Cook's Country October/November 2020

LIKE MANY OF us, I have been spending more time at home over the past few months. It hasn’t been easy to have my old wings clipped (figuratively and temporarily), but I have enjoyed the chance to dig deeper into the stacks of old cookbooks I’ve collected over the years. As I’ve run through some of the oldest books, the 19th-century titles in particular, I’m struck by how sound the advice is. Take, for example, this snippet from the introduction to one of my all-time favorite cookbooks, Common Sense in the Household (1871) by Marion Harland: “We may as well start from the right point, if we hope to continue friends. You must learn the rudiments of the art [of cooking] for yourself. Practice, and practice alone, will teach you…

Bird Buying Do you recommend buying a fresh turkey or buying a frozen one? –Terry Lennox, Bloomington, Ind. Well, it’s complicated. If you have access to a truly fresh, recently butchered turkey (usually from a farm or high-end butcher), by all means buy it. But at the supermarket, most turkeys sold as “fresh” are actually kept right around the freezing point, which is a bad thing because they run the risk of repeatedly thawing and refreezing; this can damage the cell walls in the meat, causing the turkeys to cook up mushy and/or dry. We prefer to buy frozen turkeys at the supermarket and thaw them ourselves; this way we can control the thawing and make sure that it happens only once. To keep it food-safe, always thaw your turkey…

Make-Ahead Gravy Tip Marie Westblanc of Rapid City, S.D., has a secret for make-ahead gravy: rotisserie chicken. In the weeks leading up to Turkey Day, she freezes the wings and carcasses from rotisserie birds that she uses for weeknight dinners in order to make one “superstrong” batch of stock for gravy, adding plenty of carrots, onions, and celery to the pot. Then she uses the measurements from our recipe for Turkey and Gravy for a Crowd (October/November 2017)—6 cups of broth or stock, ⁄ cup off our, and ½ cup of reserved chicken fat (or oil)—to make gravy in the days before the holiday. Finally, when reheating the gravy the day of, she adds turkey drippings to fortify it with the flavors of roasted turkey. No Cake Stand, No Problem…

ATK REVIEWS WOODEN SPOONS ARE one of the oldest cooking tools—and home cooks still love them. They’re useful for many tasks, such as mixing cookie dough, browning roux, scraping up fond for stews and sauces, sautéing onions, and breaking up ground beef as it cooks. We bought 13 spoons in innovative and classic styles and prepared vegetable curry, Bolognese sauce, and oatmeal cookies, rating their performance, comfort, and durability and how easy they were to clean. Our top two models were light and easy to maneuver, with scooped heads and thin front edges that helped us scoop and scrape. Their rounded, longer handles felt comfortable and kept our hands far from the heat. Both were easy to keep clean and didn’t break or crack. Our co-winners were the Spootle from…

THANKSGIVING IS MY favorite holiday. But even as a professional chef, I’ve had my fair share of near meltdowns trying to juggle the cooking, hosting, and—let’s face it—guests who don’t always get along. So I’m all for any recipe that streamlines my efforts. This led me to my goal this year: a holiday-worthy turkey and stuffing cooked together in one pan. Not only would this save me from cleaning extra dishes, but the turkey would slowly render its fat into the stuffing below and infuse it with savory poultry flavor. I opted to use a bone-in turkey breast rather than a whole turkey. A 6-pound breast is easier to carve than a whole bird and is plenty to feed about eight to 10 diners—or just four with lots of leftovers…

WE LOVE SWEET potatoes for their deep earthy flavor, but this year I wanted to take them in a fresh new direction inspired by simple, vinaigrette-based potato salads. My goal was a mix of bright, fresh, lively flavors anchored by the trusty sweet potato that we all love. I started by cutting up a few sweet potatoes into ¾-inch pieces. It doesn’t matter if the pieces are all exactly the same shape as long as they’re about the same size; this is necessary for them to cook at the same rate. I gave the potatoes a quick toss in extra-virgin olive oil and a sprinkle of salt, spread them into a single layer on a baking sheet, and slid them into a 450-degree oven to roast and cook through. Thirty…