Hello, I’m Marty Richardson from chefmartyrich.com.  Welcome back to our daily tip series.  Today is the last in our series of “Entertaining and Menu Planning Ideas for Thanksgiving”.  I lost count of days and I have run out of time because tomorrow is Thanksgiving!

Easy As Pie?

The topic today is pie dough.  I had several calls on the 30 minute Free Consultation recently and they have all been about problems with pie dough.  So that is why I am going to wrap up this series with that topic.

Five Step Process

Making pie dough is an easy 5 step process.  First, in order to cut the fat into the flour, use a food processor, if you have it.  When you do this by hand, your fingers tend to melt the fat.  You don’t want that to happen.  You actually want the flour to coat cold pieces of the fat.  Large sized pieces (meaning pea size) are necessary to give your pie dough flaky crust. The really tiny pieces of fat wrapped in flour, ensure your dough is tender, that is, fork tender.  That is where the expression comes from.

Minimal Water

The second tip is to add your water slowly.  We are only talking about a total of few tablespoons here, so add a couple of tablespoons at first, sprinkling it around the edges of the bowl.  The key is to use as little water as you possibly can.  Too much water makes a tough crust.  And by tough, I mean that kind of pie that you can cut through the filling, but you can’t get your fork through the bottom crust without a jack hammer… that’s a tough crust!

Handle Lightly

Number three, use a fork to pull the moist flour that you just watered from around the edges towards the center.  This is not a dough you stir with a wooden spoon.  This is not the type of dough you turn out on the counter and knead.  That is bread dough.  Pie dough needs a really light hand to make a really light crust, otherwise you will get a tough dough.

How Much Water?

Four, you want to take some of the dough and squeeze it in your hand to make a ball.  If the dough doesn’t stick together, you don’t have enough water.  If it does, stop adding water at that point.

Relaxing Dough

Number five.  Refrigerate the dough.  You pat it all together into a disc or a ball, whichever is more convenient.  A disc is easier to roll out once it has chilled.  Wrap it in plastic wrap.  Put it in the refrigerator for 30 minutes to 1 hour.  Take it out.  It is much easier to roll cold dough.  Flour your counter or surface very lightly.  If you add too much more flour at this point, it is also going to make your dough tough.  Once you have rolled out the dough and put it into the pie plate, put the pie plate and dough back into the refrigerator for another 30 to 60 minutes.  That is going to help relax the dough so it doesn’t shrink when you bake it.  That is one of the problems raised during a 30 minute consultation.

Solving Thanksgiving Cooking Crises

I was going to give out the number for the turkey hotline.  I haven’t done that so I am going to do that now.  The Butterball hotline is 1-800-288-8372.  The USDA Poultry and Meat hotline is 1-800-535-4555.

Tip Series Review

I just wanted to go through a quick recap.  We did 45, 46, 47 different videos in the last month and a half, so I wanted to do a quick review for you to give you the highlights.

1.    Choose simple store bought appetizers.  This is not the main event.  This is just something for people to nibble on to try and take the pressure off of you and the edge off their hunger.  Don’t be afraid to use pre-made appetizers.

2.    Brine your turkey.  It is going to help by keeping the breast moist and adding flavor.

3.    Choose lots of side dishes.  It is going to give more people more things to choose from.  Keep your eye on textures, colors and flavors.  Variety is the spice of life.

4.    Do not stuff your turkey.  Make dressing.  Mix up the stuffing.  Put it in a casserole dish.  Bake it separately.  You will have much more “crunchy bits” that most people really enjoy.

5.    The next important tip is 165 degrees (using an instant read thermometer) is the magic number.  Remember it.  This is the temperature at which the turkey is done cooking and also for making sure that your stuffing is done (all harmful bacteria are killed) and for checking reheated leftovers.  All should reach 165 degrees.

6.    You want to make your desserts (today!) ahead of time.  Don’t wait until Thanksgiving Day to start making desserts.  This is an easy way to get your “finale” out of the way. Preparing appetizers, main course and desserts in the same day is an un-necessary challenge.

7.    “Pre-Party Planning Prevents Panic”.  But, it also ensures you will have room in your oven to make dinner rolls.  Please do.  I’m telling you, if you make fresh rolls, they will be the hit of your meal.  So figure out how to squeeze it in there.

8.    Consider Your time, Your budget, Your skill level, Your guests, and Your kitchen so you can plan on enjoying your day.

9.    Lastly, eat or freeze all of your leftovers before Monday.  Don’t have your leftovers hanging out into next week.  It is just not safe to continue serving dishes that have been sitting out on the dining room table or buffet for hours on Thanksgiving.

Thanks very much.  I’m glad that you watched.  I hope you got some good ideas and tips out of this series.  If you have ideas or themes for a future series, please go to the website and leave a comment.  I look forward to shooting the next series.  Thanks very much for watching.  Bye.  Have a great Thanksgiving!

Hi I’m Marty Richardson from chefmartyrich.com. Welcome back to our daily tip series.  Today I am going to discuss three essential side dishes for Thanksgiving dinner.  Gravy, stuffing and cranberry sauce.

It’s All Gravy

Gravy is not as hard as it seems.  Take your roasting pan out of the oven when your turkey is done.  You turykey is done when the internal temperature reaches 165 degrees. Use an instant read thermometer to measure. Then let the turkey rest for the 20 to 30 minutes before you carve.  This is the time you make your gravy.  With all the juices still in the pan, add to that about 1 quart of chicken stock or turkey stock (if you have it) and a cup of red wine, especially, if you are serving that wine at dinner.  Scrape up all the turkey bits that are stuck to the bottom of that roasting pan.  Keep the pan on the stove with the burners on medium heat underneath.  Then, remove all the pan juices to a fat separator and remove roasting pan from the heat.  In about 5 minutes, you will see all the stock at the bottom and the fat rising to the top.  Put all the fat back into the roasting pan, and return the burners to medium heat on your stove.  Add about 1/2 cup flour.  Stir it around with a whisk until it thickens up.  This is a roux which thickens your gravy.  You don’t want it to form a paste, but you do want it somewhat thick.  Then, you add all your stock back into the roasting pan while you whisk continuously for about 5 to 6 minutes. You shouldn’t have any lumps and you should have a nice, flavorful gravy.  Season with salt and pepper, and maybe some dried herbs or fresh herbs if you’ve got them, like sage, thyme or oregano.

Stuffing vs. Dressing

Stuffing versus dressing.   Now what is the difference?  Dressing is cooked in a casserole dish outside of your turkey.  Stuffing is cooked inside the turkey.  If you have been watching, you know I prefer dressing.  There are so many different kinds of stuffing.  I’m not even going to try to give you a recipe.  Everyone has got a different one.  The base ingredient can vary from crumbs you bought at the store to your home made bread crumbs to corn bread to wild rice.  Flavorings range from sausage to oysters or just vegetables (onions or celery or maybe some mushrooms, spinach or artichokes).  Additional add-ins could be dried fruit like cranberries or nuts. Watch out for people with food allergies of course.  Or you may want to mix in any kind of other fresh herbs.  If you want a more solid, dry, cakelike stuffing, you can mix 1 to 2 beaten eggs into your stuffing before you bake.  The approximate proportion is about a cup of stuffing to every pound of turkey.

Cranberry Sauce

Cranberry sauce.   Go ahead and buy a can to have as a backup.  But, it is really, really, really easy to make cranberry sauce.  It is basically a sweet and sour sauce with cranberries.   Now, sweet and sour sauce is usually 50/50 sweet to sour.  Because cranberries are already kind of tart, you might want to increase the sugar portion in your sweet and sour sauce.  I would make it approximately 2/3 sugar to 1/3 sour.  Now your sugar portion could be regular granulated sugar, brown sugar, honey, maple syrup or any combination there of.  Your sour component could be white vinegar, apple cider vinegar, rice wine vinegar, orange juice or cranberry juice.  Use real cranberry juice.  Don’t use cranberry juice cocktail.  Take this combination of ingredients, 2/3 sweet to 1/3 sour, and put it in a pan and start to simmer that until it begins to thicken.  Then, you add in your cranberries, fresh or frozen.  Simmer that, stirring regularly (not constantly), until the cranberries start to pop.  You will see that clearly as it is very evident they start releasing their juices.  Now there is enough nature pectin inside the cranberries in order to thicken up that sauce.  So you can do one of two things.  You can make it Thanksgiving Day and let it come to room temperature and it will be somewhat thick.  Or you can make it the day before and then pour this mixture into a mold (maybe a ring mold) and then the next day it will harden just like the cranberry sauce that comes out of the can. So again, it is very easy to make, straight forward and kind of interesting and fun.

Tomorrow I am going to start in on vegetables.  Then, we are going to wrap it up with desserts and Happy Thanksgiving.  Thanks for watching and I will talk to you tomorrow.  Thanks.

Hi I’m Marty Richardson from chefmartyrich.com. Welcome back to our daily tip series.

Deep Fried Danger!

Today is the final episode of five straight days of  “Talking Turkey”.  I had a completely different topic in mind this morning, until my neighbor called looking for a stock pot deep enough to deep fry a turkey.  I said, “Hmm.  Maybe I have a different topic”.  I did a little research and found the United States Fire Association reported that there were 4,300 fires created last year, 15 deaths and $27,000,000 in property damages, directly related to deep fried turkey accidents.  There are huge consequences, but what are the benefits?

Worth The Trouble?

You are going to get a delicious, flavorful, moist turkey, fast.  I’m talking about 3 to 3 ½ minutes per pound to cook a turkey.  That is quick. The deep fryer is going to free up your oven, which is also a bonus on Thanksgiving Day.  And your husband is going to help… really?

Step-By-Step Instruction

Okay, buy a small turkey, 14 pounds or less.  Buy a deep fried turkey kit. Do not try to “jury-rig” something together.  This is far too dangerous for home made contraptions.  Buy 2 thermometers.  Make sure that you have 1 thermometer that is going to measure the temperature of your oil. The other themometer is going to measure the internal temperature of your turkey.  The desired frying oil is peanut oil, which is very expensive.  Make sure that you go to one of the warehouse stores to buy your peanut oil, both for avaiability and price.  Now, how much peanut oil will you need?  The best way to measure is to take your stock pot, put the turkey inside and fill the stock pot with water until the turkey is covered by an inch or two of water.  Put a mark on the inside of your stock pot at this waterline.  Take your turkey out and drain the remaining water.

Safety First

In order to get started, make sure that you set up your cooking station outside of your house.  Don’t set up in your garage, and not even on your deck.  Make sure you are somewhere that is not a flammable area.  Again, the consequences or mistakes are huge here.  Fill your stock pot up with oil, up to the line that you created.  Make sure that after you have measured with the water that you dry out your stock pot completely and dry off your turkey completely.  Hot oil and water do not mix.  If you have already measured in previous years and you have already have an idea of how much oil to use, make sure that you turkey is completely thawed before frying.  A chunk of ice left inside the cavity of your turkey will cause an explosion when it comes in contact with hot oil.  I hate to be overly dramatic, but that is why these USFA statistics are out of control.

Time To Fry

In order to get started, again, take the cooking area away from the house.  Fill up your stock pot with oil up to the desired level.  Then turn on the flame.  It is an open flame.  The open flame and hot oil that is where we have a potential problem.  Bring the oil temperature up to 375 degrees then turn off the heat source.  Take the turkey; it usually comes with a basket or some kind of hanger that you can lower the turkey into the hot oil, slowly.  Be very careful at this point.  Any moisture in the turkey is going to cause the oil to splatter and pop.  So make sure you are not wearing your best Thanksgiving clothes.  Once the turkey is full submerged in the hot oil, then reignite your heating source underneath.  Keep the temperature of the oil approximately 350 degrees.  The cooking time is 3 to 3 ½ minutes per pound.  Do not leave this boiling pot unattended… EVER…  Not even for a minute.  If this fire gets out of control, it can happen very quickly.  Several gallons of flammable, boiling oil is obviously, very dangerous.  There could be pets or children around, whatever.  Make sure that the turkey is constantly attended.  In case of an accident, do not try to fight this fire either with a fire extinguisher or worse yet, water.  Dial 911 in case of an emergency.

Crispy Turkey Skin

After your turkey is cooked completely according to your meat thermometer at 165 degrees, make sure that you drain the oil completely from the turkey.  You can reuse this oil if you don’t season the outside of your turkey. If you do, the spices are just going to burn and pollute your oil.  Most deep fried turkeys are seasoned by injection.  I could have gone into that a little bit more.  That is how self-basted turkeys are created.  You can find injection kits at the supermarket.  So that is basically it.  Just be careful.  I hope I haven’t scared you away from trying to deep fry a turkey.  The benefits are huge but the consequences are enormous.  I have two more videos on side dishes, and two more videos on desserts and it’s Thanksgiving!   I hope you are ready!  If not, go to the website and leave a comment, I’ll send you back an email.  Or register for a 30 minute consultation and I will call you and I will answer any question you have right up until Thanksgiving night.  Thank you for watching.  Talk to you soon.

Hi I’m Marty Richardson from chefmartyrich.com. Welcome back to our daily tip series.  Today’s topic is Thanksgiving food safety.

Fresh Or Frozen?

It always starts with the turkey.  Fresh or frozen?  Well, if you buy a frozen turkey, your only constraint is whether you have enough room in the freezer to store or the refrigerator to start thawing.  If you buy fresh, purchase only 1 to 2 days ahead.  Most fresh turkey is sold semi-frozen.  The turkey is frozen to 28 degrees at the most.  It is not frozen solid like a rock.  Turkey sold “frozen”, is generally frozen at zero degrees.  That is the difference.  So don’t be shocked when you go to pick up a fresh turkey and it seems frozen.  The general guideline is that it takes about 24 hours of thawing in the refrigerator for every 4 to 5 pounds of turkey. After it is thawed out, you can leave it in the refrigerator for 1 to 2 days.  If you have a small turkey, (up to 12 pounds), it might take up to 1 to 3 days to thaw.  Medium size turkeys (16 to 20 pounds) may take 4 to 5 days to thaw.  And a great big turkey, (up to 24 pounds), may take up to 5 or 6 days to thaw.

Cold Water Bath

Now, if you don’t have room in your refrigerator, or you were not planning to have Thanksgiving dinner, or twice as many guests come than you thought, or you just plain forgot to thaw out the turkey – don’t panic.  You can thaw out your turkey in cold water. That’s right…Cold Water. Do Not, even in a panic situation, use hot water to thaw out your turkey.  It creates a really dangerous bacteria environment.  To rush it up the thawing process, change the cold water more frequently.  It is suggested that you change the water every 30 minutes.  If you are in a panic – try every 15 minutes.  The government (USDA) suggests that it takes about 30 minutes per pound to thaw a turkey using this technique.  Once the turkey is thawed, you must cook it immediately.  Do not use this cold water submersion technique, and then leave the turkey in the refrigerator for a few days.   Again, I think this is a long time to thaw out the turkey.  This formula means that a 20 – 24 pound turkey is going to take 10 to 12 hours to thaw.  Those are government (USDA) guidelines, your results may vary.

Time To Make The Turkey

Now, I want to talk about cooking times.  325 degrees.  Do Not cook your turkey at any lower temperature than 325 degrees.  This is another activity that invites bacteria growth.  You can cook higher temperatures than that, obviously, but don’t cook below 325 degrees.  An unstuffed turkey cooked at 325 degrees that weighs up to 12 pounds, might take 2 ½ to 3 hours.  Turkeys up to 18 pounds might take 3 ¾ up to 4 ¼ hours.  A great big turkey weighing up to 24 pounds might take 4 ½ to 5 hours to cook.  Now, if you must stuff your turkey, (which I wholly disagree with), but if you must, then, do not stuff the turkey in advance.  Do not buy a turkey that is already pre-stuffed.  This is another bacterial disaster waiting to happen. And stuff the turkey loosely, rather than packing it in there tight, so that the temperature of the stuffing reaches 165 degrees. 165 degrees is the golden number that you need to burn into your memory because it is the temperature at which the majority of harmful bacteria is killed. Use an instant read thermometer to be sure.  I say that all the time, but it is a very important point.

Mmmm Leftovers…

Once the turkey is cooked, let it rest for 20 to 30 minutes outside of the oven and you will be rewarded with a much juicier turkey.  The time frame from when you have taken it out of the oven, (let it rest, carved and served) until you need to get the leftover turkey back into the refrigerator is only 2 hours.  Do Not leave your turkey sitting on the table for hours and hours and hours.  When you are ready for leftovers, reheat them to 165 degrees to make sure that you have killed the bacteria. Hopefully, your leftovers are not going to last more than 3 to 4 days. If not they should be frozen or discarded.  You should have already cooked turkey soup and gotten rid of all that turkey before the holiday weekend is over.

If you have any other questions about turkey, make sure you leave a comment on the website or call in and register for a 30 minute free consultation.  I’ll call you and then you can ask me any questions you might have, right up until Thanksgiving Day. I will also leave the numbers for the Butterball Turkey hotline and the government (USDA) turkey hotline if you have any last minute questions/problems.  I will talk to you tomorrow.  Thanks.