WASHINGTON — If the thought of cooking Thanksgiving dinner is occupying your every
thought and sending you into full-blown panic mode, New York Times food editor Sam
Sifton has one piece of advice: relax.
“Everything is going to be all right. That is the underlying message of the day,” he
says. “It’s
what you have to believe from the beginning of the day until your last guests leave.”
Sifton literally wrote the book on Thanksgiving (it’s called “Thanksgiving: How to Cook
It Well”), and he has some simple suggestions to help your holiday dinner run
smoothly — from the turkey prep to the sauce and stuffing.
How to Cook the Perfect Turkey
First things first, Sifton says. When you take your turkey out of the fridge in the
morning, carefully pat the skin dry with paper towels. He says you don’t want any liquid on the bird when it goes into the oven — just salt, pepper and whatever
other seasonings your recipe calls for. Then, preheat the oven to 450 degrees.
“You’re going to let that turkey just sit there and come down a little bit in
temperature. We’re not going to do anything dangerous; we’re just going to kind of get
the chill of the refrigerator off of it,” says Sifton, who says the shock at the high
temperature “blisters the skin tight.”
After the skin tightens, lower the temperature to 350 degrees and let it cook at that
temperature until it’s done. However, knowing when the turkey is done, exactly, is a
common problem for many inexperienced cooks.
Sifton’s best piece of advice? “Invest in an oven-safe thermometer that you can insert
in the thigh of the bird — not
touching the bone — and just watch the temperature come up until it hits 165 and then
pull it out of the oven and let it rest for about 40 minutes or so.”
Canned or Fresh Cranberry Sauce?
If you’re looking to cut down on the amount of time you spend in the kitchen preparing
your Thanksgiving sides, Sifton says one solution is to serve canned cranberry
sauce. But you need to spend a few minutes on its presentation.
“I don’t think you should plop it out there like it’s a can of dog food,” he says.
“Maybe slice it into nice coins, or mash it so that it looks like you made
something.”
However, if you have a few extra minutes, Sifton says making cranberry sauce from
scratch isn’t as difficult as it may seem. “It’s probably the easiest recipe on
anyone’s Thanksgiving table,” he says.
Sifton says all the recipe requires is a bag of fresh cranberries, some sugar and some
orange juice. Put all of the ingredients into a sauce pan and crank up the heat.
“Let it get hot, they begin to pop. The more they pop, the more it will set and become
like a jelly,” he says, adding that the whole cooking process takes about 10
minutes.
When the cranberry sauce gets to the desired consistency, just pop it in the
refrigerator to set, and pull it out when it’s time to eat.
The Great Stuffing Debate
Methods for cooking Thanksgiving stuffing have inspired a debate that has spanned
the ages. Should it be cooked inside the bird, or out?
Sifton says he understands traditional methods call for the bird to be “stuffed.”
However, he prefers his stuffing prepared separately.
“I think it’s dressing; we should cook it outside the bird and alongside it in the oven
in a big tray,” he says. “The reason for that is I like it and I want to have a lot of
it. You can only get three or four cups into a large bird and it slows the cooking
process down.”
Sure, cooking the stuffing inside the turkey creates a dish full of flavor, but Sifton
says you can “amp-up” your out-of-the-turkey stuffing with a little bit of turkey stock
and some drippings from the pan.
“You’ll have cooked your bird a little bit more quickly and you’ll have a lot more
dressing for your guests.”
WTOP’s Rachel Nania contributed to this report. Follow @WTOP and @WTOPliving on Twitter and on the WTOP Facebook page.
