Currying Favor?

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving, deeply rooted in family tradition. There is something comforting in knowing that we can count on the same people, food, schedule, and activities, with room for a little creativity here and there.

People always begin arriving Wednesday. Ben always designs a mean charcuterie board for Thursday noon. Though sides may vary for the big meal, we always have turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, and pie. We always play Guesstures. The women always win. Mary always makes turkey carcass soup the next day. We always talk about renaming the soup but never do. The cousins always do some version of Black Friday shopping. 

Before the kids could drive, Uncle Rachid would sometimes take them out to the mall at some insanely early hour for bargain hunting, coming home in time for warm cinnamon rolls. There was always a stop at the local music store, and one year the red skinny jeans became the focal point of most conversation for the day. 

Now, thrift shopping, apparently a generational trend, is the new Friday tradition. (I love this as a former thrift store queen in college, but thought that that fact, in itself, made it an untenable prospect for my children.) The jeans are no longer skinny or red. They are baggy and blue, and this year were purchased with Rachid in mind. While we were playing games Friday evening, he went and tried them on, but got lackluster reviews when he showed them off. Abe, Emma, and (possibly?) Ben tried them on in succession, but something was wrong with every fit. Finally, Phil tried them on, and like Cinderella, he found that they fit perfectly! If you see him strutting around campus looking particularly hip on a non-teaching day, you can thank his nephew. 

With my extra day off of school yesterday due to snow, Ben and I got to really dig in to cooking. (Well, kind of. I guess the new thing is to assign teachers 5 hours of virtual modules to complete while the kids enjoy a day off that they don’t have to make up. If only you could actually tell how I feel about that kind of snow day!) As usual, we had lots of extra turkey and potatoes to contend with. My personal position on both these quintessential Thanksgiving foods is that once the gravy is gone, what’s the point? The mashed potatoes will become potato soup later in the week, but we went a very different direction for the turkey: Curry Turkey Divan. If we were venturing into curry territory anyway, why not try those Hasselback coconut milk and Thai red curry sweet potatoes I threatened to make for Thanksgiving but never did? 

I suspected the plan would not really go over with Ben, so I downplayed the curry aspect of the meal, instead mentioning the presence of mayonnaise in the turkey divan recipe adapted from my mom. Here’s what our version looked like:

Curry Turkey Divan

4 cups cubed cooked turkey

1 tsp. vegetable oil

1 carrot, sliced

1 onion, chopped

1 tsp. salt

20 ounces frozen broccoli

1 can cream of mushroom soup

2/3 cup mayonnaise

1 cup evaporated milk

1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese

1 tsp. lemon juice

1 tsp. curry powder

1 T. butter, melted

1/2 cup breadcrumbs

1. Sauté onions and carrots in oil until beginning to soften. Remove vegetables, reserving pan.
2. Combine, soup, mayonnaise, milk, cheese, lemon juice, curry and salt in pan, heating and stirring to make a sauce.
3. Toss melted butter with breadcrumbs.
4. Meanwhile, place frozen broccoli in a colander. Heat a full kettle of water to a boil. Slowly pour boiling water over broccoli. Allow to drain completely.
5. In a greased 9X13 casserole dish, place turkey, carrots, onions, and broccoli. Pour sauce over. Top with breadcrumbs and bake at 400º for 20-25 minutes.

Coconut Curry Sweet Potato Gratin

5 medium sweet potatoes (about 2.5 pounds), sliced into thin rounds

1 can coconut milk

2 tablespoons or more Thai red curry paste

Salt to taste

1. Preheat oven to 400º and grease a 2-quart baking dish.
2. Combine coconut milk and curry paste in a large bowl. Taste and add salt as needed. (We added about 1 teaspoon.)
3. Add sliced sweet potatoes and swish them around with your hands until all surfaces have been doused with coconut milk mixture.
4. With your hands, make stacks of sweet potato slices and stand them upright, placing tightly in baking dish so that all potatoes remain upright. Drizzle remaining coconut milk mixture over potatoes and cover dish tightly with foil. 
5. Bake at 400º for 30 minutes. 
6. Uncover and bake another 45 minutes, until top edges are golden and crispy, and bottom half of potato stacks are tender and custardy.

We threw in the leftover green beans we served on Thanksgiving that were leftovers from the wedding. They had been waiting, encased in butter in the freezer for their time to shine. Though they were leftover leftovers, they were delicious! 

Ben is a traditionalist, and this take on turkey and sweet potatoes was anything but traditional, but if we can move beyond the mall and red skinny jeans to thrift stores and baggy blue denim, can’t we give Thanksgiving leftovers a whole new spin? 

Ben ate dinner with gusto, but I have a feeling the leftovers will be met with scorn. If you are looking to curry favor with Ben, you’re probably best to just hand over the leftover turkey on a plate and back away slowly. Throw in a pair of thrifted baggy jeans and no one gets hurt.