IT'S ALL WHITE MEAT

Even though I shall not have any turkey on Thanksgiving this year -- same as every damned year for over a decade, and turkey plus trimmings were a rarity for most of the time since my early twenties anyhow -- one thing that comes to mind is that dry inedible Protestant wattle bird would be nice with a decent gravy.

A variation on the 'Fish Flavoured Egg Plant' sauce that your relatives may be familiar with from Jewish Christmas. If they have good restaurants there.
I've heard that in The Big Apple folks live mainly on pizza, wieners, and bagels. Plus museum quality cheesecake. And in some other parts of the country there's too much barbecue for an appreciation of good cooking to flourish.

But anyway.


魚香茄子汁
YÜ HEUNG KE JI CHAP

Six to ten garlic cloves, minced.
Equivalent amount of ginger, minced.
Three scallions, minced.
Three fresh hot peppers, minced.
Half a cup sherry or rice wine.
Three TBS hot bean paste (辣豆瓣酱 'laat dau-baan jeung').
Three TBS soy sauce.
Three TBS fragrant black vinegar (鎮江香醋 'jan-gong heung-cho').
One TBS of chili-garlic sauce.
A teaspoon of sugar.
Cooking oil.
A brisk dash dark sesame oil (芝麻油 'ji maa yau') or chili-oil (辣椒油 'laat chiu yau').

Innovation: one cup of good chicken stock, and a tablespoon of corn starch whisked with two tablespoons of luke-warm water. This way there will be enough for multiple servings of bird.


Heat a pan with the cooking oil, and dump the garlic, ginger, scallion, and chili into it. Stirfry till the fragrance rises and the garlic is golden. Splash the sherry into the hot pan, let it flame, then mix everything else in, and continue, stirring as you go. Add more water if necessary, when it's done decant to a gravy boat.


Instead of having turkey I shall probably sulk.



PS.: I really wanted to title this post "What You Can Do With Your Dry Breasts", but that might be risqué, and I don't want to offend people.




==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================