes, milk and butter, and mashed with a mashing thingy.
Yams you can get at a Chinese or Korean grocery (sometimes at normal grocery stores, too). Cook in the jackets for about 25 minutes. Take a large pan, butter. Slice the cooked yams onto the pan. Top with butter (1/4 cup) and brown sugar (3/4 cup) mixed together and crumbled on top. Cook for 30 minutes in the oven (you have room, don't you?) and put marshmellows on for the last 5 minutes.
Clover-leaf rolls are done with a sweet yeast dough. Roll into little balls, put three in each buttered cupcake tin and let rise. When you take the turkey out, put the first batch of rolls in the oven, they need about 12 minutes. The turkey has to stand for 10 minutes anyway before you can cut it. As you get someone to cut the turkey, pull out the first batch of rolls, wrap in a towel in a basket and shove in the second batch. Don't forget to set the timer. The yams get their marshmellows just before the end of the first batch.
While the bird is dripping itself, use the turkey baster to suck up as much of the good stuff as you can and make gravy with flour and milk. Scrape out the stuffing and empty out the bag that you remembered to put in an hour before the bird was done.
Eating:
Everything goes on the table at once. As it steams, we say grace, then we chow down. There is a pause before dessert, for lots of family talk or speaking about what we are thankful for.
I whip some cinnamon in whipping cream for the pumpkin pie, and serve vanilla ice cream with the apple pie. Everyone has to try at least a tiny slice of the pumpkin pie. And since this is Germany, I'll offer a Schnapps to go along with the coffee.
The day after:
Leftovers. Turkey sandwiches. Boil the bones to make broth, take the bones out, put in turkey bits, the rest of the crudités chopped up, and some big fat noodles for turkey noodle soup. Have a stuffing sandwich, if there is any left over (there usually isn't).