Upcoming is our first Thanksgiving in Switzerland and, as we've only been in-country for two months now, we're looking for some ideas. My wife and I have not yet hosted a Thanksgiving (we've always gone to a relative's home) so we are looking for some dishes, recipes, and advice on finding important components of a traditional US Thanksgiving meal.

Where can we find a whole turkey? Do they sell these at a Coop or Migros? We're in Adliswil- is there a local butcher that might be good to ask?

In the US, cranberry jelly is readily available in the holiday time- anybody know where I can find this and/or a good brand?

I know its not even past Halloween yet, but we're trying to figure this out early.

favorite thanksgiving recipes and dishes!
Thanksgiving / Christmas Turkey procurement
This [American] Thanksgiving I'm grateful for friends, family and FOOD
(and quite a few other threads - do a search for 'thanksgiving' )

I noticed a hotel(?) outside of the Basel trainstation is having an American Thanksgiving on... believe it or not... Thanksgiving Day. Now you have me wondering from whence they are getting their rations.

Yeah, it was like hunting for a needle in haystack though... Sorry

You can pre-order turkeys from Migros and also I think from the butcher at Manor. Some of the threads linked also tell where in France to get fresh turkeys (the ones from Migros are frozen and I think imported) if you prefer... I think in addition to being fresher, they also are less expensive.


I did notice that banner on that hotel by Basel SBB... hmmm...

So, what is traditional for Thanksgiving anyway?

If you are having Swiss people over, I would avoid any kind of super sweet marshmellow sweet potato dish. In fact, now I can't really understand how I ever ate such a thing. But sweet potatoes belong to Thanksgiving for me. I usually make a curried sweet potato soup and I have never met anyone who doesn't like it.

The Swiss often eat "Preiselbeere" with game, so if you look around in your local grocery store, you'll find your cranberry sauce.

If all else fails and you don't mind paying much more for everything, you can find everything you need in Globus or Jelmoli in Zürich. But, as you are starting so early, make it an adventure and try to get things locally.

In my family, it was the turkey with dressing (we were southern), mashed potatoes (sometimes skin-on), green-bean casserole, asparagus, green peas & carrots, corn, sweet potato casserole, cranberry jelly, rolls, turkey gravy, pumpkin pie, pecan (that's pee-can ) pie, and maybe apple pie.

Sounds interesting. Would you like to share the recipe? My wife loves sweet potatoes, and I might make that for dinner one night soon.


Excellent!

We are trying to find everything locally, or less expensively. And, adventures are always fun times!

It's easy. Just go to the meat section of the Adliswil Migros, and ask the guy behind the counter that you want to order a fresh Turkey (do this at least a week in advance just to make sure, although I've done it 3 days before). Tell them how large you want it to be (I always ask for the biggest one they can get because we love leftover Turkey for sandwiches, soup, etc.). They usually can come up with one between 12 and 18 Kg if you want a big one. They usually also have smaller frozen ones around Thanksgiving, but I prefer a fresh one.

My trick is then to brine the bird in a sugar, salt and herb mixture in a tub of cold water for a couple days (outside, keep the water cold). It always comes out perfect that way...I stuff it, truss it and slow roast it on my Weber gas grill. Just Google "turkey brine".

Stuffing is just dried bread crumbs, bacon, fresh chopped herbs, celery, sausage etc. you can get creative here. Pan fry the mixture a few minutes, let cool and stuff the bird. Cover the bird in olive oil and pepper, put it on a foil lined baking tray, pop it in the grill on low heat, and forget it for a few hours. Use an internal thermometer to judge when it's done.

The side dishes are easy, I like to keep it simple. Mashed potatoes (packet is fine), candied yams (just boil sweet potato chunks until tender, then just before serving time fry them in a pot with butter, cinnamon and brown sugar until caramelized). Melt some marshmellows on the top in a microwave at the end (marshmellows available in the candy section of Migros).

Microwave up a big bowl of frozen peas with butter salt and pepper. I like to make braised mushrooms, just buy several types of mushrooms, fry them quickly with garlic then add a chicken stock, sugar, soy sauce mixture, thicken with cornstarch and mix in a bunch of finely chopped parsley at the last minute.

What's nice about doing the turkey on the grill means the oven is available for keeping all the side dishes hot, that's normally a problem at Thanksgiving. Just keep the oven at 100 degrees and store all the dishes in there until ready to serve.

Make gravy with the drippings (I just add it to packet brown gravy), open a tin of cranberry (Preiselbeer here is a good substitute). Open the red wine, and you are ready to roll.

Oh, and ask the guests in advance to bring the dessert.

between 12 and 18 pounds, surely?

oops, yes, I meant pounds.

I've cooked a 14kg (i.e. 30 lbs) one here, but typically go for 10-12kg.

Last year they had a 16kg one, but I know it's too big for my oven (the 14kg one just fit).

Tom

Yes, Manor is where I order mine (plus pigs, goats, etc.). I usually order a week in advance.

Tom

Seriously? What do you do, invite the whole village over?

I had a 3.5kg turkey a couple years ago, and it fed 9 people (Brits and Swiss, plus me) with leftovers for sandwiches and soup.

We're not doing anything this year as it's just not the same without family around. I know of a luncheon on Thanksgiving day, but don't really feel like doing that either.

15-20 people, and LOTS of leftovers.

I've made turduckens a few times, even more leftovers!

AND, we've done a few with TWO 10kg birds!

That's not a turkey, that's just a big (US sized) chicken!

Tom

As a fellow southerner, let me tell you where your biggest challenges will be in trying to recreate a Thanksgiving like you had back in Dixie:

1. As Tom said, the size of your oven determines the size of the bird. It also makes one get very creative because you can't cook your dressing, your bird, your sweet potato casserole, your green bean casserole, your dinner rolls, etc., all at the same time. Oven management skills are key.

2. You will never find brown sugar at a price that doesn't make your eyebrows lodge themselves up at your hairline, so just start planning on adapting your sweet potato recipe and your apple pie recipe now using white sugar and molasses.

3. Forget finding cornbread stuffing cubes. Forget finding Jiffy cornbread mix to make your own. Start googling now for "Yankee" stuffing recipes that use seasoned bread cubes because you can make these yourself. I have a great one (recipe) that I can give you, if you need it.

4. Forget finding cream of mushroom soup mix and/or Durkee fried onions for your green bean casserole. Make your green beans some other way.

5. Forget finding jellied cranberry sauce. I have seen whole berry canned cranberry sauce and I have seen fresh cranberries, but not the jellied kind. Adapt.

The turkey is actually the easy part. Just keep your eyes peeled. I have seen turkeys in all of the supermarkets.

Good luck and Happy Thanksgiving.

Being a traditionalist, I always cook the stuffing in the bird.

Also, I have two ovens, and green been casserole works just fine done on the stovetop if you are careful.

Lastly, being a yankee, I use maple syrup on winter squash as opposed to brown sugar on sweet potatoes, and don't make dinner rolls.

Knorr Steinpilz soup, made with 1/3 the water works great, and I use home-made onion rings (batter is 50-50 beer-flour, with a pinch of salt).

Just follow the direction on the bag for whole-berry sauce, then strain out the solids, and you will have jelly.

Tom

He's a southern boy--he will be able to adapt as long as there are vast quantities of bourbon available.

There's nothin' that can't be fixed with a bit of brown likker.

Cornbread and Cranberry sauce are very easily (and better) made from scratch, and IKEA sells a perfectly passable can of fried onions for casserole.

Thinking about being creative with sweet potatoes and such...

This is the cornbread recipe I use here, most often I make it to go with chili or some other tex-mex type dish.

I made this stuffing recipe (or one like it, I lost my bookmarks ) last year, it came out really nicely. We were expecting a vegetarian guest though so I left out the sausage and used vegetable stock. (In case you want it though, this is the sausage recipe I use)

Back in the day, when I'd been nervous about baking a turkey, I made a ham instead (man, what I'd do for a good honey glazed spiral ham these days!) and instead of the candied yams my mother used to do, I rough chopped some sweet potatoes and baked them with pineapple chunks. This was more well received than I'd expected, by a long shot.


This year I'm undecided what to do for Thanksgiving, most of my American friends here in Basel have moved away over the last couple months. Maybe I'll (finally) introduce my in-laws to the holiday - I've got my eye on some pheasant I've seen at the butcher in Manor.