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Thanksgiving, and welcome to Turkey Confidential.

0:53

I'm Francis Lam, and this is

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the Splendid Table's annual call-in special

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from American Public Media. Turkey

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Confidential is supported by Broad & Taylor,

1:02

tools for bread bakers designed by bread

1:04

bakers. And hey everyone, it is

1:06

so great to be back with you on

1:08

Thanksgiving Day. We are actually celebrating a little

1:11

milestone of our own today. This is

1:13

our 20th year doing Turkey Confidential. You

1:16

know, a lot's changed in 20 years. We

1:18

don't get as many callers anymore asking about

1:20

how to thaw a still frozen turkey when their

1:23

guests are walking in the door. So I guess

1:25

the state of American and turkey cookery has improved

1:27

somewhat. But what hasn't changed

1:29

is how much we love talking with you,

1:31

celebrating with you, and hopefully being a part

1:33

of this day in your life with your

1:35

loved ones. So thank you

1:37

for listening and calling in, whether

1:40

today's your first time catching us or your

1:42

20th. And you

1:44

know, I do just want to start by saying that

1:47

it's been a very difficult,

1:50

hard year for so many people, for so many

1:52

reasons, all around the world. And

1:55

so today I am taking some extra solace

1:57

in the name of our holiday. Thanksgiving,

2:01

gratitude for what's good in life, gratitude

2:03

for the food we can nourish ourselves and our

2:06

loved ones with today, gratitude

2:08

for things that we take for granted is

2:10

a feeling that helps us not take things

2:12

for granted. Okay,

2:14

so now with that said, let's

2:17

get cooking. This

2:20

is how our show goes today. You call with questions

2:23

for the cooking-est day of the year and

2:25

our phenomenal guests and I try to answer

2:27

them for you. And to get us started,

2:29

we have our first guest, Chef Tiffany Derry.

2:32

She's the chef-owner of Roots Southern Table, Roots

2:34

Chicken Shack, and Radice in the Dallas area,

2:36

and I have been a fan of Tiffany's

2:39

from watching her cook on a whole bunch of TV

2:41

shows from Top Chef to Bobby's Triple Threat. But

2:44

she and I got to know each other as judges on

2:46

a show that we're on together, The

2:48

Great American Recipe on PBS. And in fact,

2:51

we recently just spent some time together shooting

2:53

a new season and every day, every

2:56

day on set. I'd be amazed not

2:58

just at how thoughtful she is about food,

3:00

but also about family, how much she cares

3:02

about people. Now that's how

3:04

funny she is. So we had such a blast and

3:07

I just thought we had to have her over for

3:09

some quality turkey time. So

3:11

hey, Tiffany, Happy Thanksgiving. Happy

3:14

Thanksgiving! How are you,

3:16

Frances? I am great. I miss you. I

3:19

know we just spent two weeks with each other,

3:21

but I miss you. And

3:23

I miss you hearing about your family and

3:25

growing up in Beaumont. Actually, while we're there,

3:28

so I know you grew up with a big cooking

3:31

family in Beaumont, Texas. Yeah.

3:33

How was Thanksgiving for you growing up? I've

3:35

heard about so many holidays. I haven't heard

3:37

about you talking about your Thanksgiving. Well,

3:39

I mean for us holidays are kind

3:42

of all the same. Thanksgiving, the only

3:44

difference for us is like literally there's

3:47

like hand-holding and like

3:50

being thankful for something, right? But

3:53

the meal itself, there's

3:55

always at least six to seven

3:57

different types of protein, right? There

4:00

is like turkey wings

4:02

smothered in gravy, which is my ultimate

4:05

favorite. Like that's how we eat it, right? Like

4:07

turkey wings that are cut and gravy. And then

4:09

there's like roast turkey. And then there's like a fried

4:11

turkey. And then there is like a,

4:15

like some type of grilled or smoked turkey as

4:17

well. And then of course there's

4:19

like beef, roast fried chicken, pork roast.

4:21

Like it just keeps going, right? Oxtails, like

4:24

you got, it's 50 of

4:26

us, Francis. So there is

4:28

a lot of choices and not

4:30

one person cooks. Everyone cooks in

4:32

our house. So like you may

4:35

be responsible for three dishes only,

4:37

but knowing you look at the breadth of like

4:39

that whole table, it's gonna be

4:42

like 30 things on that table,

4:44

no joke. And then we're not like shy, we get

4:46

in there. It's almost like fighting for food. Like you

4:48

gotta get in there. Well,

4:52

actually, okay. So everyone cooks, but like when you

4:54

come home and you're preparing your dishes, what's

4:57

Tiffany making now? Like now you're the big chef.

4:59

Or is it like, oh, hey,

5:01

cause you're still that grandma. Right,

5:04

like no, I mean, like my family may not

5:06

be, like my cousins may not be happy that

5:08

I'm saying this. Like I'm kind of the golden

5:11

child because they would

5:13

disagree. But like my mom sometimes

5:15

cooked my food for me that

5:17

I'm bringing because I'm coming in

5:19

like day of or the night

5:22

before, all of that. And

5:24

so sometimes she cooks my food for me. Oh

5:27

my goodness. I'm off

5:29

tonight. I'm off the clock tonight. That's what

5:31

you're saying. She's like, I just

5:33

want my baby home. But

5:36

last year I did my first Thanksgiving at

5:38

my house. So like it's usually in Beaumont.

5:40

It's kind of how it does. But last

5:42

year I had it in Dallas for the

5:45

very first time. And let me tell you

5:47

what, I appreciate every last one of them

5:49

because I cooked way too much. And

5:52

I was up all day and night. Then no

5:54

one talked about all the decorations I have to

5:57

do and like setting up the tables and getting

5:59

the drinks and people brought food,

6:01

but like what my mom goes through

6:03

when she's hosting Thanksgiving, I don't think

6:05

I've ever like gave her enough credit.

6:07

Well now she can hear it, she can hear it

6:09

on the radio. Thank you. Thank

6:12

you, mommy, I love you. Oh my

6:14

God, oh my God. All

6:16

right, so let's get to some of our callers. I know we

6:18

have some really excited ones. You ready for

6:20

that? I'm ready. Okay,

6:22

this is our tradition. Let's go

6:24

to Lars. Hey,

6:27

happy Thanksgiving. Hello Lars. Hey. Happy

6:29

Thanksgiving to you. Happy Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving. I'm

6:32

calling from Silver Spring, Maryland. Great to talk

6:34

to you all. Oh, right on,

6:36

my best friend lives there. Great,

6:38

and what can we help you with? I

6:40

just found out I'm your best friend, thank you. I

6:43

am, I'm interested in, You're way back.

6:45

Sorry. I'm

6:47

interested in, well I'm trying to

6:49

be more mindful of sort

6:52

of pre-Columbian food ways, indigenous

6:54

food ways and honor

6:56

those at Thanksgiving, which seems

6:59

appropriate. Yeah. So I'd like

7:01

some ideas about how to do that, but

7:04

I have a couple caveats. My wife is

7:06

not gonna let me stop making pumpkin

7:08

pie. So sugar and flour are

7:10

still in the mix, but any

7:13

side dishes. I have

7:16

some wild rice I picked up the last time

7:18

I went to Minneapolis and we're

7:20

happy with spice. So Tiffany, if you

7:23

have any ideas about spices, that

7:25

would be great. Yeah, I mean, wild

7:28

rice, you can start there. That

7:30

sounds great. Like I think

7:32

doing sort of like wild rice with

7:34

like nuts and some dried fruit, even

7:38

if you wanna add in a little bit

7:40

of like sausage or boar or anything like

7:42

that into that would be lovely. I

7:45

love even, I just love like that

7:47

savory and sweet mix with

7:51

the wild rice is great. That sounds delicious.

7:54

Yeah, I mean the wild rice, especially

7:56

the stuff from the Northern wild rice,

7:58

like from Minnesota. I believe

8:00

it's actually like, it's like a

8:02

protected product. Like it's hand harvested by

8:05

tribal members there. And like, that's kind of the only way

8:07

you can produce it there. It's

8:10

a really beautiful product. And

8:12

it's super different than like the really long, skinny

8:14

black, like almost like pine needle shaped wild rice

8:17

that you get in stores. Texturally, is it

8:19

different, texturally? Yeah, I find it

8:21

more tender. The color is

8:23

more like a dark brown than a jet black. And

8:26

when you cook it, it

8:28

cooks a little bit more like brown rice

8:30

than you would like a typical store bought

8:32

wild rice. And it has just a really

8:34

beautiful, nutty flavor. And I think with dried

8:36

fruits and nuts, like you said, like sauteed

8:39

together, that'd be so good. So I would

8:41

say, Lars, if you've not cooked with it,

8:45

I don't have like a

8:47

great number of minutes for you, but

8:49

I would boil it as opposed

8:51

to cooking rice where you might like add like the

8:53

right ratio of water to grain.

8:57

I would actually boil it like you would pasta and

8:59

keep an eye on it. Cause when you start seeing

9:03

the grains start to like split a little

9:05

bit, pop a little bit, like kind of puff up in

9:07

the water, they're absorbing the water, then

9:09

you're pretty well on your way to being done. They don't all

9:11

have to get to that state, but that

9:13

means like a lot of them will be well cooked and

9:15

you can drain it, season

9:17

it. Like don't cook that

9:20

rice without salt. Add your salt into

9:22

your water because you're most likely gonna

9:24

have to season after as well like

9:26

taste it into Francis point, taste the

9:28

rice while it's boiling, like make sure

9:30

it's ready before you pull

9:33

all that out. Because like we all have

9:35

different like doneness textures that we like, right?

9:37

Like someone may like it a little bit

9:39

like to the tooth with wild rice and

9:41

some people may like want it a little

9:43

more cooked. That's

9:46

the problem with Thanksgiving. Everybody wants it to play with

9:48

the different. That's true, but go for what you like.

9:50

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You gotta make yourself

9:52

happy first. No one's happy. You

9:56

gotta learn to love yourself. You can sell it. A

10:00

nice thing too about this, a nice

10:03

thing too about this is you could totally pre-cook that wild

10:05

rice. You know you

10:07

can make it a few days before even ahead

10:09

of time keep it cold in the fridge It'll

10:11

it'll it'll hold beautifully and then you can like

10:13

basically saute it, you know with your

10:15

nuts and add your dry fruits I think a

10:17

little bit of maple syrup would be beautiful with

10:19

that too. Now you're talking. Yeah I mean look

10:21

I'm working with Sean Sherman and his cookbook and

10:23

I've actually just While we were together

10:25

Tiffany I would go home in the evening and actually be like

10:27

editing in that so like I'm getting a lot I'm

10:30

just trying to channel my inner Sean Sherman Maple

10:33

syrup on that wild rice with

10:35

those nuts and well seasoned with salt. Part

10:37

of this thinking Came from

10:39

our trip to a Lamni. So that makes sense

10:43

In my mind. Oh, yeah great great great. Yeah,

10:45

I mean that restaurants amazing and what they what

10:47

they do there to celebrate Indigenous

10:50

food is amazing Hey,

10:53

I want to say one thing too. Like, you know, the

10:55

thing with Thanksgiving is it's all

10:57

about oven space on the day of You

10:59

know, you're trying to pull this out put that in put the

11:01

pie in to get the turkey out Whatever having

11:04

a side like the wild rice that you can reheat

11:07

or saute on the stove top

11:10

And we'll keep Warm but

11:13

can also be delicious room temperature is also.

11:15

Yeah, perfect I think if you don't do any meat

11:17

to the rice then Having a room

11:19

temperature is probably even better You could spice it

11:21

up add a little bit of lime at the

11:23

end or lemon at the end soon as you're

11:25

done and like that With the sweetness and the

11:27

tartness. I can just see that all day

11:29

Yum, I'm hungry now

11:34

Thank you both happy Thanksgiving happy Thanksgiving

11:37

you both thank you. Yeah, thank you

11:41

Bye. I don't buy I said that that was a

11:43

weird Let's

11:54

go to our next caller This

11:56

is a very special caller his name is Mike

11:58

and And he's actually

12:01

prerecorded a call for us, because

12:03

he wasn't able to get on the phone today. But

12:05

here's Mike. Hi

12:08

Francis, this is Mike calling from, well,

12:11

I'm in low Earth orbit somewhere over South

12:13

America, traveling at around five miles per second

12:15

on the International Space Station. My

12:17

day job is being a NASA astronaut, doing

12:19

science experiments up here. But I

12:21

really love to cook, and I'm normally the designated chef

12:24

at home. The food up here is

12:26

actually pretty good, and we have great times around the galley

12:28

table, but I haven't really cooked anything

12:30

for over seven months. Soon

12:32

I'll be trading my dehydrated and foil-packed

12:34

food for good terrestrial tucker, and I'm

12:36

really looking forward to spending Thanksgiving with

12:38

my family. So here's the question. Every

12:41

year we eat cheap death and deep fry

12:43

a turkey, which my family absolutely loves. But

12:46

on occasion, we do a couple of birds with

12:48

the idea of delivering one to family or friends

12:50

several hours or even a day later. How

12:53

can you best keep the flavor and

12:55

awesomeness of that fried beast over that

12:57

time? Is it best to cut

12:59

it up and cool it for later reheating? Is

13:01

this rocket science? Love the show. Thanks

13:04

so much for the help. Well,

13:07

thank you. That's awesome. Yeah, I got

13:09

to tell you the story of this,

13:11

because this is one of my highlights

13:13

of my life, really. So Mike Barrett

13:15

is literally an astronaut, and

13:18

as part of the program, you

13:21

know, NASA provides the astronauts with, like, you

13:23

can basically phone a friend, anyone on Earth,

13:28

like, a couple of times during your long

13:31

orbit. So, and he was like, hey, I

13:33

like the splendid table. I'd love to have

13:35

a chat with the host. And so NASA

13:38

shot me an email one day and said, hey, would you

13:40

like to meet our, you know, one of our astronauts? He'd

13:42

love to have a conversation with you. Are you kidding me?

13:44

It was incredible. So we set it up. You

13:47

know, I could bring my family, and

13:50

I, you know, we had a video call. We

13:53

zoomed from space. Wow. It

13:57

was the most incredible experience. And

14:00

me, my wife, my kid got to see him

14:02

literally, like be like, oh hey, look behind me.

14:04

And like behind him was the earth, you know?

14:06

Like it was- Oh my God,

14:08

how incredible, wow. It was such a

14:10

pleasure and such an honor. Do you have that

14:12

video footage? We need to see it. You know, they

14:14

asked us to keep it private because it's a private

14:16

conversation. So we didn't actually video it. Okay, cause I

14:18

don't know if we believe it if we can see

14:20

it. Well,

14:24

you got a recording from him. See what really happened. You

14:26

got the voicemail, you know, that's gotta be, that's gotta

14:29

be worth something. That's true, that's true,

14:31

that's true. Wow, that's incredible, wow, that's great.

14:33

So thank you for the question, Mike.

14:35

And the question is if he fries

14:37

a turkey one day and

14:40

needs to bring it to folks and reheat

14:42

it the next day, what's the best way

14:44

to save and

14:46

reheat and serve that turkey? Francis,

14:50

tell me this. Are you a fried

14:52

turkey fan? I sure am.

14:55

Why do you love a fried turkey? Well,

14:58

you know, I've not had it like a

15:00

ton. I've not made the fried turkey myself, but

15:02

it is true that in my experience when I've

15:04

had fried versus roasted turkey, it does tend to

15:06

be juicier, just

15:10

cooked quicker. And you

15:12

know, you're not like waiting for the legs to cook

15:14

while your breast is like, you know, suffering

15:17

away in the oven. So I

15:19

do find it to be a little juicier. But are you

15:22

gonna like debunk the myth? Is that what you're doing? Is

15:24

that where you're going? No, no, I just wanted to get your

15:26

thoughts. Francis, the man, I wanted to

15:28

know what was the thoughts. I felt like you've

15:30

probably had a lot more turkey than

15:33

I have had just because of the

15:35

nature of the game. Well, you

15:37

also had seven other proteins that you don't have Thanksgiving.

15:39

I mean, you know, I do. I

15:42

mean, nothing beats my braised turkey.

15:44

So I'm just like, it's tender and

15:46

juicy every single bite. So, you

15:49

know, I remember the first time I had fried

15:51

turkey, I was expecting

15:53

like fried chicken. So, you

15:56

know, like I was expecting crispy

15:58

like that. And

16:01

that wasn't that, I didn't even know it was a fried one.

16:03

Like literally I've been eating it all my life and they were

16:05

like, that's a fried turkey. I was like, what do you mean?

16:07

They're like, that's the fried turkey because it was carved up by

16:09

the time I saw it. So- Oh,

16:12

so you were disappointed. I

16:14

wasn't, I didn't, yeah, I didn't, I

16:16

just really wanted something more. Now

16:19

knowing, I do typically will go

16:21

for that fried turkey, just because

16:23

of flavor wise, I feel like

16:25

it is a little more

16:28

juicy than some of the

16:30

roasted that I've had, especially breast meat.

16:32

Sometimes people overcook, well, most people overcook

16:34

it. So Mike, I think that

16:36

you should go ahead and carve it.

16:39

I feel like it's cumbersome a little

16:41

bit to try to pack

16:43

up whole turkeys and take it

16:46

to people. I also think that by

16:48

cooling it down, like cooking it,

16:50

cooling it down and cutting it properly,

16:52

they can heat it back in the

16:54

oven and get it back crispy, that

16:56

skin. You know, and so

16:59

leaving that skin intact, don't slice, just carve,

17:01

right? So take off the leg and thigh,

17:03

take off the breast, like keep it together.

17:06

And then, you know, if you can, vacuum

17:10

seal it, great. If

17:12

not, if not, just a little-

17:14

He's an astronaut. He is an astronaut, that's

17:17

what I'm saying. You still have the vacuum

17:19

seal food. So

17:21

yeah, I mean, and again, also too, maybe

17:23

even sprinkle a little extra seasoning on it

17:25

now that it's cut and refrigerated, sealed, and then

17:27

they just pop it in the oven, get it

17:29

crispy. I love that. How do you braise

17:32

your turkey? You mentioned your

17:34

braised turkey. Yeah, so we make a

17:36

roux, more, not as dark

17:38

as like a gumbo roux, more of like

17:40

a brown roux. And then

17:42

we take the turkey wings and we actually

17:44

cut the wings like into two inches. So

17:46

we'll have the butcher cut the turkey wings

17:48

by two inches pieces. So they almost look

17:50

like asabugos. And then

17:52

we season those up, put a little bit

17:55

of flour, and then brown

17:57

them, and then onions,

17:59

pepper. celery, garlic, add in

18:01

the roux, add in the stock,

18:04

and then season and let it cook for about

18:06

two and a half hours, two, two and a

18:08

half hours. And they are just

18:11

incredibly tender. Finish it off with some green

18:13

onion or parsley, and it's

18:15

ready. It's pure perfection

18:17

every time. And you

18:19

know what I'm serving it with. Come on, you know

18:21

it's coming over rice. Rice and gravy, baby. Rice and

18:23

gravy. Oh,

18:26

my God. Francis and

18:28

I had a little conversation one day, and it

18:30

was like, I love rice. And

18:33

Francis is like, you know I'm Asian, right? You know I'm Asian.

18:35

You know I like rice, right? Like, duh.

18:37

I was like, I know that. We were like,

18:39

trying to out-rice each other. I'm like... I

18:45

love it. All right,

18:47

let's get our next caller. Maybe

18:49

we'll talk about rice. We'll see. This

18:52

is Mandy. Hi, Mandy. Hey,

18:54

hello. Happy Thanksgiving. I'm talking about another

18:57

carb of mashed potatoes, not rice. But,

18:59

you know, we're not going to bring

19:01

our carbs in order here. I

19:05

love mashed potatoes. Talk to me, Mandy. You

19:07

might win because I believe Tiffany was telling

19:10

me about how she likes to eat potatoes

19:12

with rice, and that's not a thing that

19:14

I grew up doing. So, okay. What's the

19:16

question? Actually,

19:19

first, where are you calling from? I'm

19:21

calling from St. Paul, Minnesota. Minnesota.

19:26

Yeah, Minnesota. You'll hear a

19:28

reaction come out here. Minnesota. Okay, what

19:30

potato talk do we have in store

19:33

for us? So, I'm

19:35

a huge fan of mashed potatoes, but there

19:37

are so many recipes out there for,

19:39

you know, creamy, home style, or I've

19:42

even seen different blogs about how long

19:44

to actually boil your mashed potatoes so

19:46

they're not too watery. I

19:49

don't like complicated, but every year I'm

19:51

in charge of these mashed potatoes, and

19:53

they come out different every year. I'm

19:55

just looking for the best

19:58

possible mashed potato recipe that's... This

20:00

doesn't overcomplicate things, but just makes

20:02

them, you know, so creamy to

20:04

die for a side

20:07

plate of mashed potatoes. Okay, tell me

20:09

this, Mindy. Do you like

20:11

a super creamy or are you

20:13

a chunky potato person? I

20:16

prefer more creamy than chunky. I've

20:18

tried both. You and me

20:21

both, all right. Okay, we in the same boat, all

20:23

right, great, great, great. Yeah. What

20:26

kind of potato do you use? So

20:29

I go for the Idaho

20:31

russet potato. I know that can make

20:33

a difference. I've done a yellow potato

20:35

one year, thinking that was maybe the

20:38

problem, but I try to

20:40

just stick with the russet potato. So it could

20:43

boil down, no pun intended, to

20:45

the actual potato type. I

20:48

mean, yes, potatoes cook differently. So there's nothing

20:50

wrong with the Idaho though. I mean, I

20:53

probably cook more Idaho for mashed than I

20:55

do any kind of Yukon goal, but there

20:57

are definitely, yeah, they're delicious. So you can

20:59

stay with that, or if you want to

21:02

branch out and then try that gold again,

21:04

we can do that. But

21:07

the one thing you want to do is

21:09

make sure that you cook that potato to

21:11

where it is done, right? And start them

21:13

in cold water. Always start your potatoes in

21:15

cold water, salt your water, all

21:17

right? Go ahead and put that salt. And

21:21

you know what? The only way to know if

21:23

you have enough salt in your water is to

21:25

taste the water. Like just literally put your potatoes,

21:28

put some salt, stir it up, heat it

21:30

up, taste a little water, see if you

21:32

taste any. You don't taste any at all.

21:35

You don't have enough in there. Okay.

21:37

Then go ahead and add a little more, all right?

21:39

Because you know, oftentimes people say, oh, I put a

21:41

lot in there and then we taste it. And it's

21:43

like, we don't taste anything. And then they taste it

21:46

and they're like, but I did put a lot. And

21:48

it's like, well, I don't care how much you put

21:50

if we don't taste it, we don't taste it. Okay,

21:52

so then what you're gonna do is

21:54

boil them to their completely cooked. Now

21:56

we don't want them like falling apart in

21:59

super water. log like you're talking about, but

22:01

when we stick a fork or

22:03

a knife in there, it should come out

22:05

like clean, it's good, it's ready to go.

22:07

Alright, here is the the next steps that

22:09

are the most important. So you've boiled it

22:11

right, then you're gonna

22:14

take and you need to heat up your

22:16

cream or your mixture. It needs to be

22:18

hot, okay? So you have to take another

22:20

pot and you need to heat up your

22:23

butter and your cream. You can

22:25

put a garlic clove in there too if you

22:27

want to do that too, like whatever you want

22:29

to do, whatever flavor. I usually just throw like

22:31

two cloves of garlic in there and just let that

22:33

cook in the cream and butter. I'm kind of a

22:35

little bit of a purist in this form, I don't

22:38

put too much more outside of that. So

22:40

once your potatoes are done,

22:43

no I don't because I don't know

22:45

how much my potato needs at that

22:48

moment. Okay. Because if you can see I've

22:50

already gone heavy on the salt in the

22:52

potatoes. We

22:54

ain't worried about calories or anything.

22:57

We're clear there. And

22:59

make sure there's enough butter. So like

23:01

save yourself a little room temperature butter

23:03

sitting out just in case you need to add

23:06

more butter. Okay so you've boiled your potatoes

23:08

right, they're ready, you're gonna take them out,

23:10

you're gonna strain them, alright? Then you're

23:12

just gonna put them back in the pan. And then

23:14

I just want you to put the pan back on

23:17

the stove, just let them sit, they're gonna dry out

23:19

some. Sometimes we put them in the oven to dry

23:21

out a little but like we're not complicating this. So

23:24

we're just gonna let them dry out in that hot

23:26

pinyon that it came out of, okay? You're with me?

23:28

Yep. We got our hot cream

23:30

and butter, right? That's ready. Okay.

23:32

Now it's go time. We're gonna take

23:34

those potatoes and mix it with that

23:36

hot cream and butter. We're gonna mix

23:39

it and we're gonna mix like

23:41

we are whipping heavy. We're whipping like we're

23:43

whipping egg whites right now, okay? We are

23:45

whipping and we're gonna whip it good. And

23:47

we're gonna make sure you're a little wet

23:50

on the ground. Yes! And we need enough

23:52

mixture of that milk and cream to like

23:54

make it a little looser because as they

23:56

sit for a second they get a little

23:58

bit thicker. So we want

24:00

it to be just a little softer than

24:03

probably what we would serve it at. Then

24:05

we give it a little taste, salt.

24:08

I like a little white pepper in mine, but you can do

24:10

black pepper if you like it, season it

24:12

up, whatever it needs. And if you feel

24:15

like it's not rich enough, that's

24:17

when that little dab of butter that's been

24:19

sitting off to the side becomes, you just

24:21

add that right on in and mix it.

24:23

The key is though, we have to keep

24:25

it hot. We can't let them get cold

24:27

and we don't really want them boiling, right?

24:30

We just want them hot. So if you turn your pot

24:33

on just a little low while you're doing all of that,

24:35

it will make your life so much easier. And

24:37

then just put it off to the side, you're good to go. Those

24:40

are the best potatoes. Perfect, fluffy,

24:42

seasoned. And then get yourself a

24:44

little bowl before family comes over and

24:47

eat yours. It's

24:50

100%, I travel for Thanksgiving. So that's why

24:52

I like to cook them because I keep

24:54

them hot on the travel there. It's not

24:56

a long ride, but also I'm definitely eating

24:58

some mashed potatoes in the passenger

25:00

seat while my husband tries baking. Maybe

25:03

I like your style. I can put it on

25:05

the work. Holding the pot of potatoes like

25:07

a baby. I

25:09

love your style. It

25:12

makes me happy. Like I said, I'm a huge fan

25:14

of carbs and

25:16

mashed potatoes. And you better, that makes me do

25:18

my happy dance on Thanksgiving. So I'll be doing

25:20

lots of happy dances today while I

25:22

need some fluffy mashed potatoes. And

25:25

just to get my little, I'm from

25:27

Minnesota, so we have a little bit of

25:29

Scandinavian. And you know what we do with

25:31

those leftover potatoes? What you do? We make

25:33

lefse. Oh yeah. You ever had lefse? It's

25:36

like a little pancake, yeah. Oh, when

25:38

Thanksgiving is all said and done,

25:40

then our Scandinavian culture comes out

25:42

and we make lefse

25:44

with the leftover mashed potatoes. So no

25:47

mashed potato goes wasted here in the

25:49

Midwest. Yeah, no mashed potato left behind,

25:51

I love it. No, so you might

25:53

have to start a new tradition with

25:55

all those leftover mashed potatoes tournament

25:59

lefse. the next day or two. Yeah,

26:01

Amanda, can you really quickly, for those of us

26:03

who don't know, describe what lefse are? It's

26:06

rice potatoes, when you mix them with butter, cream,

26:09

salt, sugar, and flour, and

26:11

then you pan fry them. They're very

26:13

thin, so when you roll them up,

26:16

it kind of looks like a quesadilla with

26:18

nothing in it. So that is

26:21

what a lefse is, and it's just

26:23

basic ingredients, heavy cream, you put some

26:25

salt and sugar, a little bit of

26:28

flour, but all you do is just

26:30

you basically make these

26:33

balls of mashed potatoes, you roll

26:35

them out very flat, and

26:37

then you can pan fry them, you

26:40

can, some people just roll

26:42

them in a cinnamon and butter, and

26:44

oh my goodness, you've got a try-lotta.

26:46

That sounds good. A little

26:48

potato pancake. I love it. Yes, that's exactly

26:50

what it is. Alright, well

26:53

thank you so much, Mandy, and happy thanksgiving to

26:55

you. Thank you, Mandy. Yes, happy thanksgiving to

26:57

you guys as well, thank you. Thank you.

26:59

Okay, we got one more, Tiffany. Let's

27:01

go to Annie. Hello, can you thank you for me,

27:03

okay? Hi, Annie. Happy thanksgiving. Happy

27:05

thanksgiving to you both. Where are you calling

27:07

from? I'm calling from just outside of Seattle.

27:10

Oh, I love Seattle. How's the weather?

27:12

You can

27:14

probably guess. That

27:16

was a little shady. Good weather for warm food. Good

27:19

weather for warm food. I like that. I like that.

27:22

I like it. Okay, and what are you making, Annie?

27:24

What can we help you with? Well, I

27:27

love fricky dinners and all

27:29

of the fixings that go alongside them,

27:31

but this year I kind of want

27:33

to make a savory pie with all

27:35

of the thanksgiving fixings, and

27:37

I am curious like what

27:39

you might recommend for a pie

27:41

crust, and for me, and I

27:44

know this is kind of sacrilege to say, but like

27:46

turkey is not my favorite part of thanksgiving. It

27:49

is a tool with which to eat

27:51

all the other goodies. Sure. Side-eye,

27:53

Annie. Frances said it's

27:55

okay, but I'm side-eyeing just so you

27:57

know. We're in the room with seven

27:59

others. other choices. You got your pork

28:01

roast. It is true. It is true.

28:03

And you gotta come to my house. Then

28:05

you're gonna have plenty of options. I see.

28:07

I will welcome that. Um but

28:11

I I will put the turkey in the pie

28:13

because I do understand it's part of the um

28:15

tradition and quite honestly, what other people in my

28:17

house would like to eat. Um but I love

28:20

my mom's stuffing that she makes

28:22

and so I wanna fit that in but

28:24

not have it get soggy and weird. Um

28:27

she does a really nice

28:29

cornbread and sourdough dressing with

28:31

pecans and celery and onions

28:33

and cranberries. Um and

28:35

that that is actually my favorite part of

28:38

Thanksgiving. So, I'm wondering how I

28:40

can put that together and include the stuffing

28:42

but not make it mushy. And

28:45

this isn't a pie though. Yeah. And

28:47

I'm open to open top pie

28:50

or maybe it's you know, maybe it's

28:52

just a top for the pie. I

28:54

just want a more compact vehicle for

28:56

consumption. I'm just like, you just wanna

28:58

get it down quickly. Indeed,

29:00

I do. Indeed, I do. From savory

29:02

pie to sweet pie. Let's let's get

29:04

it done. Hmm.

29:09

I'm not a pastry chef. I do know that uh the

29:12

stuff he's already made. I would suggest

29:14

the turkey you precook. Maybe braise it

29:16

like Tiffany. Oh, if you braise like

29:18

turkey legs, turkey thighs like

29:20

Tiffany just described a little minute ago and

29:23

then shred that meat. Uh

29:26

I think that will be delicious and

29:28

I don't know if your stuffing

29:31

is already made, you're not gonna bake the stuffing

29:33

in the pie dough, right? So, I would precook

29:35

your pie crust, right? Par baked the pie crust.

29:37

Okay. And uh

29:40

if the stuffing is not super moist,

29:42

you can probably lay that in the pie

29:44

crust and then bake that

29:46

with some of that beautiful chunks of

29:48

that shredded turkey on top. Um

29:51

and you're basically just baking through the pie crust to

29:53

warm through the stuffing and then you got all that

29:55

good turkey gravy that you just pour all over it

29:57

when you're when you're done when you got slices of

29:59

that. Stephanie, what exactly?

30:02

That sounds good. I probably would approach it

30:04

the opposite, though. I probably

30:07

would. Well, first off in my

30:09

mind, it's so funny how we all think so differently. Like,

30:11

I probably would do mini muffin pans, right? And

30:14

I would go ahead and do your

30:16

dressing that you do. But

30:19

I probably add a little bit of liquid in there so

30:22

I could bake it again just to set it a little

30:24

more, you know, because sometimes it doesn't set enough. And

30:26

then I would put that in the bottom

30:29

of the muffin pan so that it can make its own crust. And

30:31

you may have to add an egg into

30:34

that just so that it sets for sure. Then

30:36

I would take whatever your turkey is,

30:39

however you're going to cook it, if

30:41

you want to braise it like I did, or if you

30:43

just have turkey left over or whatever. But it would need

30:45

to be turkey that's kind of already almost

30:47

done or done. And then shred

30:50

that, put that on top of that dressing. Then

30:53

I would probably take a little

30:55

cranberry sauce, put that on top. And

30:59

then I would take a little filo

31:01

dough that I've cut out the size

31:03

of the muffin pan. And

31:05

I would go right on the top of that

31:07

with that filo dough and bake it right there.

31:10

Or you can cut the filo dough

31:12

the right size and bake it separate. And

31:15

then when I plate them, I

31:17

would put that gravy on the

31:19

bottom, set my muffin and the

31:22

cornbread whole thing on top, and

31:24

then put the filo dough right on

31:26

top of that. And then it's

31:28

all of it in a bite. I love that. Oh,

31:31

that sounds delightful. And you get that nice

31:33

like crispiness from the filo. Exactly. Yeah, you

31:35

get that like different texture versus like a

31:37

heart crunch, that soft crunch. But

31:41

I think you got choices. Like

31:43

you got options, baby. Yeah,

31:45

I would never have thought to use the

31:48

dressing as like the base, but I really

31:50

like that idea because it probably would also

31:52

crisp up a little bit on the bottom.

31:54

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I was thinking like in

31:56

bread pudding way, you know, but yeah, same

31:59

exact way. I love that. Yeah.

32:02

And would this be too dense

32:04

to just add another layer of Thanksgiving food onto

32:07

it? Could it

32:09

be also like a mini shepherd's pie

32:11

almost by putting mashed potatoes on top

32:13

instead of the CeeLo or under the

32:15

CeeLo? Again, a vehicle for

32:17

consumption. I think that's between you and your

32:19

God. I think. That's a

32:21

bit. I mean, I feel like,

32:23

you know, if you didn't want

32:25

to go cornbread dressing, then maybe

32:29

you go shepherd's pie way

32:31

and go mashed potatoes. I don't know. I

32:34

mean, you do what feels right. You get in there and

32:36

you just do what feels right. You

32:40

might have something new that we're like,

32:42

whoa, might have to try. Now

32:44

it's trending. I

32:46

will let you know. Happy

32:49

Thanksgiving, Annie. Yeah, happy Thanksgiving, Annie. Thanks for

32:51

the call. Thank you. Happy Thanksgiving

32:53

to you both. All right. Well,

32:56

Tiffany, this has been a blast.

32:58

Thank you so much for coming by

33:00

and happy Thanksgiving to you. Absolutely.

33:02

Thank you for inviting me and happy

33:05

Thanksgiving. Tiffany

33:09

Derry is chef owner of Roots Southern

33:11

Table, Roots Chicken Shack, and Ravichi in

33:14

Dallas. And you can watch her

33:16

on the Great American Recipe on PBS. And

33:18

hey, Hang tight. We'll be right back with

33:20

Joe Yonin, food and dining editor of The

33:22

Washington Post. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

33:25

I'm Francis Lam, and this is our

33:27

annual Thanksgiving Day show, Turkey Confidential, supported

33:30

by Broad and Taylor. Tools

33:32

for bread bakers designed by bread bakers

33:34

and brought to you by American Public

33:36

Media. Today's

33:38

Turkey Confidential is supported by Broad and

33:40

Taylor. You might be thinking how nice

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34:43

Hey, happy Thanksgiving everyone. I'm Francis

34:45

Lam and you're listening to The

34:47

Splendid Table's Turkey Confidential from American

34:49

Public Media. Turkey Confidential is

34:51

supported by Broad & Taylor. Users

34:54

of bread baking tools and equipment for bakers

34:56

who are interested in beginning their sourdough journey.

34:59

Recipes, how-to videos, and

35:01

more at Broad, spelled

35:04

B-R-O-D and tailor.com/splendid. Our

35:08

next guest here to help me take on

35:10

your Thanksgiving cooking questions is our friend Joe

35:12

Yonan. Food and dining editor of The Washington

35:15

Post, Joe, also happens to

35:17

moonlight as a fabulous cookbook author. Back

35:19

in 2020, he got, I don't know,

35:21

a jillion and a half people through their

35:23

stockpiles of dried legumes with his cool beans.

35:26

And his latest is a simple little

35:29

number, unassumingly called Mastering the

35:31

Art of Plant-Based Cooking. He's

35:34

also one of the loveliest people in all

35:36

of food. Hey, Joe, happy

35:38

Thanksgiving. Oh, happy Thanksgiving,

35:40

Francis. Great to be here. I'm

35:42

so glad to see you. So

35:44

hey, first congratulations on your magnum

35:46

opus. Mastering

35:49

the art of plant-based cooking. It is 300 recipes,

35:51

just a hair short of 500 pages. This

35:59

is like everything you've ever wanted. wanted to know about vegan

36:01

cooking, what was afraid to ask. That's

36:03

right. But before we get into it, and

36:05

before we get into our Thanksgiving stuff, I

36:07

want to know what Thanksgivings were

36:10

like for you when you were growing up, because you

36:12

have this great story about when you were a kid, you were

36:15

doing the grocery shopping for the family in an

36:18

Air Force base. Uh-huh, uh-huh.

36:20

Yep, yep. Yeah, my

36:23

parents, when my parents divorced, my dad was

36:25

an Air Force pilot, and when they divorced

36:27

my mom, who was trying to do her

36:29

best to get food on the table

36:31

all the time for kids without

36:34

breaking the bank, she

36:37

realized that when they got divorced,

36:39

she lost privileges to shop at

36:41

the discount base grocery store called

36:43

the Commissary. But

36:45

my mother's very, was very resourceful,

36:47

and she realized pretty quickly that

36:50

there was a loophole, and the

36:52

loophole was that her kids, my

36:54

father's dependents, did not lose privileges

36:57

to shop. So I was eight

37:00

years old at the time, and I was a

37:02

little math geek, and she took me to

37:05

the store every Saturday with a list

37:07

and with cash, and

37:09

if I got everything on the list, I could

37:12

buy something for myself. So I

37:14

had an incentive, you know, I had an incentive to like

37:16

get deals, because I wanted to have money, you know, I

37:18

wanted to get everything on the list, and I wanted to

37:20

have money left over for my Mr. Goodbar and my Dr.

37:22

Pepper or whatever it was I was buying. So

37:26

I learned how to comparison shop, it was really great, and

37:28

I took this little red

37:31

handheld manual clicker counter thing with

37:33

me, this was before, you know,

37:37

well it wasn't before calculators, but I don't

37:39

know why, I just, I had this little manual thing and

37:41

I added up the prices as I

37:43

went, and I was doing math in my head,

37:45

and the

37:48

cashiers of course were usually

37:50

quite surprised to see me without anybody else

37:52

there, and took pity

37:54

on me sometimes, and

37:57

I remember the first time I checked out the bagger,

38:00

he's walking me out to the car,

38:03

he's confused because there's

38:05

no adult with me. He's kind of

38:07

looking around and we get up to

38:09

the car and my mother's waiting in the car, he

38:11

doesn't see her yet and he just looks at me

38:13

and he says, do not tell me that you're going

38:16

to drive too. And I

38:18

was like, no, no, I got my mom here for

38:20

that. But it was wonderful

38:22

because it really sparked this interest

38:24

for me in cooking because of

38:27

course pretty quickly, I

38:29

wanted to know what was happening with those ingredients when we got

38:31

home. I was making these decisions

38:33

about like, this tomato

38:36

sauce is on sale, but is it going to be

38:38

as good as that tomato sauce? And my mother had

38:40

certainly given me direction, but I was also the one

38:42

who was making the ultimate call. Yeah,

38:45

so pretty quickly after that, I got really interested in

38:47

what she was doing with them

38:49

at home and I was

38:51

super interested in her stand

38:53

mixer for some reason. I think, I don't know, I'm

38:55

a boy, it was a machine. So

38:58

I just, I don't know, I thought it was really

39:00

cool and she would whip the potatoes in it and

39:02

I just, I made

39:05

her promise me every Thanksgiving and this was

39:07

often a holiday dish,

39:10

of course. I made her promise me that

39:12

she would not whip the potatoes without me,

39:14

you know, that I always got to whip

39:16

the potatoes. And you know, my poor mom

39:18

is like, she's juggling all these

39:20

different Thanksgiving dishes and she's got all

39:22

these kids and she's trying to keep

39:24

up with everything. And there I

39:26

am, of course, saying that I have

39:28

to mask the potatoes. And

39:31

of course I disappeared, you know, of course I ran

39:33

around, I disappeared, of course, you know, and

39:36

so I would come back in and my mother would

39:38

have whipped the potatoes because I was nowhere to be

39:40

found and I was upset. And

39:43

it took me a long time to realize

39:45

I would have little tantrums. So

39:50

it was a great lesson and then I started kind

39:52

of doing some other things in the kitchen, which was

39:54

awesome. Well, thank you for highlighting the

39:56

absurdity of parenthood, first of all. what

40:00

we have to go through. Boy, it

40:02

really is absurd. Yeah. All right,

40:04

so let me fast forward you

40:06

many, many, many years later when

40:08

you started personally shifting over to

40:11

a more plant-based diet.

40:13

I think that's about 15-ish years ago,

40:15

right? Yeah. Did that change

40:17

how you celebrate Thanksgiving? Yeah,

40:20

yeah, absolutely. I mean,

40:23

I really didn't want

40:25

to roast a turkey anymore, as you might imagine. And

40:28

I often hosted, and I have to

40:30

say to everyone out there, I

40:33

know that you love your turkey, but I

40:35

just want to take a minute to say,

40:39

if you want to have a more

40:41

relaxing Thanksgiving cooking experience, boy, if you

40:43

let go of that turkey, even

40:46

if you buy it somewhere else, it's

40:48

a game changer. I mean, all of a sudden, you don't

40:51

have to answer or ask all of those questions

40:54

that come along with the turkey. Is

40:56

it frozen? How much time do I have to

40:58

thaw it? Like, where am I going to thaw it? Do I have a

41:00

bag big enough to brine it? How am I going to brine it dry

41:02

brine or wet brine? All those

41:05

questions, you kind of take it out. And then

41:07

all of a sudden, it's just

41:09

a dinner party. Yeah, I love that. You can

41:11

kind of relax. You can kind of relax. So

41:14

for a long time, I didn't make turkey.

41:16

I always loved the sides, of course. But

41:19

I also, you know, there's something about

41:21

having a special kind of

41:24

showpiece, centerpiece dish

41:27

that people can kind of ooh and aah over,

41:30

that the turkey sort of definitely accomplishes. So I've

41:32

also spent a lot of time kind of. The

41:34

center of the table. The center of the table.

41:36

You know, so you sometimes

41:39

get tired of just eating all the sides. And

41:42

so Thanksgiving can certainly feel like that sometimes.

41:44

But I do love all those dishes. Well,

41:47

let's get to some of our colors. We

41:50

have on the line Leslie. Hi,

41:52

Leslie. Hi, Francis. Hi,

41:54

Joe. Happy Thanksgiving. Yeah,

41:56

happy Thanksgiving. Hey, thanks. Happy Thanksgiving to you both.

41:58

How can we help you? So,

42:00

um, you know, I have been plant

42:02

based for a good number of years

42:04

now and, you know, I feel like

42:06

I got the sides nailed down, right?

42:09

I've had the sides nailed down for

42:11

even, even before I was plant based,

42:13

because that was honestly some of my

42:15

more favorite parts of Thanksgiving

42:17

growing up. But

42:19

my struggle is that

42:22

centerpiece, that main plant

42:24

based dish. Um, I feel like all

42:26

the blogs I look at, you

42:29

know, are all just like mushroom

42:31

wellington, cauliflower steak. And that,

42:33

that doesn't do it for

42:35

me. I've through the years

42:38

I've, I've done some

42:40

store bought loaf and I tell ya,

42:42

I tell you they're pretty good, but

42:44

they're low fee. They,

42:46

they wish you, they do. They

42:49

stay with you for days and

42:52

days and days. And they

42:54

love around Thanksgiving. They

42:56

sure do. Yeah. And if

42:59

you get that Thanksgiving loaf and then you do

43:01

that Christmas loaf, man, you're going into the new

43:03

year. You're really definitely checking your like, you know,

43:05

workshop workout plans. Yeah. There's

43:07

something about the word loaf. It just,

43:09

it doesn't suggest deliciousness. Yeah.

43:12

Even though, even though it is a word that, you

43:14

know, loaves of bread, wonderful. But like,

43:16

you know, dinner loaf. Yeah.

43:19

Yeah. It doesn't spark joy.

43:21

Yeah. No, it does not. Yeah.

43:24

I want that main dish. That's what I'm looking for is

43:26

this kind of, um, just main

43:29

kind of centerpiece. Big, beautiful

43:31

centerpiece. Okay. Well, we were

43:33

actually just talking about this. So yeah,

43:35

we were. What have you come up with? Well,

43:38

you know, I've worked on this almost every year, um, for

43:41

the last dozen years. I've tried to come up

43:43

with something new. Um, and I've, I've

43:45

gone, I've gone quite around the block. Of

43:48

course there was a mushroom Wellington, Leslie, of course,

43:50

I must confess. And there

43:52

also have been lots of whole roasted

43:54

vegetables, which is something that I, I

43:57

really do like to do, um, at Thanksgiving. I

43:59

don't know if you've ever. on that route before,

44:01

but in my new book,

44:03

I have a Romanesco with Romasco, and

44:05

I did that partly because I like

44:07

wordplay. Because of the name. I

44:09

like wordplay, yeah, I thought it was funny, but

44:11

also, you know, Romasco, that

44:13

great Spanish chunky

44:16

sauce with red peppers and

44:18

nuts and bread and vinegar

44:20

and garlic is just delicious,

44:23

and it's just great. Just pureed together,

44:25

right? All-flower. Right? Yeah,

44:27

yeah, yeah. It's delicious. It's got the

44:29

Romanesco. That's

44:31

a cauliflower that has that like... That

44:34

fractal pattern, that like kind of green fractal pattern.

44:36

And you know what I was thinking about for

44:38

Thanksgiving, Leslie, is that it kind

44:40

of looks a little like a Christmas tree, you

44:43

know? So it's got that holiday feel to it.

44:45

It's got the green, you know, it's green and

44:47

the sauce is red, and I think

44:50

that could be an interesting thing for you to try.

44:53

It's really not difficult to do. I usually

44:57

roast the Romanesco or other cauliflower

44:59

in a Dutch oven covered so

45:01

that it kind of steams itself

45:03

first, and then I uncover it

45:05

and let it brown a little

45:07

bit, and then it sits

45:09

on that great Romasco sauce. And then it's,

45:11

you know, I dust it with nuts

45:14

for garnish, and it's really pretty.

45:17

So that's something you might think about. And

45:20

you can cut it into wedges. I actually have a few

45:22

of those. There's

45:24

a whole roasted celery root with an apple

45:26

cider glaze that I really like. Oh.

45:29

And you roast the celery root, and

45:31

then you make this quick glaze with,

45:34

you know, cider and brown sugar and

45:36

butter and kind of reduce it

45:38

down to form kind of a sticky glaze. And

45:40

you pour the glaze over

45:43

the roasted celery root and then, you

45:45

know, top it with some chopped walnuts

45:47

and apples and celery leaves. And

45:49

for the post this year, I did a

45:51

version of that where... Because I was a

45:54

little worried about how it would photograph, because

45:57

celery root is, let's just say, a little

45:59

gnarly-looking. It's prettier

46:02

when you roast it, but I ended up

46:04

wrapping it in Filo for

46:07

a second browning, and that was very cool.

46:09

That makes it seem like this special

46:12

little package that people get at the

46:14

table. Then, of course, there's the lasagna

46:16

route. I

46:19

have one that I do with a cauliflower bechamel,

46:21

and the filling is tofu and greens.

46:23

There's no cheese or anything. That's

46:26

cool. That sounds really good. All right. I

46:29

hope you have some ideas. I mean, you

46:31

just turned the spigot on Joe here. I'll keep going.

46:33

He's been thinking about this a long time. Yeah, I

46:35

know. These are all really delicious. I'll

46:37

tell you, I really like

46:40

the celery route idea because that's something I've

46:42

been sort of curious about. Does

46:46

it have that nice kind of celery smell?

46:49

That's weirdly. That's a

46:51

smell that I think about when I think

46:53

about Thanksgiving, is celery. I don't know why.

46:55

I think my grandma, like associated with my

46:58

grandma cooking Thanksgiving dinner. Am I going to

47:00

get that if I roast that baby up?

47:03

You absolutely will. You absolutely will. Then you'll

47:05

get this nice apple smell from the cider

47:07

too. That's a really nice

47:09

one. If you want to fancy it up a little bit,

47:11

you can do the phyllo wrap. You can add the phyllo

47:13

wrap idea. I glaze it. I

47:17

roast it first until it's tender, and

47:19

then I put out the phyllo and

47:21

brush the sheets and everything and

47:24

pour the glaze on it while it's sitting on the

47:26

phyllo. Then I put some of the walnuts

47:29

and apples right in there. It's

47:32

very easy. You just pull the phyllo up around it

47:34

and twist it at the top. It almost looks like

47:36

a messy bow. Then

47:38

when it bakes, of course it

47:41

browns and becomes gorgeous. Then you

47:43

can serve more glaze and apples

47:46

and walnuts with it when you serve it. Yeah,

47:48

it's like a little delicious Thanksgiving pot of

47:50

gold. That's it. That's

47:53

it. You found the pot of

47:55

gold at the end of the Thanksgiving rainbow. Right

48:00

on. Well, thanks for the call, Leslie. Yeah,

48:02

thanks a lot, Leslie. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, you

48:05

guys have a great Thanksgiving and take care. Thank

48:07

you, too. All right. Let's go

48:09

to Becky. Hi, Becky. Happy Thanksgiving

48:11

to you. Hi, Francis. Happy Thanksgiving to you.

48:13

Hey, Becky. Hi. Happy

48:16

Thanksgiving to you, too. Thank you. Thank

48:18

you. What can we

48:20

help you with today? So I'm calling

48:22

from central Wisconsin. And

48:24

in my family, we have a very stereotypical

48:27

Midwest Thanksgiving table. So

48:30

we have our turkey, our mashed potatoes and our stuffing.

48:33

But then we have our green bean

48:35

casserole with our Campbell soup. The

48:38

cranberries are in the shape of a can. We

48:41

make a corn casserole from a boxed cornbread

48:43

mix. Yeah, you get where I'm going with

48:45

this. Sure. Yes. And

48:48

don't get me wrong, I do love it.

48:50

Yeah. Yeah. I've been a vegetarian now for

48:52

five years and I keep

48:54

trying to introduce another item to the

48:56

table that will round out my Thanksgiving

48:59

plate, but also appeal to my family.

49:02

And spoiler, no one eats what I make.

49:05

Oh, no. Oh, yeah. So

49:08

I'm looking for ideas for a new

49:11

dish that might actually get my family

49:13

to try it. Yeah.

49:15

Yeah. Okay. Well, how let's

49:18

see, what about have you ever done smashed

49:20

potatoes or smashed sweet potatoes

49:23

where you steam small ones or

49:25

boil them, boil them, boil

49:27

them or steam them until they're tender. And then

49:29

you this works really well with small like fingerling

49:31

style potatoes or small new potatoes. After

49:34

they're tender, you you smash

49:36

them with the bottom of a glass. You

49:39

put them on a big sheet pan that's got a lot of oil on it. You

49:41

smash them with the bottom of the glass, you drizzle some

49:43

more oil on top and then you can put whatever spices

49:46

you might like. I'm a

49:48

freak about smoked paprika, but

49:50

like the tar or something like that would be

49:52

nice and maybe wouldn't freak your family out. And

49:54

and then you roast them and they get like

49:57

super crisp on the outside, but they're just like.

49:59

They're still kind of creamy on the inside. I've

50:01

never met somebody who didn't like a smashed potato.

50:05

That might be a way to go. I

50:07

love the idea with sweet potatoes. I had

50:09

fun with that. Yeah, it's great. It's great

50:12

with sweet potatoes. Really delicious that way.

50:14

And you don't have to peel them. In fact,

50:16

you kind of want to keep the peel on to sort

50:18

of hold the smashed

50:20

potato together. And the peel also is

50:23

what helps it get crisp. And

50:26

you can spice those however you want. That'd be

50:28

something that I might try. I was also kind

50:30

of thinking about, with even some

50:32

of your classic dishes, this

50:35

might be a step too

50:37

far. But I wonder if

50:39

anybody would be into just

50:42

some other toppings that you might

50:44

be able to serve on the side. I keep thinking about

50:47

a green bean casserole, how great it would

50:49

be with a salsa matcha or a chili

50:51

crisp. I don't know if

50:54

you know those, but salsa matcha is

50:56

a Mexican spicy oil chunky oil. It's

50:58

like an oil based sauce. It's like

51:00

a chili oil, basically, with lots of

51:02

little bits in it. Oh, OK. Yeah.

51:04

Sesame seeds. Yeah. And the Chinese version

51:06

is chili crisp. And I

51:08

just don't know. I mean, I wonder if you've got

51:10

any adventurous or any heat seeking

51:13

eaters at your table, or maybe you don't. But

51:16

just having that around, or for you. You

51:18

know what, Becky? Maybe you just need this

51:20

for you. A

51:24

little jar of it that you can like

51:27

spoon onto things like the

51:29

green bean casserole, or even the mashed potatoes,

51:31

or the smashed sweet potatoes, really would be

51:33

great with anything. And it would

51:35

certainly give Thanksgiving a

51:38

little more zip, which might be nice.

51:40

Yeah, I love that. I think on the

51:42

side is the key to that, though. Yeah,

51:44

yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, they can make their

51:46

own decisions. And maybe it's all you. Maybe

51:48

you're the only one. But hey, you're

51:51

worth it. But I think Joe is onto

51:53

something with toppings. Because the thing with Thanksgiving, too,

51:55

a lot of people like the ritual. They

51:57

like the ceremony. They like the consistency. Yeah. They

52:01

even if they do like other dishes and flavors

52:03

They also love like this one time a year

52:06

we get together and we always have this meal

52:08

this menu You know so and so forth

52:10

But like making little toppings making little things you

52:13

can or just bringing you know I said with

52:15

the salsa macho and the chili crisp, but I

52:17

can imagine something like with

52:19

cornbread what if you

52:21

did on the side like a little saute of nuts

52:24

and Shallots

52:27

and a little bit of herbs and

52:30

you can take in a sweet direction Maybe a

52:32

little little like a little bit of maple syrup

52:34

in that or that tiny touch of honey or

52:36

taking a savory direction We after you saute those

52:38

things like maybe a splash of soy sauce Like

52:41

something like that to make it very savory and that

52:43

could be a nice little thing on the side that

52:45

you can Put a spoon of

52:48

that on cornbread. Like how good would that be? Or

52:51

you know a little squeeze of lime like

52:53

sweet potato and lime is actually a really

52:55

great combination Don't

52:58

always think of so if

53:00

you do that sweet potato thing, maybe a little squeeze of lime

53:02

or even like a little Oh, man,

53:04

you can make find a recipe for a good What's

53:08

called a mocha lejo, which is

53:10

a Cuban Or

53:12

Caribbean more generally sauce, but I think very

53:14

popular in Cuba where it's basically like a

53:16

garlic lime vinaigrette Where

53:18

you basically cook lime juice with garlic in

53:20

it and then you whisk in a bunch

53:23

of olive oil And

53:25

that could be so delicious on

53:27

on your sweet potatoes, you know little things like that.

53:29

You can just put this side Folks

53:32

don't have to like commit to it on the plate, but

53:34

you're gonna hear right? Yeah I

53:37

was thinking about like a chimichurri or salsa verde,

53:39

too Yeah, I love

53:41

that idea too and I love the

53:43

idea of lime, too It's such a

53:45

kind of one-note meal and that feels

53:47

like it would really brighten it

53:50

up. Yeah, totally you need some spark Yes

53:56

Convincing everyone back I

54:00

think I need it, but I think we're

54:02

onto something. So thank you so much, I

54:04

appreciate it. Terrific. Happy Thanksgiving. Have a good

54:06

one. Happy Thanksgiving. Thank you. Thanks.

54:08

You too, bye bye. All right, thanks Becky. Let's do

54:10

one more. Let's see if we can get one more

54:12

caller in. This is Kyle from

54:15

Seattle. Hey Kyle, happy Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving to

54:17

you too. All right, what would you like

54:19

to talk about today? So ultimately

54:21

I wanna talk about alliums. Yeah.

54:25

Every year I quit Thanksgiving, and for many

54:27

years I had all this

54:29

trouble, you know, trying to manage oven

54:31

space and time and temperature. Sure,

54:34

sure. And a guest would show up with

54:36

something and they'd want a specific time and

54:38

temperature in the oven. And so

54:40

I kept thinking of ways to get things out

54:42

of the oven. And I hit on the idea

54:44

of using sous vide to

54:46

cook rum and press. Okay. And

54:49

so that's worked really well. I'll sous

54:51

vide them for, you know, an hour or two

54:53

and then finish them under the broiler. And I've

54:56

done it with garlic

54:58

and a little bit of

55:00

olive oil and maybe thyme

55:02

and balsamic vinegar

55:04

and shallots. And

55:08

the problem I'm having this year

55:10

is my partner

55:13

can eat onions or shallots in

55:15

this case. Okay. And so

55:17

I'm trying to think of ways to replace the

55:19

sharpness or the piquancy or whatever it is that

55:22

I kept from the shallots in

55:24

this recipe. And

55:26

the best idea I had was maybe after

55:29

it's all cooked pomegranate seeds or something. But

55:31

I'm just really interested if you have any

55:33

thoughts on ways to, you know,

55:35

replace what I would be getting from those shallots

55:37

in the recipe. Is he, is

55:39

your partner all, is it all alliums

55:42

that he can't eat or is it just? No,

55:45

garlic seems to be fine. And,

55:47

you know, sometimes the more mild,

55:49

you know, onion relative like leeks

55:52

are okay. Oh, interesting. Okay. Oh,

55:54

very interesting. The other thing,

55:57

this is more for people who, you

55:59

know, can't eat any. Turkey

1:00:00

Calponentials, supported by Broad and Taylor,

1:00:02

tools for bread bakers designed by

1:00:05

bread bakers. Happy

1:00:07

Thanksgiving and welcome to the Splendid

1:00:09

Table's annual call-in cooking show. For

1:00:12

the whole of the next hour, it's gonna be you,

1:00:14

me, our terrific guest, and your cooking questions

1:00:17

for the cooking-est day of the year. Let's

1:00:19

get to it. Our

1:00:21

next guest is a great friend of our show.

1:00:23

She's been a guest more time than I can

1:00:25

count, really, and actually, I think, I'm pretty sure

1:00:28

she was on the very first episode of the

1:00:30

Splendid Table that I hosted. Well,

1:00:32

anyway, Andrea Nguyen is not only

1:00:34

a celebrated author with seven cookbooks

1:00:36

under her belt, she's also co-host

1:00:38

of the wonderful podcast, Everything Cookbooks.

1:00:41

Her own latest is called Evergreen

1:00:44

Vietnamese, super fresh recipes starring plants

1:00:46

from land and sea. Hey,

1:00:49

Andrea, Happy Thanksgiving. Hey,

1:00:51

Francis, Happy Thanksgiving to you too.

1:00:54

I am so happy to be here with you. It's

1:00:57

been a little bit. And I

1:00:59

was actually remembering, you

1:01:01

and I talked about Thanksgiving four years

1:01:04

ago, and

1:01:07

we had this conversation, and I was re-listening to

1:01:09

it, and I just remember all the things you

1:01:11

were bringing up. They were so delicious, the things

1:01:13

you grew up eating. Your

1:01:16

family would roast chicken, but with a

1:01:18

sticky rice stuffed inside the chicken, and

1:01:21

then you started to make a stuffing with a

1:01:23

sticky rice with butter, and oh my God, that

1:01:25

sounds incredible. Butter and booze.

1:01:27

Butter and booze and sticky rice, I

1:01:29

mean, that sounds brad. And

1:01:32

you had this other super awesome thing where

1:01:34

you never had mashed potatoes. Your mom didn't

1:01:37

like mashed potatoes, but you would simmer

1:01:40

chestnuts in chicken stock and then

1:01:42

flavor it with cilantro, which is,

1:01:45

that's so like French Vietnamese.

1:01:48

It's like, I don't know if it actually

1:01:50

is Vietnamese, but sounds so French and so

1:01:52

Vietnamese at the same time. Totally, totally, you

1:01:54

know. And we had butter in there too,

1:01:57

and butter and cilantro are just so beautiful.

1:02:00

And the cilantro was like our stand-in

1:02:02

for parsley. We can't get parsley in

1:02:05

Vietnam. And over here, my mom would

1:02:07

be like, I never cook with parsley,

1:02:09

but here's my cilantro. Eons

1:02:11

ago, cilantro was called

1:02:14

Chinese parsley, right? That's

1:02:16

right, I forgot about that. Yeah, total

1:02:18

stand-in, man. But now she's got time

1:02:21

in her kitchen. 90 years

1:02:23

old, she's like, and then I think

1:02:25

that she sometimes, she steals rosemary from

1:02:27

the neighbors. Whoa,

1:02:29

don't tell anybody. Yeah. Or

1:02:32

just thank them for it now. This is the

1:02:34

moment of gratitude. That's our moment of gratitude. Thanks

1:02:36

for the rosemary and neighbors. My 90-year-old mother's stealing

1:02:39

plants from the neighbors. Gobble,

1:02:43

gobble, right? Oh, man. So

1:02:46

wait, what was the most delicious thing you had Thanksgiving

1:02:48

last year? Oh

1:02:50

my gosh, you know what? I

1:02:52

do this thing, I oven blast

1:02:54

sweet potatoes. I high heat

1:02:56

roast them at 450 in the oven. I

1:03:00

rub oil and salt around the sweet potatoes.

1:03:02

I cut them in half and I roast

1:03:04

them cut side down. And then they get

1:03:07

all caramelized around the edges and the

1:03:09

skin gets dry. And

1:03:11

then I flip them and then I roast

1:03:14

them for a little bit more so that

1:03:16

either the top gets a little more caramelized.

1:03:18

And then I make this very

1:03:21

umami-ish chili oil with

1:03:24

like nori in it. It's sort of like my version,

1:03:26

and lemongrass, it's like my version of Exo

1:03:29

sauce or chili crisp kind of

1:03:31

thing. And I put it on top with herbs. That

1:03:34

was like, I love sides at

1:03:37

Thanksgiving. Oh yeah. Right? Oh

1:03:40

yeah. Like my wife doesn't eat meat. She eats fish but

1:03:42

not meat. And she loves Thanksgiving.

1:03:44

Cause she's like, look, no one cares about the

1:03:46

turkey anyway. It's all about the sides. Exactly. And

1:03:48

so she's like, she gets to be like sides

1:03:50

monster that day. Yeah, me too. I'm

1:03:53

like all about the sides, man. And so Thanksgiving side,

1:03:55

you can have all the sides you want. Okay.

1:04:00

about this like chili oil with the sweet

1:04:02

potato. Okay, so you're like a really caramelized

1:04:04

roasted sweet potato. And the chili oil is

1:04:06

lemongrass nori. So like the crispy

1:04:09

sweet. Lemon grass with garlic and

1:04:11

shallot. And I cook that for

1:04:13

a while in oil and then

1:04:15

I add nori to it. Because

1:04:18

traditionally it's called satay sauce. It's

1:04:20

like the Vietnamese took

1:04:24

the Chinese version of satay sauce, which is

1:04:26

really like an XO sauce and the Vietnamese

1:04:28

took it and they're like, oh, we're going

1:04:31

to put like lemongrass in it. With dry

1:04:33

shrimp. And then I started my husband really

1:04:37

doesn't like all the dry shrimp in there.

1:04:39

And, and so I started making a vegan

1:04:41

version, um, substituting nori for

1:04:43

the dry shrimp. And

1:04:46

then there's a little fish sauce in there,

1:04:49

but sometimes they use vegan fish sauce and

1:04:51

it comes out and it's, and it's got

1:04:53

chili flakes in there too. So it's spicy

1:04:55

and umami and kind of lemongrassy. And,

1:04:58

um, it's just absolutely

1:05:00

delicious on all kinds of things. And,

1:05:03

um, and so I put it on

1:05:05

the sweet potato. No, that

1:05:07

sounds unreal. Actually, if we're thinking about

1:05:09

just like mixing whatever's around that with

1:05:11

like a little sour cream on the

1:05:13

sweet potatoes. Oh my God, I'm so

1:05:16

doing that. Crazy rad. Yeah. Okay.

1:05:18

Let's actually get to one of our callers.

1:05:20

We have Marietta. Happy

1:05:23

Thanksgiving. Well, same to you,

1:05:25

Francis. It's a real pleasure to get

1:05:27

to talk to you. I love listening

1:05:29

to you on Splendid Table and finally

1:05:32

can put a face to a

1:05:34

name watching the Great American Recipe. Oh,

1:05:37

well, thank you. Thank you so much for listening

1:05:39

and for checking that show out. And you're here

1:05:41

with Andrea Wynn, our dear friend. And how can

1:05:44

we help you today? Well,

1:05:46

here's my question. I have four

1:05:48

young grandchildren running around on Thanksgiving

1:05:51

and they have to

1:05:53

kind of run right past the oven around through

1:05:55

the dining room, living in that big circle. And

1:05:57

that's their favorite thing to do. And

1:06:01

so for safety sake and

1:06:04

also a little less whatever

1:06:06

goes on during that day, I would

1:06:09

love to be able to make turkey ahead

1:06:11

of time. And I just

1:06:13

don't know what's the best way to do

1:06:15

that so that I can still have turkey

1:06:18

that does taste like it just

1:06:21

made. You

1:06:23

know, keep it from getting dry or

1:06:25

whatever. So Marietta, I have

1:06:27

a question for you. Andrea, so like

1:06:29

are the kids, you know, is your

1:06:31

eight year old available to like assist

1:06:33

you, assist grandma in any way? Well

1:06:38

he probably would, but being the leader

1:06:40

of the gang when the youngest is

1:06:43

three, I don't

1:06:45

think that would work because they'll make more of

1:06:47

a mess than me trying to carve a turkey.

1:06:50

Okay. Okay. So I think

1:06:53

keeping them in the kitchen, productively occupied sounds like

1:06:55

it's off the table. I guess

1:06:57

I'm worrying more about the cutting, the carving

1:06:59

and trying to do that. Right.

1:07:02

And then it's such a production to like

1:07:04

do that kind of Norman Rockwellian thing carving

1:07:07

at the table. Oh, that doesn't happen here.

1:07:09

I don't think I've ever seen it happen.

1:07:13

No, no, it's it. That's

1:07:16

fake news. There you go. There

1:07:19

you go. So

1:07:21

how big of a bird do you cook, Marietta? How

1:07:23

many people do you have? Let's see.

1:07:26

There are, let's see, 10, 11, 12, 13, four children and

1:07:28

the rest adults. Okay.

1:07:33

And I usually get about an 18 to

1:07:35

20 pound turkey. Yeah, sure. Wow.

1:07:39

Yeah. Sure. Okay.

1:07:42

So Marietta, let me ask you this. I don't

1:07:44

know if this is a cooking question, although we

1:07:46

can certainly think about cooking parts of it. Part

1:07:48

of it just sounds like, oh, how do you

1:07:50

again, like distract the children? But I guess the

1:07:52

other question I have is, like, would it

1:07:54

be useful to you to lighten the load

1:07:56

in the sense of would you?

1:08:00

may actually have the turkey. And so you

1:08:02

can roast it on two different pans. So

1:08:04

you're gonna have like this one giant thing

1:08:06

that you have to be unwieldy and be

1:08:08

careful with while there may be kids in

1:08:10

the oven. In the

1:08:13

oven, kids in the kitchen.

1:08:15

Kids in the oven. Kids not in the oven. Kids

1:08:18

in the kitchen. But not bumping

1:08:20

into you while you're turning around with

1:08:22

this giant heavy thing. If it's, you

1:08:25

know, because we talk about spatchcocking the

1:08:27

turkey a lot. Food writers,

1:08:29

chefs are always talking about spatchcocking the turkey. I

1:08:32

know folks at home want to have the big,

1:08:34

beautiful burr. But if you're saying, hey, we

1:08:37

don't have that table side moment anyway,

1:08:39

then spatchcocking is a great choice because for

1:08:43

those who don't know what it means, it means you basically

1:08:45

cut the backbone out of the turkey. In fact, a lot

1:08:47

of butchers will do it for you at this point, it's

1:08:49

become quite popular. You cut the backbone out of the turkey

1:08:52

and then you can sort of open the turkey

1:08:54

up sort of like a book as if you

1:08:56

were, and then you put your hand down on

1:08:58

the breastbone and you cut the

1:09:00

bone out of the turkey as if it was a spine of the book and

1:09:03

press it down so it flattens it. You could

1:09:06

even take that one step further and then once it's

1:09:08

flattened, cut it in half. So one leg, one breast,

1:09:10

one wing on one side, and

1:09:13

then the other on the other. And you can

1:09:15

roast those two on two different sheet trays and

1:09:22

they'll roast much faster. They'll cook much faster

1:09:24

for you. And then you also, again,

1:09:27

you can have a giant beach ball on

1:09:29

a giant roasting tray. You can have two

1:09:31

manageable sheet trays that you pull out of

1:09:33

the oven when you know it's safe. Is

1:09:36

that doable? It is,

1:09:39

it is, but I'm kind of sensing

1:09:41

that doing it the day

1:09:43

before is not a good idea. Well, yeah,

1:09:47

what do you think, Andrea? I don't think it's

1:09:49

not a good idea, but I don't know if it solves

1:09:51

the problem because you still have to get it back into

1:09:53

the oven to warm it back up. Yeah, so my mother

1:09:56

is with you, Marietta. She

1:09:58

is the advance. Roaster.

1:10:01

She advances so much sometimes I'm like,

1:10:04

you advanced that way too long ago

1:10:06

lady. She brings

1:10:08

things out of her freezer. I'm like, how

1:10:10

old is that? I'm

1:10:14

not that bad. All right. Thank

1:10:16

God. So

1:10:19

you can roast the turkey the

1:10:22

day in advance, you know, and if

1:10:24

you dry brine it, for

1:10:26

example, that will season it and also

1:10:28

help it keep juicier. And

1:10:31

then you can go ahead

1:10:34

and slice it. Yeah.

1:10:36

And then we turn it to the pan and

1:10:40

then in like some beautiful presentable

1:10:42

manner, you know, and then

1:10:45

you got to keep it moist somehow. So you've got

1:10:47

the pan drippings in there, you can take some of

1:10:49

the pan drippings and mix it with like some, some

1:10:52

broth or something like that. And

1:10:54

then a turkey stack. Exactly. Exactly. So here's

1:10:56

the thing. If you do the, the spatch

1:10:59

caulking, like Francis suggested, you can use that

1:11:01

backbone for your broth, right? You can use

1:11:03

it for your menu that can go into

1:11:05

your gravy and then you can use some

1:11:08

of that broth and mix it with pan

1:11:10

drippings and the turkey drippings

1:11:12

and then spoon that over the turkey, slide

1:11:15

that into the fridge and then the next day return

1:11:17

it to room temperature. So like an hour before you're

1:11:19

going to bake it and then I bake it around

1:11:22

like 350 for maybe like 40-50 minutes with the foil

1:11:24

over it nice

1:11:28

and tight. And then you're just reheating. And

1:11:30

I think that the house will smell really

1:11:32

nice. You know, people will think

1:11:34

turkey's ready and then you just like bring that

1:11:37

roasting pan out, Marietta, and you just put

1:11:40

it on a platter because no one knows

1:11:42

you didn't carve that. Just like a few

1:11:44

minutes. Exactly.

1:11:46

That's what I'm thinking more of because,

1:11:49

you know, and it's messy when you're

1:11:51

cutting, you know, you're trying to

1:11:53

make everything nice, but you're making a mess and

1:11:55

I thought, well, I'd rather make the mess the

1:11:57

day before with respect to doing

1:12:00

the turkey and then the

1:12:02

day of we have a huge pan

1:12:04

of water going because my parents were

1:12:07

from Germany so we can't have Thanksgiving

1:12:10

without dumplings. Oh my god. And nothing

1:12:13

better than gravy over dumplings you know we

1:12:15

don't do the potatoes we do dumplings. How

1:12:18

cool. That sounds delicious. That sounds like

1:12:20

fun. Well enjoy the day Marietta. Enjoy

1:12:22

your dumplings, enjoy the turkey, enjoy the

1:12:25

kids. Yes, happy Thanksgiving to you. Will

1:12:27

do. Yeah, happy Thanksgiving. Thank you and

1:12:29

you too. That was

1:12:31

great. Let's let's jump right to our next caller.

1:12:34

This is Alicia. Hi. Hey Alicia.

1:12:36

This is Alicia out of Minnesota. Hi

1:12:38

Alicia. Yeah, great. Happy Thanksgiving. Thank you.

1:12:40

Yeah, it's one of my most favorite

1:12:42

holidays because it's just family and fun

1:12:44

without any of the pressure of gift

1:12:46

giving. You're

1:12:50

giving food, right? Yeah, you're giving your

1:12:52

time. Yeah, and you know the menu

1:12:55

more or less? Absolutely

1:12:58

and you know the irony of me

1:13:00

calling in is that I actually probably do

1:13:02

the least amount of cooking for Thanksgiving. I

1:13:05

know sign up for dishes that

1:13:07

are are almost you know like

1:13:10

impossible to fail at and

1:13:13

our family has four generations. There's over

1:13:16

40 people that come to Thanksgiving. It's

1:13:18

a big deal and there's a lot

1:13:20

of food. Okay. Yeah, so I was

1:13:22

calling in because last year I managed

1:13:24

to screw up the cranberries. I made

1:13:26

them too sweet but I worked you

1:13:28

know it was one of those recipes

1:13:30

where you were trying hard to you

1:13:32

know put in the orange and all

1:13:35

the stuff and not just open a

1:13:37

can and they just tasted weak. I

1:13:39

thought this is gross and is there

1:13:41

a way to fix them? So

1:13:44

is there a way to fix it? Like so next time if you

1:13:46

make it and it comes out too sweet what would what would you

1:13:48

do meaning? Right, right. Did you sign

1:13:50

up for the same punishment again Alicia for 2024?

1:13:56

I did and you know because I like to get

1:13:58

carried away with them again we're a really big group.

1:14:00

So I can make a batch that's got some brandy

1:14:03

in it if I want or bourbon. I

1:14:05

can make a batch that has orange frind,

1:14:07

you know, that the kids won't touch. So

1:14:10

you can get a little carried away with stuff,

1:14:12

which is fun. I get to try recipes, but

1:14:14

last year when I went through it,

1:14:16

it just was way too sweet. And I

1:14:19

didn't know if I do this again and I screw it

1:14:21

up and I recover. Totally.

1:14:24

Yeah, absolutely. I'll

1:14:26

give this a quick whack and then, Andrea, I want to

1:14:28

hear what you have to say. But I

1:14:30

mean, the simplest thing I would say is if it comes out

1:14:32

too sweet, just add something sour to it.

1:14:35

Also, a little pinch of salt, not

1:14:37

a whole lot, but the salt

1:14:39

will help sort of bring out the other flavors. It just gives it

1:14:41

a little more dimension if there's salt in it. I don't know if

1:14:44

you had salt in the recipe or not, but

1:14:46

a small pinch. And if

1:14:48

it comes out too sweet, I would add sour things

1:14:50

because look, the point of the cranberries really on

1:14:54

the table anyway, not speaking to the history of the tradition

1:14:56

of it. But the point of it on the table is

1:14:59

it's pretty much the only

1:15:01

thing on a typical Thanksgiving

1:15:03

table that brings a

1:15:05

little bit of sourness and acidity. Everything else

1:15:07

is typically pretty rich or starchy. So

1:15:11

you kind of want to

1:15:13

accentuate that sourness

1:15:15

of it so that it has that kind of purpose on

1:15:17

the table. You know what I mean? Like if you just

1:15:19

need a little bit of a break from the potatoes,

1:15:22

you need a little bit of a break from all

1:15:25

that gravy, something nice and tart

1:15:27

or maybe sweet and tart will

1:15:29

really sort of like round out that flavor. So

1:15:31

I would just say add a little maybe

1:15:34

some lemon juice, maybe some

1:15:36

vinegar. Oh, vinegar. Yeah,

1:15:40

if you add those kinds of

1:15:42

ingredients, simmer them in

1:15:44

a little bit because if you add them at

1:15:46

the end, you'll get that big

1:15:49

pop of lemon or that big pop

1:15:51

of vinegar right at the beginning of

1:15:53

the when you're tasting it. And then

1:15:55

it kind of like dissipates, especially if

1:15:57

it's extra sweet, like you said, it's

1:15:59

not a bad. thing but it becomes a very sort

1:16:01

of there's like very much

1:16:03

two sides to the flavor that it will be

1:16:05

like boom pow like a lot of vinegar in

1:16:07

your face and then turn very sweet whereas if

1:16:10

you simmer the vinegar simmer the lemon juice in

1:16:12

it a bit it'll help even it out a

1:16:14

little and it'll feel a little more even

1:16:16

and balanced but Andrea like

1:16:19

so much of your cooking so much of

1:16:21

Vietnamese food is about that balance of sweet

1:16:24

and sour and savory yeah yeah

1:16:27

so how would you think

1:16:29

about I you know like Alicia

1:16:31

if you've got like citrus in in there

1:16:34

you probably just graded the zest right and

1:16:38

what I may suggest

1:16:41

is this for the adult version to

1:16:43

introduce a little bitter just

1:16:46

you know by going back to

1:16:49

that citrus of yours and then cutting

1:16:51

the zest but with

1:16:53

a little bit of the pith because the pith

1:16:55

is is kind of bitter and it can just

1:16:57

kind of give this extra edge to it and

1:17:02

sumac is a really interesting

1:17:04

tangy spice that you can

1:17:06

add to food and you

1:17:08

want to add that in

1:17:11

and then splashes some water and

1:17:13

then simmer these ingredients in there

1:17:15

so that it's really layered in

1:17:17

and part of your cranberry

1:17:20

sauce and the

1:17:22

other thing is you know I

1:17:25

would run to the store and

1:17:27

get yourself another few bags of

1:17:29

cranberries or just have some

1:17:31

extra sitting around in the freezer and if

1:17:33

this happens again you pull them out cook

1:17:35

another batch cranberry sauce without any sweeteners and

1:17:37

add that in to your

1:17:40

sweetened version yeah balance it out okay

1:17:43

brilliant because it's it is pretty simple I

1:17:45

mean in reality it's a simple

1:17:47

it's a simple dish yeah thank

1:17:49

you for that advice love those ideas

1:17:51

of sumac I have that is definitely

1:17:53

not in my spice cupboard so I

1:17:55

will have to explore that yeah sumac is

1:17:57

sort of like lemon but harnessed and

1:18:00

granular foam. Yeah,

1:18:02

yeah, yeah, it's cool. It's really cool. I actually

1:18:04

used some this weekend with cucumbers. It was nice.

1:18:06

Hey, Alicia, one last thing. I don't know if

1:18:09

folks at your table would

1:18:11

want this, if it's too

1:18:13

unusual or whatever, but the other thing I

1:18:15

might think about too is adding a source

1:18:17

of heat. Yeah. So maybe a little

1:18:19

bit of chili or I

1:18:21

could imagine like if you take some fresh ginger

1:18:23

and like grate some fresh ginger into it or

1:18:27

even like black pepper, just a little bit to

1:18:29

give it a little more dimension. And I think

1:18:31

that could be really delicious. Oh, Alicia,

1:18:33

that brings me. Oh my God. Oh my

1:18:35

God. You guys. Oh my God. Okay. Sri

1:18:39

Racha, baby. Oh

1:18:41

yeah. Just keep a bottle of that

1:18:44

other table anyway. No, just mix it

1:18:46

in. Mix it into your cranberry sauce.

1:18:48

Cause I've done that with leftover, you

1:18:50

know, cranberry sauce the next day for

1:18:52

my fall. So I like mixed cranberry

1:18:54

sauce with, with Sri Racha. And

1:18:56

why not just like, instead of being

1:18:59

a leftover thing, serve it

1:19:01

on Thanksgiving. You're already ready for

1:19:03

the next day. I love that.

1:19:05

Most of those are already in

1:19:07

my pantry. So thank you for the advice. If

1:19:09

I'm standing in the kitchen again

1:19:12

whipping it up and has too many glasses of

1:19:14

wine and overdue my sugar, I'm going to be

1:19:17

okay. Go for it, Alicia. Cool. Today's your day.

1:19:19

Happy Thanksgiving to you. Thank you.

1:19:21

Thank you. Enjoy it. Yeah. Thank you.

1:19:23

Bye. All right. Andrea. We

1:19:25

just like turned her cranberry sauce into like some

1:19:28

Asian food. We just like,

1:19:33

all roads point East. Let's

1:19:35

go to our next caller.

1:19:37

Uh, this is Renard. Hey,

1:19:39

Renard. Hi, how are you?

1:19:42

Happy Thanksgiving. Likewise. Likewise.

1:19:44

How are you guys doing? Well,

1:19:46

thanks. Where are you calling from?

1:19:48

Yeah, I'm calling from New Orleans,

1:19:50

Louisiana. Oh, wonderful. One of my favorite places

1:19:52

in the world. Yeah, same here. I'm sure,

1:19:57

I'm sure you guys come to put on the pounds right there.

1:20:00

You know, one takes in

1:20:02

a lot when one is in. It's overstimulation.

1:20:05

Yeah. That's a good way to put it,

1:20:07

yeah. So my

1:20:09

family, you know, of course, we do

1:20:12

the usual gumbo potato salad, the usual

1:20:14

things, the oyster dressing, stuffed bell peppers.

1:20:17

But I've also lived in the

1:20:19

Northeast, and my dad is a

1:20:22

big Brussels sprouts and

1:20:24

deep sky. And

1:20:26

so traditionally, we've always had pickled beets

1:20:28

in the house. And when I lived

1:20:31

in the Northeast, a good friend of

1:20:33

mine in Connecticut once made, she

1:20:36

is sort of eating an alternate diet.

1:20:38

She was doing like cauliflower for mashed

1:20:40

potatoes and stuff like that. But

1:20:43

she made a very interesting beet. She

1:20:46

used fresh beets one day. And

1:20:48

I think she put it in her oven. And I

1:20:50

couldn't remember if she used them to make fries or

1:20:53

some. I really

1:20:55

can't remember. I just remember it was really delicious. So

1:20:58

I was wondering, you know, if we're trying to

1:21:00

get my dad to try some new things, because

1:21:02

he's got to be on a different kind of

1:21:04

diet nowadays. And I

1:21:07

was wondering if there is something you guys

1:21:09

might suggest to use with fresh beets in

1:21:11

terms of how to make them, whether they're

1:21:13

baked or grilled or anything that we could

1:21:15

try. Yeah. But

1:21:17

OK, I love beets. And I actually remember specifically

1:21:20

when I was turned on to them, because as

1:21:22

a kid, they always came out of a

1:21:24

can and never really liked that very

1:21:26

much. And yeah, when I fell

1:21:28

in love with beets was when I was

1:21:30

first introduced to having fresh beets. And

1:21:33

the way they were prepared was actually

1:21:35

very simple. They were we

1:21:37

called them roasted, but we basically

1:21:39

put them in a pan, make

1:21:42

sure the beets are similar in size

1:21:46

because they can vary hugely. You can get

1:21:48

like a softball size one and a ping

1:21:50

pong ball size one. And if you try

1:21:52

to put those two together, then the one's

1:21:54

going to be incinerated by the time the

1:21:56

other one's starting to get

1:21:58

cooked. The

1:22:00

simplest way to do it that I have found is you

1:22:02

get the oven pretty hot, 400, 425 is a good temperature.

1:22:08

If the beets are say two or three inches

1:22:10

in diameter, maybe more two

1:22:12

than three, three's pretty big. Put

1:22:15

them in a pan, a little splash

1:22:17

of water in the pan just to keep it

1:22:20

from burning. You're not like submerging the

1:22:22

beets or whatever, just like a maybe

1:22:24

quarter inch or less of water. And

1:22:27

then just cover the whole pan with tin

1:22:29

foil is what I used, cover

1:22:32

it pretty tight and pop in the oven. And

1:22:34

for beets, again, two inches or so, two, maybe

1:22:36

two and a half inches, they'll

1:22:38

take a while. They'll take like maybe an hour to

1:22:41

cook. And when they're

1:22:43

ready, you'll know they're ready. Take them out,

1:22:46

be careful with the steam, uncover

1:22:49

the foil and use a paring knife or a

1:22:51

thin knife and poke into them. If they feel

1:22:53

like you don't really need a lot

1:22:55

of resistance to get into the center of the beet, then you're

1:22:57

good. If it feels like you kind of have to stab at

1:22:59

it a bit, go a little

1:23:01

longer. You don't need to point that. Yeah, and

1:23:03

then when it is that tender stage, I

1:23:06

take them out and actually leave them to

1:23:08

cool a bit in the pan because what

1:23:10

that cooling does is it helps

1:23:12

the skin sort of get a little

1:23:14

bit looser. Then

1:23:16

this is where you're gonna have to get

1:23:19

ready to live with red hands for a while. You

1:23:23

can grab some paper towel or some plastic gloves or whatever,

1:23:25

but I just go for it. I just like, I'll wash

1:23:27

my hands a bunch of times and I'll also look like

1:23:29

I came out of a crime scene. And

1:23:32

you just kind of rub the skins off. And

1:23:35

then you have beautifully cooked fresh beets.

1:23:37

And from there you can dice them,

1:23:39

season them, dress them like you would

1:23:41

a salad. You can

1:23:44

sear them in a pan from there. If you want to

1:23:46

get a little caramelized flavor, you can

1:23:48

toss them with roasted nuts. This

1:23:50

is really great with beets. I

1:23:52

love hazelnuts with beets, but really any

1:23:54

nuts will do. You can do like

1:23:57

a sour cream type of dressing. You

1:23:59

can do. A vinaigrette you can do really

1:24:02

any number of things, but that's your basic way

1:24:05

to cook whole beets Yeah,

1:24:07

okay. I don't know if you do this

1:24:09

fancy. Do you like? You

1:24:12

know just splash some Something

1:24:14

acidic like vinegar or something

1:24:17

like that on your beets just kind of brighten them

1:24:19

up after cooking because I find

1:24:22

Really really like while they're

1:24:24

so warm. Yeah, well, they're still

1:24:26

warm They suck up the vinegar notes

1:24:28

and it could be cider vinegar rice

1:24:30

vinegar even distilled white

1:24:32

vinegar is gonna work fine and And

1:24:35

at that point you can put a little oil on

1:24:37

them if you'd like and then you can just keep

1:24:39

the beats in your fridge For like a week

1:24:41

and then cut them up whenever you want. Oh,

1:24:43

wow Yeah, look,

1:24:46

I mean, you know those beats we see at

1:24:48

the store that are already cooked You don't need

1:24:50

to buy that stuff. You can just do it

1:24:53

yourself Yeah, and the cool thing what I heard

1:24:55

you say Is that you

1:24:57

all serve like potato salad?

1:24:59

Yeah, if you add beets your potato salad,

1:25:01

they'll turn this beautiful fusch color That

1:25:07

is true, although you kind of can't mess with

1:25:09

people's potato salad people get upset when you mess

1:25:11

with their potato salad Yeah, that's your potato salad.

1:25:13

It'll be so festive, New Orleans I

1:25:17

don't know that I want to become

1:25:19

a social media meme But that's

1:25:22

actually a Vietnamese style. It's a Vietnamese

1:25:25

French Russian potato salad Okay,

1:25:30

yeah, we put beats into

1:25:32

our potato salad with carrots and That's

1:25:35

how I learned to eat beats when I was growing up

1:25:38

and I know that you have a huge

1:25:40

Vietnamese population Yes, we do in New Orleans

1:25:44

And I don't know if they

1:25:46

make that but I grew up

1:25:48

knowing that as the Russian salad

1:25:50

salab rus And so

1:25:52

my mother still makes it to this day

1:25:54

There's no dress with a vinaigrette and

1:25:57

with you know boiled egg in there, too You

1:25:59

know slap it some mayonnaise in there. That's interesting.

1:26:02

I mean, it'd be more than happy

1:26:04

to make potato salad and set aside

1:26:06

some to experiment with. Yeah. There you

1:26:09

go. Because you know what a great

1:26:11

time to experiment is Thanksgiving. Yeah. That's

1:26:14

how I said it. I'm always telling people, oh try this,

1:26:18

try that. And my head's like, no one's going to

1:26:21

do Thanksgiving. Like people are going to go Thanksgiving. They're

1:26:23

like, they want the thing they had last year. They

1:26:25

want the thing they had 30 years ago. It's fine.

1:26:27

But you try it like the day after. Well, Renard,

1:26:29

I hope you enjoy your beets, your new beet lifestyle.

1:26:33

Thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks for

1:26:35

the call. For suggestions, including the potato salad.

1:26:37

That's a great idea. And I like creative

1:26:39

things. I definitely will try some of it

1:26:42

on the side and say, okay, well, let's see if

1:26:44

anyone else wants to sample it. So thank you so

1:26:46

much. You're very welcome. Happy Thanksgiving.

1:26:49

Likewise, you guys enjoy yourselves. Take care.

1:26:51

You too. Well, Andrea,

1:26:53

this, I can't believe it's already been a half

1:26:55

hour, but this has been a blast. And I've,

1:26:58

uh, I don't know. I don't know. You get

1:27:00

the two of us together and we just want to turn everyone Asian.

1:27:03

Well, you know, it's the

1:27:05

Asian persuasion. They're

1:27:08

Thanksgiving meals. I mean, let me turn their

1:27:10

Thanksgiving meals. You know, it's the multicultural

1:27:12

table. There

1:27:14

we go. There we go. Well, hey, have

1:27:17

a great holiday. You too,

1:27:19

Frances. Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family. Andrea

1:27:25

Nguyen is the author of a great

1:27:28

many books, including her most recent evergreen

1:27:30

Vietnamese super fresh recipes starring

1:27:33

plants from land and sea.

1:27:36

I'm Francis Lam and this is our

1:27:38

annual Thanksgiving day show Turkey confidential supported

1:27:41

by broad and Taylor tools for bread

1:27:43

bakers designed by bread bakers and brought

1:27:45

to you by American public media. Hey,

1:27:53

happy Thanksgiving, everyone. I'm Francis Lam

1:27:55

and you're listening to the splendid

1:27:57

tables, Turkey confidential from American public.

1:28:00

meat here. Turkey Confidential is supported

1:28:02

by Broad and Taylor, makers of bread

1:28:04

baking tools and equipment for bakers who

1:28:06

are interested in beginning their sourdough journey.

1:28:09

Recipes, how-to videos, and

1:28:11

more at Broad. Spell

1:28:14

b-r-o-d and taylor.com. We're

1:28:18

spending this hour with you in our annual

1:28:20

tradition, helping you with your Thanksgiving cooking questions,

1:28:22

and we're doing it with friends. Our

1:28:25

next guest is the inimitable, Paula Velez,

1:28:28

a celebrated pastry chef, video host, founder

1:28:30

of the world's largest bake sale called

1:28:32

Bakers Against Racism, which raised over two

1:28:35

and a half million dollars for social

1:28:37

justice causes, and now author

1:28:39

of the cookbook Bodega Bakes, recipes

1:28:42

for sweets and treats inspired by

1:28:44

my corner store. Hey

1:28:47

chef, happy Thanksgiving to you. Happy

1:28:49

Thanksgiving. It's great

1:28:51

to see you, and congratulations on

1:28:53

your cookbook. It is like,

1:28:56

can I tell you, it is like the most New

1:28:58

York City book of all time. Like, you

1:29:01

were like a Bronx girl through and through. You

1:29:04

wrote this awesome, super

1:29:06

tasty, beautiful dessert book

1:29:08

called Bodega Bakes. So

1:29:11

for listeners who don't know, bodega is

1:29:13

the Spanish word for seller, but it

1:29:17

means convenience store or corner store, and

1:29:20

literally every New Yorker uses that term. Whether you

1:29:22

speak Spanish or not, a bodega is just a

1:29:24

part of New York culture. So

1:29:26

let me ask you though, you are a

1:29:28

renowned pastry chef. How does

1:29:31

the bodega inspire you? The

1:29:33

bodega inspires me in

1:29:36

more ways than people

1:29:38

would think, right? Like,

1:29:40

bodegas are like the

1:29:43

cornerstone of each neighborhood,

1:29:45

and each burl has

1:29:47

like micro neighborhoods where

1:29:51

one bodega could be Lebanese,

1:29:53

another bodega could be Mexican,

1:29:55

another bodega is Jamaican, Dominican,

1:29:57

etc. etc. You know, and

1:30:00

And for me, at least, when I

1:30:02

was growing up, my

1:30:04

mom, she was a single mom, immigrant,

1:30:07

and she always didn't have enough

1:30:09

to make ends meet. But

1:30:11

the Bodega owners, they knew everything that we

1:30:14

would be living through,

1:30:16

doing, et cetera, and not just me, right?

1:30:18

Like not just me and my mom. They

1:30:20

knew the whole community. And they

1:30:22

would make sure that I never felt

1:30:27

the pangs of being without, right? Like

1:30:29

I would never understand how a dollar

1:30:31

can stretch so far. I just thought

1:30:34

I was really good at math. The

1:30:37

older that I get, you

1:30:40

know, the more that I understand that

1:30:42

there was a lot of kindness fueling

1:30:44

my interactions after school, before school. They

1:30:46

made sure that I had a nutriment.

1:30:48

They made sure that I had, you

1:30:51

know, a monster on a roll toasted,

1:30:53

you know? And

1:30:55

I, you know, even when we didn't

1:30:57

have it, they would just say, oh, I

1:30:59

owe you, I owe you, right? And I'm

1:31:02

about to be 34, and I'm pretty sure

1:31:04

that those I owe yous are still just

1:31:07

there, you know? Because they've- You gotta go

1:31:09

back and pay them back. I mean, right?

1:31:11

Like you go back and you're like, hey,

1:31:13

remember me? And they're like, I'm so happy,

1:31:16

you know, that you turned out the way

1:31:19

that you turned out, you know? And that

1:31:21

is community, right? So Bodega Bakes, when

1:31:24

you break it down, it's

1:31:26

not just a pastry book, right? Like I,

1:31:30

my book agent, when she first came to

1:31:32

me, she was like, hey, I want

1:31:35

you to write a book. And I'm like,

1:31:37

I don't wanna make a book

1:31:39

that goes on discount. I

1:31:42

don't, you know? And she's like, what?

1:31:45

That's not how, and I'm like, mm-mm,

1:31:47

no. We're gonna make cupcakes,

1:31:50

cookies, this, that, and then it's gonna

1:31:52

go on sale, and I don't wanna

1:31:54

be that girl, you know? And I

1:31:56

was like, how do I make something

1:31:59

that- embodies the same

1:32:01

community and the same feeling that

1:32:03

I grew up with. For

1:32:08

somebody who's never baked, never

1:32:10

been in a bodega, and

1:32:13

they can feel that same

1:32:15

warmth, that same love, that

1:32:17

same aspect of that third

1:32:19

space. And it

1:32:22

took two years before I realized that

1:32:24

I did have something to say that

1:32:26

I might not go on clear. I

1:32:28

still might. I'm not going to discount

1:32:30

it. Everybody loves a good deal. But,

1:32:35

you know, I had something finally

1:32:37

to say. I had a story

1:32:39

to tell, but more than that,

1:32:41

I'm giving people, especially

1:32:44

now when we're looking at

1:32:46

Gen Alpha, you know, younger

1:32:48

Gen Z, Gen Alpha, I'm

1:32:50

giving them something that

1:32:52

they can aspire to, they

1:32:54

can learn from. And hopefully

1:32:56

if they're in inner cities

1:32:58

across America, they can also

1:33:00

have a turnout like mine,

1:33:02

you know? Yeah. I love that. Well,

1:33:05

thank you for sharing that. And we're thankful it's

1:33:07

here now, now that we're, now it's Thanksgiving. And

1:33:10

actually we have Jane on the line who is

1:33:12

sort of your neighbor. Jane, where

1:33:14

are you calling from? I'm calling

1:33:16

from Bethesda, Maryland, right outside of

1:33:18

DC. Oh. All

1:33:20

right. Paula lives in DC. And

1:33:23

what is your question? How can we help you today? Well.

1:33:26

Happy Thanksgiving to you, by the way. Thank

1:33:28

you. Thank you. So

1:33:31

my pumpkin pie was done early and it looks

1:33:33

beautiful, even with the kind of crust that I

1:33:35

make. But

1:33:37

it didn't smell quite right, so I tasted it,

1:33:39

little piece. I forgot the

1:33:42

sugar. Oh. Yeah.

1:33:44

Kind of a crucial ingredient. And I was

1:33:46

wondering if you had any thoughts for adding

1:33:49

it in. I mean, it tastes like squash.

1:33:53

Adding it back in without destroying the

1:33:55

looks. That's a squash pie. That's

1:33:58

a squash tart. You can serve it as a squash tart. A

1:34:00

squash quiche maybe? You can call it a

1:34:03

squash quiche. I could put some onions on

1:34:05

top, yeah. Yeah, good. Yeah,

1:34:08

we could go savory, but I'm assuming

1:34:10

that you went with a sweeter kind

1:34:14

of flaky pastry, right? It's a flaky pastry.

1:34:16

I don't put sugar in my pastry, but

1:34:18

it's a better pastry. People

1:34:21

really look forward to pumpkin pie. I mean, it's

1:34:23

a favorite. They do,

1:34:25

they do. I mean, have you ever thought

1:34:27

of maybe doing

1:34:29

something a little bit more adventurous this season?

1:34:31

I sometimes like

1:34:33

to bake pies or cheesecakes and

1:34:36

then turn them into mousses during

1:34:38

the holiday season. So you

1:34:41

can kind of break it down. And

1:34:43

if you don't have a good mousse

1:34:45

recipe, don't worry, I got you. But

1:34:48

we can break it down

1:34:50

and infuse our cream with this

1:34:52

beautiful squash pie that we

1:34:55

have. And we can

1:34:57

then fold it into some

1:34:59

white chocolate or there's

1:35:01

a caramelized white chocolate

1:35:03

that has more of those fun

1:35:06

kind of caramelized

1:35:09

notes, toasted notes. It doesn't taste as

1:35:11

sweet as white chocolate. I think that

1:35:13

that would pair very lovely with the

1:35:16

pumpkin pie that you have that doesn't

1:35:18

have any sugar right now. And

1:35:21

also, you can save

1:35:23

some portions of those of

1:35:25

the flaky edge of the pastry to

1:35:28

kind of like fold it in as like some like

1:35:31

pops of joy within the mousse. But

1:35:34

if you don't want to go that

1:35:37

route, because you already feel like, hey,

1:35:39

I already baked, I want to just

1:35:41

make Thanksgiving easy, you can think about

1:35:44

putting some sugar on the top and

1:35:46

brulleying it in the salad in your

1:35:49

broiler idea. Yeah. And

1:35:52

then it would sit right on

1:35:58

top like a creme brulee. But

1:36:00

what we would do is then make a

1:36:03

whipped cream. If it's early enough

1:36:05

in the day, you can still

1:36:07

run to the grocery store and buy some

1:36:09

whipped cream. And what I would do is

1:36:12

I would bump up the sweetness of your

1:36:14

creme chantilly or whipped cream and serve it

1:36:17

as a slice so

1:36:19

that you can control how much whipped cream

1:36:21

people get. And then you say something very

1:36:24

generous like, make sure you get cream in every

1:36:26

bite. And now you have, now

1:36:29

you fixed a baking snafu.

1:36:32

Yeah, I actually have whipped cream. I could just add

1:36:34

a whole lot more sugar than I usually do. Yeah,

1:36:38

yeah, yeah. Exactly. Whipped cream. And

1:36:42

that'll, because like

1:36:44

cream will coat your mouth and

1:36:46

your kind of like your taste buds and

1:36:49

it'll carry the sugar throughout that pumpkin

1:36:51

pie. That sounds

1:36:53

like kind of wouldn't destroy the looks of

1:36:55

it. Yeah.

1:36:58

I think if you love the look of it,

1:37:00

then yeah, these, these additions would be really nice.

1:37:04

Or like maybe like a caramel sauce, make

1:37:07

a nice caramel sauce. I'd have to go to the

1:37:09

grocery for that. Oh

1:37:11

no, I guess you could caramelize sugar. Well, if you

1:37:13

have cream already. I do. It's just making

1:37:15

caramel from the sugar and adding

1:37:18

cream to that, a little pinch of salt and

1:37:20

a little butter. Do you add butter to yours,

1:37:22

chef? Like whisking some butter at

1:37:24

the end? No butter needed? No,

1:37:26

sometimes depending on like how

1:37:28

much cream I'm putting in or

1:37:31

especially if it has like the fat cap, if

1:37:34

it's like the first time you're pouring

1:37:36

cream, some of the fat pools on

1:37:39

top. So I opt for no butter.

1:37:42

Okay, great. Yeah, caramel sauce would be great.

1:37:44

That sounds delicious. Good luck with your pie, Jane.

1:37:47

And thanks for the call. Thank you. Yes,

1:37:49

I hope we can rescue this. Thanks a lot. I

1:37:51

appreciate it. Bye-bye. Yeah, well,

1:37:53

happy Thanksgiving. So,

1:37:56

Bala, what do you like to serve

1:37:58

on your Thanksgiving table for... And I'm

1:38:01

sure people will be asking this, but like your own

1:38:03

personal favorites. I like

1:38:05

to experiment. One year I made like

1:38:07

a cereal Parisian

1:38:10

flan. Nobody liked it. They

1:38:15

were like, where are the lemon cookies? Go

1:38:18

away if you didn't bring lemon cookies. What's

1:38:20

the cereal Parisian flan? I just wanted lemon

1:38:22

cookies. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

1:38:26

Any time that I go to like avant-garde

1:38:29

or like to like funky, my family's like,

1:38:31

oh no, return to sender please. This is

1:38:33

the holiday season. Yeah. Oh

1:38:35

no. Oh no. And I'm like,

1:38:37

they were like, we want to be cheerful, you know, with the things that we love, you know.

1:38:40

I do love making rum cake and

1:38:43

that's something that my family does love.

1:38:46

Dominican cake. It's not always that

1:38:49

you eat it during Thanksgiving, but if

1:38:51

I feel like kind of like motivated,

1:38:53

I'll make a Dominican cake and everybody's

1:38:55

like score, you know, but we're Dominican.

1:38:58

So, oh, it's a modified pound

1:39:00

cake. So like think of

1:39:02

like yellow cake and pound cake having a baby. And

1:39:06

it's filled with either guava

1:39:08

jam or pineapple

1:39:11

jelly pastry

1:39:13

cream or dulce de leche.

1:39:16

Oh my God. And not all that at the same

1:39:18

time, just different flavors. But then

1:39:20

it's coated in a, this very

1:39:22

stabilized meringue because, you know, most

1:39:25

of us live in the Dominican

1:39:27

Republic and the Dominican Republic is

1:39:29

humid all year round. So we've

1:39:31

kind of like cracked the code

1:39:33

to meringue that doesn't weep when

1:39:36

the elements around

1:39:38

it are changing. So you can put

1:39:40

it in the fridge and it'll maintain

1:39:42

its structure. You can take it out

1:39:44

of the fridge. It'll maintain its structure.

1:39:46

I haven't tried below sea level and

1:39:48

high altitude yet, but I'll circle back

1:39:50

when I leave. You'll get there. You'll

1:39:52

get there. Oh my goodness.

1:39:54

That sounds amazing. And I actually, I love that I

1:39:58

haven't made it yet, but there's a recipe in your. book

1:40:00

for a tamarind pecan pie.

1:40:02

And it's, it

1:40:04

looks unreal. It's

1:40:06

a pecan pie with like

1:40:08

tamarind jam you call it, but

1:40:11

basically you buy a block of tamarind, concentrate,

1:40:14

just cook it with water until it's almost like a jam

1:40:16

texture and just fold that into pecan pie. And that like,

1:40:19

I've never had that before, but like I can imagine

1:40:21

that sour free-ness of the

1:40:23

tamarind with the pecans. Oh

1:40:26

God. Oh, it's delightful. It's delightful,

1:40:28

but at the same time, the

1:40:30

way that I've modified or

1:40:33

created this tamarind jam, I

1:40:35

don't add any sugar. It's just the

1:40:37

tamarind block and water. It

1:40:40

mimics the viscosity of corn

1:40:42

syrup. So you kind

1:40:44

of like cut the sugar in

1:40:47

half already for your tamarind, I

1:40:49

mean your pecan pie or pecan

1:40:51

pie. You know, Dr. Jessica B.

1:40:53

Harris told me not to say

1:40:55

pecan, but I'm from New York.

1:40:57

Yeah. Sorry,

1:41:01

Dr. Harris. But

1:41:05

so a lot of the things that I like

1:41:07

to do when I'm creating desserts is like, how

1:41:10

can I get away with using less butter,

1:41:12

less sugar, and still

1:41:15

make you feel like you're having

1:41:17

the most richly decadent dessert that

1:41:20

is like sort of good for you? Like sometimes

1:41:22

I'll sneak in veggies in there and people are

1:41:24

like, I love zucchini babka. You

1:41:26

know what I mean? And I'm like, yes.

1:41:28

Yes, you. Oh,

1:41:32

I love it. Hey, we have Rose waiting,

1:41:35

so let's go to Rose. Hey,

1:41:37

happy Thanksgiving, Rose. Same to

1:41:39

you, France and power. Hi. So

1:41:42

nice to meet you. Where are you calling from? Calling

1:41:45

from the Traverse City area. Oh, right on.

1:41:47

I love Michigan. Yeah, it is quite

1:41:50

beautiful here. So

1:41:52

at Thanksgiving, we

1:41:55

turned our cranberries into the

1:41:57

option. was

1:42:00

great and I love having a chutney as

1:42:02

opposed to something that's a little too sweet

1:42:04

for my taste with turkey. But

1:42:06

we also landed on living

1:42:09

in a home that had four quince

1:42:11

trees in the front yard. So

1:42:14

I started making quince chutney. I

1:42:17

have grandparents who live in Germany

1:42:20

and every home in that little

1:42:22

village had a quince tree in front. So I was

1:42:24

familiar with the fruit but in Germany it was used

1:42:26

just there's a lot of pectin and quince.

1:42:29

So apparently that's what the farmers

1:42:31

all use to set their jams

1:42:33

and jellies. But

1:42:35

I found this great recipe for

1:42:37

chutney and my question is how

1:42:39

the heck do you get around

1:42:43

coring these really hard

1:42:45

fruits. They smell

1:42:47

amazing. They're very beautiful looking.

1:42:50

They're not hard to peel but

1:42:52

they are so hard

1:42:54

to core until they're cooked. There's

1:42:57

just no softness inside. So I wondered

1:42:59

if you have a tip for me

1:43:01

to make that labor of

1:43:03

love less laborsome. The love

1:43:07

is in the labor

1:43:10

Rose. The point is you got to

1:43:12

sweat and possibly you know

1:43:14

be faced with a dangerous knife situation.

1:43:16

But quinces you know I

1:43:19

think quinces are such an interesting fruit and that's

1:43:21

super super common. You don't often see them in

1:43:23

stores but yeah they have

1:43:25

such a cool flavor and aroma.

1:43:27

They're sort of apple like but

1:43:30

as you put it Rose extremely hard. It's

1:43:32

one thing we're like who's the first

1:43:34

person who thought they should eat this. It's like

1:43:37

a rock that grew from a tree. And you

1:43:39

really kind of can't eat it until you cook

1:43:41

the bejesus out of it and then it becomes

1:43:44

like a quince paste. You might see quince

1:43:46

paste in stores which is a beautiful jam

1:43:49

sort of marmalade thing.

1:43:51

Paula what do you think? So

1:43:54

I would suggest one

1:43:57

thing that I always love to

1:43:59

buy. is kind of like

1:44:01

these safety gloves for when

1:44:03

you have to do more

1:44:05

precarious knife cuts or things

1:44:08

that involve pressure

1:44:10

or anything that can, you know, quinces

1:44:12

are very, they look dry, they look

1:44:14

hard, but they release a lot of

1:44:16

moisture surprisingly. So it makes it a

1:44:18

slippery surface. It's not fun to deal

1:44:20

with, you know? So

1:44:22

I would say, like, if you want

1:44:25

to continue making jellies and chutneys with

1:44:28

quince but you feel like you're not having

1:44:30

a really great time

1:44:33

cutting it, I would

1:44:35

invest in something like, it's like

1:44:37

these chain meal kind of, you

1:44:40

know, Joan of Arc, kind of

1:44:42

gloves, you know? Plus

1:44:45

the great cosplay after. Yeah.

1:44:47

Yeah. For the Gen Z

1:44:49

folks who are listening, Chappelle Rohn, I

1:44:52

guess, would, you know, wear them. I

1:44:57

actually, I've never seen her in concert,

1:44:59

so I'm just assuming from TikTok. It's

1:45:02

her vibe. It's her vibe. But

1:45:05

I would say that, and then I

1:45:08

treat them as if I were, like,

1:45:10

cutting an apple for somebody that I

1:45:12

love, you know? So like,

1:45:14

I cut the bottom off, right?

1:45:18

And then I sit it down so

1:45:20

that it doesn't slip and slide. I

1:45:22

also have a kitchen towel that I'm

1:45:24

willing to let go because quince will

1:45:27