My family is rather traditional when it comes to holiday dinners. We usually have turkey, bread stuffing, mashed potatoes, carrots, squash, turnip, and cranberry sauce for dinner, and then a giant table filled with cookies, pies, brownies, nuts, and cheeses for later. This year we're trying to do things a little bit differently. We're still doing turkey, but we're mixing in some pasta dishes, chicken dishes, and meatballs as well, along with some different vegetables. This doesn't include what my sister is serving tonight at her annual Christmas Eve party.
What are you making for Christmas this year? Do you have a menu you follow every year? Are you doing anything differently this year?
Still have turkey leftover from your Thanksgiving dinner? If so, I recommend turning to Elise of Simply Recipes for a little post-holiday inspiration. This afternoon a friend of mine came over for a bit. While he was here, he mentioned that he was interested in making some chili that would incorporate all the meat leftover from the 12 pound bird he bought to share with his mother and brother. A quick Google search led up to the recipe for Turkey Chili that Elise posted two years ago. And just today, she shared a recipe for Turkey Tacos with Cranberry Salsa that sounds really tasty. I'm not much of a fan of reheated poultry (it's a weird quirk of mine) but after reading these recipes, I'm wishing I had just a little bit of leftover turkey. If these recipes whet your interest but don't seem perfectly for you, make sure to check out the box in the upper right hand corner of the screen that says More Recipes, as it links to even more terrific turkey recipes from Elise.
I spent Thanksgiving day with a friend and her family out in the suburbs of Philly. My family chose, for some strange reason, to celebrate today, so I'll be heading out to a different suburb in just a little while for another round of turkey, stuffing and gravy.
Yesterday, we cooked the turkey in the Orion Cooker that we used last month in the turkey episode of Fork You. This machine can cook a variety of things, including brisket, ribs, pork butts and of course, turkey. If you add smoking chips, the turkey takes on a deep, smoky flavor. My friend tasted the bird (and she's been a vegetarian for the last ten years or so) we made last month and was so taken with it that she knew her family had to try it. The other beautiful thing about this contraption is that it uses the power of convection cooking to cook really fast. Our 13.5 pound turkey was done in 1 hour and 45 minutes.
The only downside to this cooker is that the coals are totally exposed, so if it starts to rain, like it did briefly yesterday afternoon, you run the risk of having your flame go out. When the rain started, we ran outside with umbrellas and stood around the cooker until the storm blew past. But the turkey was so good that it was worth it.
I'm almost afraid to make this list. I'll probably make myself sick, seeing all of the food I ate in one day. I think I've probably eaten enough to take me through the weekend, though I know I'm going to have more turkey today and tomorrow, in sandwich form. But I had a lot more than turkey, as the list after the jump shows.
A couple of weeks ago I got a call from my dad. He had phoned because he had just watched one of the Thanksgiving episodes of Fork You and wanted to give me a little advice. The piece of wisdom? Never offer to show someone how to do something on camera if, in fact, you don't know how to do it. The thing I didn't know how to do? Carve a turkey!
I agreed with him and explained that I didn't know that I was going to be asked to show the folks at home how to carve a turkey, it just sort of happened. However, now that I've been in that situation, I'm now making a point of learning how to carve a turkey. Thankfully, the New York Times printed a helpful article today with step-by-step instructions on the best way to carve up your Thanksgiving bird. Their tip? Do the carving away from the table in the kitchen for best results.
I have always been intrigued by Zuni Cafe method of chicken roasting, in which you heavily salt the chicken and let it sit in the fridge for a couple of days. Yesterday over on the Epi Log Rick Rodgers wrote a post where he plays with this idea of dry brining and applies it to a Thanksgiving turkey.
He says, "How does this dry salt rub work? The salt draws a tiny bit of moisture from the bird and opens the skin pores. This moisture mingles with the salt and works its way into the turkey muscles, seasoning the bird throughout through osmosis. It is much less awkward than brining with gallons of salt water!"
Rick, you've got me pondering a dry brine, if not for this year, possibly for next. It sounds like a far easier and less messy way of imparting a whole lot of flavor into your bird. For full instructions on how to dry brine your turkey, make sure to read Rick's entire post because it is clear and well-written.
I have never deep fried a turkey. I've never even gotten a chance to taste a turkey that has been deep fried. However, ever since I heard it was possible, I've been hugely intrigued by the process. The first time it aired, I was totally glued to Alton Brown's show (the clip above is from that show) on the best way to fry a bird. Some day, when I actually have outdoor space, I hope to try it. Until then, I will just have to content myself with watching others do it.
Mahalo has put together a collection of video clips from all over the internet that all offer turkey-frying instruction and edification. They also have a helpful page of step-by-step instructions as to what you need to do it right, how to prepare the turkey and the equipment and how to best go about actually frying the bird. If you're looking for an account of how one family deep fries their turkey every year, look no further than the Goodyblog. They offer their recipe as well as pictures of the prep and process. And, oh my gosh, does their turkey look good.
It happens to the best of us. We get so caught up in the planning of a grand Thanksgiving feast fit for a Pilgrim king -- we've got spreadsheets, project plans, timetables, shopping lists, guest lists, lists of lists -- that we forget one of the most basic things about the preparation.
We forget to thaw the frozen turkey.
Hey, don't worry. It's not your fault that you were running around like a turkey with its head cut off, and we'll only make fun of you until three years from now, but all is not lost. You don't have to worry about whether you can safely cook a frozen turkey because the answer is "Yes" according to food safety experts at the Mayo Clinic (and trust me, I trust the Mayo Clinic).
The full explanation is on the Mayo Clinic's website, but I'll summarize for those of you panicked folks here.
What you CAN do:
You can safely roast a frozen turkey; it just takes longer (duh).The USDA recommends that you add 50% of the normal cooking time for a thawed turkey to the total cooking time. Of course, we all know that cooking time is a very bad way to roast a turkey, so use a trusty thermometer and make sure that sexy inner thigh reaches a hot 165 degrees F.
If the turkey was frozen, that little paper packets of creepy turkey innards was probably stuck inside the body cavity under a glacier's thickness of ice. Don't worry about it when you first start roasting the frozen turkey, but make sure to jiggle it out of there as soon as the turkey has defrosted enough in the oven.
What you CAN'T do:
Roast only. You cannot grill, smoke, deep-fry or microwave (wait, who the hell microwaves their turkey?!) frozen turkey.
If the creepy turkey innards were in a plastic bag and you foolishly didn't get them out in time and the plastic has melted all over the inside of the turkey, you're done. You can't eat that turkey that might have plastic chemical-y stuff all up inside it. You're also banned from ever making Thanksgiving turkey again because Mayo just gave you a second chance and you blew it with the plastic giblet bag.
It seems like lately the whole food world is turning out to help people prepare and plan for their Thanksgiving dinners. The latest way to get tips and tricks for your turkey day celebration? Epicurious, in addition to being an excellent all-around source for recipes, is going to be hosting a chat with cookbook author and Epi-log blogger Melissa Clark this Friday from 12 noon until 2 pm (that's Eastern Standard Time).
Melissa will be available to discuss general Thanksgiving problems and solutions. She'll also be answering questions about how to prepare the items on the Epicurious Thanksgiving menu that she compiled and tested. Isn't the internet a wonderful place!
I know that some of you have got your Thanksgiving menus all set by now, since the big day is only a week and a half away. But for those of you who are still looking for a little last-minute inspiration, I've got another good resource for you.
The San Francisco Chronicle has pulled together all their Thanksgiving-related coverage together in one place. They've got video on how to carve a turkey, stories about holiday dinners gone awry, suggestions on how to cook smaller dinners and more recipes than you can shake a stick at. It's fun reading, even if you already have your meal all set.
The first year I brined my Thanksgiving turkey, it was something of a disaster. I didn't plan ahead well as to what I was going to brine my turkey in and so ended up using a tall, blue plastic garbage can that I had stashed away in my hall closet (I scrubbed it well before committing any edibles to it).
I started out by pouring my brining liquid into it and then plopping my turkey in. Of course there was too much liquid, so I had a flood of brine pour out all over my kitchen floor. I vividly remember standing there, bailing out the brine with a small sauce pot. Then, after I had cleared a space in my fridge for brining turkey, the weight was too much for my plastic fridge shelf, and I ended up cracking the bottom shelf. I ended up lining the shelf with a wooden cutting board which seemed to give it enough support and the refrigerator didn't fall apart overnight.
Thankfully, it was all worth it in the end, because I ended up with tasty, juicy bird that all my guests enjoyed. That taste has kept me brining and happily I've gotten better at it through trial and error. I've learned to use double layers of the large zip top bags (both Glad and Ziploc make them) that are designed for storing sweaters as the brining vessel. I've also gotten the brine recipe down to a science and you can find it after the jump.
Last week, I found myself shopping for a turkey the day before I needed to cook it. Finding a fresh bird a month before Thanksgiving was something of a challenge but we managed to do it (although the guy at Whole Foods gave Scott attitude when he called to ensure they had a bird). We got lucky with the fresh bird, but there are times when you won't be so lucky and all there will be at the grocery store is a sea of frozen birds.
For those of you to whom this has happened the night before Thanksgiving, take heart. Jennie-O has created a bird that can go straight from freezer section to oven. You don't even have to clean or season it. Over at the Epi-Log, Michael Y. Park took this Frankenbird out for a spin and over all has good things to say about it. It seems a little suspect to me, as it gets cooked in a plastic bag (a practice I've never really trusted) and I don't totally understand how it could be safe to cook a frozen turkey, but apparently it is.
My family is rather traditional when it comes to holiday dinners. We usually have turkey, bread stuffing, mashed potatoes, carrots, squash, turnip, and cranberry sauce for dinner, and then a giant table filled with cookies, pies, brownies, nuts, and cheeses for later. This year we're trying to do things a little bit differently. We're still doing turkey, but we're mixing in some pasta dishes, chicken dishes, and meatballs as well, along with some different vegetables. This doesn't include what my sister is serving tonight at her annual Christmas Eve party.
I'm almost afraid to make this list. I'll probably make myself sick, seeing all of the food I ate in one day. I think I've probably eaten enough to take me through the weekend, though I know I'm going to have more turkey today and tomorrow, in sandwich form. But I had a lot more than turkey, as the list after the jump shows.
It happens to the best of us. We get so caught up in the planning of a grand Thanksgiving feast fit for a Pilgrim king -- we've got spreadsheets, project plans, timetables, shopping lists, guest lists, lists of lists -- that we forget one of the most basic things about the preparation.
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