Now that you’ve survived Thanksgiving, and recycled the leftovers as turkey soup, turkey sandwich, turkey curry, turkey casserole, and so on, aren’t you sick of turkey???

Well, just around the corner is yet another turkey-centric holiday (Christmas), and, to that I say, “Enough with the turkey already!”

Instead of dragging the same old bird out for your holiday meal, why not try something else? There are lots festive main dishes that would be right at home on the holiday table.

Of course, the real traditional choice would be goose. If you’ve never tried it before, it’s absolutely delicious. It tastes similar to duck, but the meat is more substantial, more beefy tasting. I find it more forgiving than turkey; goose is fattier than turkey and harder to dry out.

Along similar lines is duck. It’s smaller than a goose, and would be the perfect size for a small gathering. It also cooks more quickly so it might not seem like such a huge ordeal to cook. You could also just gets duck breasts or legs and cook as many as you need to feed your party.

Another elegant main dish for smaller parties would be rack of lamb. Rack of lamb is also surprisingly fast and easy to make. Many recipes for rack of lamb take less than half an hour to make. It’s expensive though so it’s probably better for small parties.

My favorite holiday main dish is prime rib aka rib roast. Since you can buy a roast as large as you need to feed your party, it’s a good choice for larger parties. The cooking time is long, but most of it is not active time. Just sear it, then pop it in the oven until done.

The thing that strikes me about all these dishes is that they are *so* much easier to make than turkey. I love a great roast turkey, but let’s face it — turkey is fussy. It needs to be pampered, brined, and perfectly timed; otherwise it tastes blah. I think most of the dishes listed above are more forgiving than turkey, and half of them cook in a fraction of the time.

So what do you think? Is it time to give the turkey a rest?

This entry was posted on Friday, December 2nd, 2005 at 5:40 pm and is filed under Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.