My boyfriend and I are making Thanksgiving dinner for 10. This is the very first time either one of us has made Thanksgiving dinner. The menu will be the usual - turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing,sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, cranberry, dinner rolls.
I'm VERY nervous about this, so any tips or tricks would be appreciated.
The first mistake people make with turkey is buying a jumbo tom. Few people really need 24 pounds of turkey. You have so much left over and people get sick of the leftovers and it goes to waste. Toms are drier than hens and the bigger they are, the drier it will be. Look for a hen, free-range if you can afford it, that is about 15 pounds.
The second mistake people make is not brining the bird. Look for brining bags and blends in stores like Williams Sonoma. Brining a smaller sized hen will ensure a juicy meal. And yes, get a flavor injector.
Edit-If you're afraid that won't be enough meat, you can also make a roast beef or ham, that's what my parents always do despite that their 15 pound hen is always enough for about the 9-12 people that come for Thanksgiving. There's always a lot left of both. And check out the recent Cook's Illustrated Fall Entertaining magazine, they have great articles and recipes, see what they have to say about green bean casserole-which is my 2nd holiday fave, my 1st is cranberry sauce. No I do not work for them, I'm just a fan. :)
When Thanksgiving dinner takes a wrong turn,::
The guys arrived on time and for about the first 30 to 45 minutes we had to save money on traveling and try to make our first Thanksgiving dinner.
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Good luck and Happy Thanksgiving!
make sure your turkey is completely thawed. if you keep it in your freezer, put it down in your fridge no later than sunday to thaw.
when you put it in the oven, cover it with foil until nearly done. take the foil off the last hour to brown and crisp.
let the bird rest at least 15 minutes after you take it out of the oven before you carve it.
prep as much as you can the night before.
Someone already said take the giblets bag out -- but be aware they don't always stick that thing in the cavity, sometimes they put it in the neck! (learned the hard way)
My advise would be do a trial run -- make a turkey over a weekend. Or at least a whole chicken. It's pretty much the same thing.
Buy the Reynold's Oven Bag for Turkeys. It takes half the time that cooking without one takes. Rinse the bird inside & out, coat it with vegetable oil, put a peeled onion inside the bird's cavity, sprinkle a little sage on top..can stick a bay leaf under the skin, & bake it according to the weight list in the instructions. Buy a bird with a thermometer. When it the topper pops out, it's done. Do NOT cook the stuffing in the bird. Make up your dressing the night before, put it in the baking pan, cover it with foil, & stick it in the fridge til you are ready to bake it. If you decide to do a pie, either hit the deli, get a frozen one, or use pie shells & make up the filling & then bake. Pies can be done a day ahead. Do a 7 layer salad, it's easy & must be made the day before. The day of, you only have to take it out of the fridge & stir.
Don't forget to take out the "guts" out of the turkey before you cook it. (they are in a bag in the inside)
The turkey will cook faster if you don't stuff it.
You will be fine.
Good luck
Here's a trick to help your turkey stay moist. I know that's one of the biggest thanksgiving problems most people have. All you need is one of those flavor injector syringes. The cost around $5. Take a can of chicken broth (or turkey if you can find it). Pour it in a pot and add some herbs to it for flavor. Heat it for a little to absorb the flavor of the herbs then let it cool. Strain it and use the injector to shoot the turkey full. It adds enough extra moisture to keep the turkey moist.
Another piece of advice, don't stuff the bird with the stuffing. Bake it seperately. If you want to stuff the turkey, stuff it with herbs, onions, carrots, and celery. It will add extra flavor. If you stuff the turkey with the stuffing you will have to cook it longer to make sure the stuffing is safe to eat. This will result in a dry turkey.
Here are the biggest tips i have learned over the years:
make pies and desserts and stuff a few days before, heat up while cleaning up.
peel and chop all the veggies that you are going to boil/mash the night before and store in large bowls in the fridge completely covered in water so they don't brown or spoil. That wat almost all your prep work is done ahead of time and you just have to dump things in a pot.
Make mashed potatoes the night before and leave them a bit runny, heat up in a crock pot while everything else is cooking. Making mashed potatoes is always the biggest pot on the stove when I cook, having them elsewhere in the crock pot cleared up the stove nicely.
Pillsbury dinner rolls are wonderful, and can be popped in the oven as the meat rests - which takes a half hour and is very important to keep the bird juicy.
Speaking of a juicy bird - the big tips: rub the whole thing down with butter and then put your seasoning on - crisps the skin nicely. Also roast the turkey upside down! The breast dries out very quickly and takes a lot of basting to keep moist. If you roast it breast side down the juices all go to the bottom - the breast meat. It won't need as much basting. Wrap the whole bird and pan in tin foil, being careful that the foil is not actually touching the bird, this keeps the steam in with the bird and keeps moisture in. To get the skin browned flip the bird (may take two people and a couple clean pot holders) half an hour before it's done, and take the foil off. The skin will not be as picture perfect as a norman rockwell painting, but it will brown a bit and the meat will taste much better.
The giblets - they are inside the cavity of the bird and under the neck flap - there should be at least two bags - get them all..
Don't put the stuffing in the bird, cook the stuffing seperate - stovetop works wonders, but do stuff it with large cut up veggies that won't actually be eaten. onions, carrots, and celery will give the bird lots of flavor.
Make lists - every ingredient for each dish, each cooking vessel you are going to use and for what, each extra you are going to need (like tin foil), and what is going to be served in what. You can start checking off a few days before and it keeps a panicked mind at ease. It also saves the last minute errand for your boyfriend trying to find a store that is open. I also made a cooking times list my first time - figured out how long everything took to get ready, and and figured backwards to when I should start everything. That way all the different foods hit the table hot at the same time.
Ok - here is the absolute biggest tip I can give you: RELAX! Turkey day is about family and fun. I know the food is an important part - but if everything goes wrong you order chinese, half a laugh, and still have lots of friends and family around. Get organized, approach it like a mission not a meal, and you will be fine.
I have made many Thanksgiving dinners at this point, and they have all come out perfect, including my first one when I freaked out just like you are. If you have any other questions or need any more tips just ask. Good Luck!
Prepare ahead of time as much as possible so that on Thanksgiving day you don't have as much to do - such us chop up veggies and lay things out so you can just throw everything together quickly. Check out this recipe for sweet potato casserole that you can make a day in advance! http://barefootbrunette.blogspot.com/200...
Don't forget to take the giblets out and be sure to start defrosting the turkey in the refrigerator a few days before. When I made my first turkey, I couldn't find the giblets, so I just thought this particular turkey didn't have them. At dinner, I was pulling the last of the stuffing out of the turkey, and there were the giblets.
What's bad is that I did it again the next year because I forgot to put the turkey into the refrigerator to thaw out so it was still partly frozen inside...and once again, the giblets were frozen to the inside of the turkey and I couldn't find them. I'm still not sure why I didn't think there would be giblets in the turkey, but my family still reminds me of it every Thanksgiving.
Also, it helps to make your pies (if you're making them) the night before and toss the dinner rolls in the oven while the turkey is resting after you take it out of the oven. Even better, if the turkey is small enough, is to use one of those tabletop roasters and save your oven for anything you may need to bake before dinner.
Veggies can be done pretty much anytime and heated up just before dinner.
Save room for pie!
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Making Thanksgiving dinner for the first time?