Do you do any of the cooking for Thanksgiving? Even if you go to another person's home for dinner, do you bring a dish? In our family, my daughter perfected my pumpkin pie recipe and then began bringing the pumpkin pie (which I used to get asked to bring when we had dinner elsewhere, but I'm glad she does it now). Do you have any special family recipes that everyone wants you to make or bring along or one that you hope someone else will bring?
The turkey itself, and the mashed potatoes. I've always loved my moms cooking growing up, particularly around the holidays. But now that she's older, she's gotten a little less patient when making Thanksgiving dinner and kind of just throws stuff together hastily - especially mashed potatoes. She will either not make enough of them because she doesn't feel like peeling any more potatoes, and/or she doesn't mix or season them properly, and we wind up with bland mashed potatoes that have been over-whipped and are gluey. Ever since I got my potato ricer a few years ago, I take care of the mashed potatoes. If I want lighter tasting ones, I will take the extra time to peel, chop and boil them first - to draw out the excess starch. But if I want richer mashed potatoes, and want less fuss, I will simply throw a bunch of whole potatoes in the oven (pricked with a fork first! no exploding potatoes) and bake them until they are really soft inside, then run through the potato ricer. I will use a little extra milk too if they are too rich. But the most important thing is to go overboard with the butter. I put at least a whole stick in mine, sometimes a stick and a half. I got this tip from a chef I follow online who said that the Michelin star restaurants all use obscene amounts of butter in their mashed potatoes. Plus it's a holiday, who cares if we splurge once in a while. For the turkey, it's a constant fight in our household because not everyone likes turkey, so my mom is always insisting that we just make a turkey loaf and not a whole turkey. In recent years we've compromised by purchasing a boneless skin on turkey breast fresh from our local butcher. They also brine it for us. I simply make a home made compound butter with fresh herbs, onion, garlic and salt & pepper, then spread it generously under and over the skin, and bake it in a glass baking dish, covered loosely in the beginning, but the rest of the way uncovered. The bottom part of the breast braises in the juices and stays tender while the top part bastes the meat naturally with all that butter and the fat rendering from the skin. It's practically goof proof. All you need to do is cook it to temperature, then let it rest for about 15 minutes, then cut it into thick slices. And because there are no bones, you just need to make straight clean cuts.
Great post. Thanks for all the mashed potato tips. I don't know if I can use that much butter without having a heart attack thinking about it, lol, but I hear ya. Butter is key. NOT margarine. I always use real butter for holidays. I make a pretty mean turkey, if I do say so myself, but my other half is frying one this year. Fried turkey (also heart attack inducing) is so delicious. I'll be making everything else. I guess my stuffing is the favorite. It's one of the things I get asked to bring if I go elsewhere when we aren't hosting. My favorite to make is probably desserts.
