Pickles and Tea Blog

As immigrants, our Thanksgiving tables are likely to be vastly different from the garden variety spread of roast turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie.

Two months ago, I was talking to people about their melting-pot Thanksgiving food traditions for an article that just came out in edibleDC magazine. The menus ranged from the conventional, to mash-up, to completely brand new.

That’s how I met Theresa Chen, a communications specialist who lives in Arlington, VA.

Theresa migrated from Taiwan to the U.S. when she was 10-years-old. Like many new immigrants, her family knew nothing about Thanksgiving.

The first few years, the Chen family attempted to immerse themselves in true Thanksgiving Americana. Theresa found the dishes—and ingredients like cranberries and pumpkin—odd. “It was not what we ate every day,” she says. They also had their share of novice mistakes. One year, as they sliced into a crisp-skinned, nicely-browned turkey full of anticipation, they were met with disappointment: the inside was still completely frozen! Sound familiar?

As the years passed, her parents got a little more creative while still keeping to the bird theme. Chicken or duck would be chopped in half and pan-fried, or chopped into smaller pieces and braised on the stove.

They cooked side dishes that were more suited to their Taiwanese taste buds: bok choy with mushrooms, steamed tofu or mapo tofu, fried vermicelli and handmade meatballs, better known as that favorite Chinese New Year delicacy, lion’s head meatballs. “We mixed and matched Chinese New Year with Thanksgiving!”Theresa says.

Fusion dishes included mashed sweet potatoes with green onions and other veggie garnishes and gravy made from soy sauce, oyster sauce and chicken stock.

Once Theresa hit college, she wanted to take charge of the turkey. She found her nemesis in a 20-pound turkey. Not only was it way too much turkey for her party of 12, she had to stuff it with a whole lot of sticky rice (not a good idea since sticky rice is finicky and getting the stuffing to a safe temperature usually means overcooking the bird), but here’s the kicker–she injected the turkey with soy sauce.

“I would not recommend it,” she says. “I cut into it and the meat looked a weird brownish color that was spotty and in patches… It looked like cowhide!”

Fortunately practice makes perfect. Over the years and after several trial and errors, Theresa eventually developed turkey confidence.

Theresa foresees her own Thanksgiving traditions will be eclectic with “a little bit of old and a little bit of new,” with a dash of the experimental. And since her boyfriend is Russian, she predicts “There will be sour cream, and probably with sweet potatoes.”

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Do you have a Thanksgiving mash-up tale to tell?

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Soy Sauce Chicken

Adapted from My Grandmo ther’s Chinese Kitchen–100 Family Recipes and Life Lessons (HP Trade, December 2005) by Eileen Yin-Fei Lo

Roast turkey may be an American tradition but in the spirit of Theresa’s parents, I recommend a very traditional Chinese dish, soy sauce chicken, as a worthy substitute. In her cookbook, Lo describes how this dish–a dish of honor celebrating her position as family matriarch– was always prepared for her grandmother Ah Paw’s birthday. It’s a fitting dish to celebrate Thanksgiving too. The leftover sauce, called a master sauce or “see yau,” can be used to cook the chicken again and again, with the addition of more seasonings each time, making the sauce richer and more complex with age. The sauce will keep for up to 3 months in the refrigerator.

One (3-1/2-pound) whole chicken (or the same weight in chicken parts or Cornish game hens would work too)
1/4 cup salt
4 cups chicken stock
2 cups water
Three 3-inch-long cinnamon sticks
2/3 cup (5 ounces) organic cane sugar or brown sugar
4 star anise pods
One 2-inch piece ginger, smashed
1 cup dark soy sauce (also called double black soy sauce)
1 cup Shaoxing Chinese rice wine or dry sherry

1. Clean the chicken inside and out. Trim off all fat. Rub salt into the skin and rinse under cold running water and drain.
2. In a large pot, combine the chicken stock, water, cinnamon sticks, sugar, star anise and ginger and bring to a boil over high heat. Add the soy sauce and return to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer covered for 20 minutes.
3. Add the wine and bring to a boil. Add the chicken, breast-side up, and return to a boil. Reduce the heat to low, cover and simmer for 20 minutes. Flip the chicken, cover and cook for 20 minutes longer. Remove from the heat and let the chicken stand, covered, for 1 hour.
4. Remove the chicken from the liquid and transfer to a cutting board. Cut chicken into bite-size pieces and serve immediately.