Turkey
What and how do you do it? I've long abandoned the Normal Rockwell vision of bringing a whole turkey to the table as I am 100% in Team Spatchcock. I've done the whole frying this and time wise its nice, but it's just an enormous pain in the ass that requires a pot/rig I'll use for this purpose only as I don't do clambakes at Martha's Vineyard as much as I used to, and 43 metric shittons of oil that I now have to store in a bunker that might as well double as a nuclear facility. SPATCHCOCK MFer.
1. Cooks more evenly, cooks MUCH faster, more skin is exposed for crisping. Backbone along with neck/organs are great for gravy making. I cannot recommend more to spatchcock your poultry
2. Dry brine. Used to wet brine but dry brining is so much easier, and again, helps towards a crispy skin. Do it minimum overnight, but I spatchcock and dry brine on Sunday night, place in fridge slightly covered until this afternoon. Like dry aging a steak, doing this concentrates and develops flavor.
3. My dry brine is ~.5 cup kosher salt and 2 TBSP of baking powder. Baking powder helps break down skin proteins aiding in crisping and browning.
4. Paint the skin with an herb butter just before placing in oven. Chop up whatever you like, add to melted butter... I don't think doing the butter between skin and meat does a lot flavor-wise as butter typically melts out and worse it inhibits skin crisping. Brine and time add way more flavor IMO.
5. 14 pound turkey will take about 80 minutes to cook. Spatchcock your turkey
6. Let rest for 20-30 minutes before carving
If you don't do the Turkey thing, what do you do instead?
Sides
Anything out of the ordinary? You a southern cornbread / collards family or a child of the Midwest with Green Bean Casserole and a green Jello "salad" of some sorts?
Thanksgiving Sides, Ranked: (Note, Gravy is not a side, it is as essential a main as the damn Turkey itself.
1. Stuffing (see below)
[a chasm the distance of the Kuiper Belt]
2. Dinner Rolls - I make Japanese Milk Bread Rolls that are out of this world
3. Roasted/Mashed/Hassleback/Gratin/Whatever Potatoes
4. Cranberry Sauce
5. Green Been Casserole
6. Corn anything
7. Jello anything
8. A goddamned salad.
9. Literally any other food on earth
.
.
.
8,291,209. Hepatitis B
8,291,210. Sweet potatoes, yams, or whatever you want to call them. Candied, mashed, marshmallows, fried, whipped. I don't care how you prepare them. Sweet potatoes and yams can get fucked and go straight to the hell from whence they came.
Stuffing
Since we are not monsters, we all know that stuffing is the best side and frankly is the only reason Thanksgiving exists. What is your stuffing plan?
I make a sausage and sage stuffing, pretty standard. BUT. BUT.
I make my stuffing into waffles. Get the whole thing prepared and instead of cooking in the oven and hoping some of it gets crisped and caramelized, I heat and lightly grease a waffle maker, and cook individual waffle sized portions for about 10 minutes. Easier to eat, way way more of the crispy caramelized parts, and most importantly, nooks and crannies for gravy. And, live a little by adding a small amount of maple syrup along with it.
Drinks
I'm doing Alsatian Riesling, French Pear Cider, and several OR Pinot Noirs.
Disasters
Do any of you have Thanksgiving disasters? Turkey exploded? The Bumpuses dogs destroyed your spread?
Best I have is last year I was blind baking a crust and i pressed the aluminium foil into the crust a bit too hard as it baked into the crust and when I went to pull it off, it destroyed the crust and got sugar all over the kitchen (I fill blind bake crust with sugar as it makes the sugar taste really great as well as being functional)
I have 2 very good stories here.
1. We were at my aunt's in New Berlin, WI, mid/late 80s? Anyway she had one of those flattops before they had the screaming red indicator to let you know it was turned on. She put a box of instant mashed potatoes on the stove top, didn't realize it was on, and it started on fire. FYI - dried potato flakes are very flammable. But, here's the kicker. To put out said fire, she poured water on the box. Which created a massive pile of mashed potatoes on the stove top, counters, and floor.
2. A friend of mine claims this is 100% real, and I trust her. Her parents had been divorced for a bit less than a year when she was 17, and they decision was Dad gets Thanksgiving, Mom got Christmas. Dad wasn't a great cook. Dad decided he wanted to "do something special" with the green beans. He decided to make a sauce. And proceeded to cover the green beans in Cream of Tartar before putting them in oven to roast. You know, Tartatic Acid? That you use like 1/8 tsp a time? For a very specific purpose like creating meringue? See, he thought it Cream of Tartar was Dried Tartar Sauce. So, while you're imagining how bad that must of tasted, I'm just gonna be over here thinking about the fact that he thought Tartar Sauce on Green Beans was a good idea to begin with.
Have a Happy Thanksgiving y'all and I hope you're spending it with the most important people in your life and you have a wonderful day.
