Thanksgiving Day Open Q&A with the ChefSteps Team!

Thanksgiving can be stressful, and things often go wrong at the last minute. That's why Chris, Grant, and the rest of the ChefSteps team will monitor this forum thread on Thanksgiving and the day before, to answer any burning questions you may have about preparing your feast. We will do our best to answer as quickly as possible. Please up-vote any questions you find most useful; this will help us surface the most desirable information for everyone. Ready... Shoot!

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Samuel_68313

I have two real questions (though to be completely honest mine is for Christmas but I figure they will be relevant anyway):

I have never really been a fan of cranberry sauce for a lot of reasons, but it seems generally essential to the feast, what is a good basic proportion of sugar to cranberries (I'll be using frozen), and what is the best liquid to use with it?

I imagine you'll get an awful lot of gravy questions, here is another one, I wish I could be more specific though. Basically, I have (or will have) access to raw chicken, turkey, and duck carcasses. I also have duck fat, goose fat, pork fat, roasted pork fat, beef fat, and bacon fat. I have homemade beef stock, veal stock, chicken stock, and game stock (and vegetable stock, though I assume that is irrelevant). And as I am cooking turkey legs sous vide I will have a lot of juice from that. What would be your preferred root to go with the gravy, and should I stick with a classic flour gravy, like the chefsteps beef gravy recipe, or should I consider using xanthan gum or similar?

Chris_Young_80640

My thoughts:

For the cranberries, I would adapt something like the red wine for our red wine poached pear recipe:

http://www.chefsteps.com/activities/red-wine-poached-pear

For the gravy, there are a lot of ways to go, but what I will be doing is using the turkey jus and turkey stock, blending in some strained browned butter and maybe some duck or goose fat. Infusing the gravy with sage, thyme, and black pepper, and seasoning to taste with sherry vinegar and salt.

Likely recipe:

About 2 parts stock to 1 part turkey cooking juices, (and probably some reduced fino sherry added) then reduced to about 1/3 of original volume.

Infuse with a few sage leaves and a sprig of thyme, then strain.

Use a blender to emulsify 3 parts reduced stock to 1 part of blended browned butter and molten duck fat.

Seasoned with sherry vinegar to taste.

Seasoned with fine salt to taste.

This will be a slightly thin gravy, and I would use a little bit of xanthan gum (0.1%) or starch (maybe 0.5% Wondra to thicken it if desired).

Samuel_68313

Awesome stuff, thank you Chris.

Jack_Mayer_85396

@Chris - y'all rock! I passed along the CS website address at least a dozen times today at SLT. Best wishes to you and the entire ChefSteps team for a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Leslie_Redd_17326

What do I do with yee old sweet potato puree topped with roasted marshmallows? Adults sick of but kids adore. Help! Leslie

Chris_Young_80640

How do you currently make your sweet potato puree?

For simple, I'm a fan of just making sweet potato puree silk-smooth and indulgent. To me, this usually means roasting the sweet potatoes whole, then scooping out the insides when they're really soft, and pureeing the sweet potato with an obscene amount of butter (like 30%+ relative to the weight of the sweet potato), and then seasoning with salt. But the really important step is to pass the puree through a fine sieve so that it is silky smooth.

If you want to make it a bit more exotic, you could pressure roast the sweet potatoes with some seasonal spices. A simple guide is to follow the preparations steps three through five that we use for the carrots in this recipe:

http://www.chefsteps.com/activities/flourless-carrot-cake

But substitute the sweet potato for the carrots. Adjust the consistency with butter (or milk if you want to go low fat).

As for the marshmallows, I've never been a fan. Recommend a jar of marshmallow fluff be set on the kids table.

scarmichael1

Sous vide whole turkey? Or is this a bad idea.

Matt_67991

This is a pie question. I made the quiche lorraine recipe, but the bottom of my pie leaked a bit, and got kind of soggy. It was still delicious though, and I'll be trying again tomorrow.

I made the pâte brisée in the food processor instead of a stand mixer, but I don't think I overworked the dough. Flakiness wasn't an issue. I rested the dough for the four hours, rolled, and then placed into a springform pan. The dough waited there for 15 hours before baking, the last 14 covered. If the clingfilm was a bit loose, could that have been an issue? I then blind baked, but used coins as weight. Could they have been too heavy? When I took the weights out, and rebaked, the bottom was very bubbly. I then wasn't sure if I was supposed add the filling while the crust was warm, or after it had cooled. I filled while warm, and my pie leaked a bit.

If you have any advice, that would be much appreciated.

Benjamin_36199

Safety Concern:

After careful review of Modernist Cuisine at Home I am planing to cook the turkey leg at 65C for 8 hours and the breast at 62C for 3 hours. I feel this should produce a moist yet pastuerized bird.

Sister in law is 4 months pregnant. I am concerned she will find the pink hue off putting. WILL THIS INDEED BE SAFE?

any professional/experienced feedback will be nice to back up my claims when the time comes to sell the sous vide method to her.

-thank you

grant

@ScottyC- Not a bad idea, but you can never get the legs to be exactly where you want them and the breast the same, but you can't in an oven either. So, at 63c for overnight i find this is a great temp or at least 8 hours if you can manage.

grant

@Henri

manke sure the crust is dry and undamaged for a leak proof crust. I would say coins might be too dense and could punch holes or thin spots in the crust yes. Fill the crust when its very hot can help as well. You can see a thin layer coagulate at seal when you do.

Matt_67991

@Grant would it work to add the base in two stages? Bake for a very short amount of time with a thin layer of warm quiche base, in order to make the base leakproof, and then add the rest?

Chris_Young_80640

@BenjaminGary — Both of these temperatures/time combinations will fully pasteurize the turkey. It's very likely the meat will still be slightly pink, especially the legs. It's not unsafe at all, but it may be off putting to your sister in law. You can always re-package some of the meat after carving and drop it into a hotter bath (say, 75-80 °C for the leg meat) to alleviate these concerns.

Benjamin_36199

@Chris | thank you for the reply. having worked with a small resturant group in Utah through college I saw the benefits of Sous Vide, but molecular gastronomy has been poorly marketed to the masses out there. Glad to be here is Seattle with some resources and finally cutting my teeth in the kitchen/lab. I look forward to contributing more to this community.

Chris_Young_80640

Glad to help @BenjaminGary

mstre123

For the pecan pie recipe can corn syrup be substituted with an inverted sugar syrup? And can the butter be replaced with vegetable shortening?

Chris_Young_80640

Yes, although it will be less sweet since corn syrup is much less sweet than invert sugar. And you can replace the butter with shortening.

mstre123

@chris thanks! would splitting it to 1/2 invert sugar / 1/2 agave nectar be a better move.

Samuel_68313

How about maple syrup?

mstre123

@SamuelG i like the idea but maple will probably impart a maple flavor which is fine but would it be enough, ie if i'm going to make a maple pecan pie i might need to add complimentary spices. I like the idea of invert sugar because it would impart a neutral taste.

lockgavin

Any insight on my question about substitution for carrageenan here:

http://forum.chefsteps.com/discussion/1379/pumpkin-pie-recipe

I assume the answer is the texture will be different?

Tim_Sutherland_52834

Do you guys have a time machine or the ability to slow time for everyone but me?

Four hours til service with six hours work still to do - a normal day at work.

Have a good Turkey Day y'all..

Matthew_Snyder_68770

I don't have any specific questions (at least not yet, anyway; it is only 7:40am on Thursday as I write this, and I'm just about to finalize my timeline and work list.....), but I wanted to chime in and say thank you to the entire ChefSteps team for being so generous with your time and knowledge. And that goes for the forum community as well.

What am I thankful for Turkey Day 2013? In no small part, ChefSteps. You've reinvigorating my interest in cooking. I can't believe it still hasn't been a full year since I found this place. Learned so much. Thank you all.

Jack_Mayer_85396

Very well said @Matthew_Snyder! I agree totally.

grant

Let the cooking begin! Already drinking, but my answers will be solid. Heading to the folks place on the coast right now, I'll be offline during the drive be back on at noon pst.

grant

Thank you Mathew, your comments mean a lot to the CS team.

michaelnatkin

What do you like for an internal temperature on pumpkin pie? Got my sweet Pâte Brisée crusts all blind-baked and ready to fill.

prince_of_porcelain

Circulator, Pressure Cooker and Smoker are all going. Pie is in the oven. My wife has already declared ChefSteps Pate Brisee the best pie crust recipe ever, and we haven't even tasted it yet. No questions at the moment, but Happy Thanksgiving to ChefSteps and everyone else who makes this site great!

grant

190f for the pumpkin pie.

grant

Dinner at my parents on the ocean. It's Neah Bay and the whales are out.

Lets eat:

Huge ass Turkey my mom got from a neighbor, 21lbs dressed weight! YESSSSSS, neck and back please! oysters the size of U-10 scallops!

Homemade cranberry with orange zest and Angostura

Hawaiian sweet rolls(store bought).

Veg with fresh spinach dip

Mashed potatoes

Chunky gravy

Dungeness crab( fingers crossed-pulling up pots in 2 hours)

Stuffing( my favorite)

Mashed carrots and parsnips-my favorite(my real favorite)

Pecan Pie(CS)

Apple Pie(CS)

What Ive had so far:

Rum and eggnog(serious favorite)

Another Rum and eggnog

Darby redwine

Cheeze-its

double Darby redwine

dang, I love this holiday.