The Secrets of Not Failing at Cooking: Thanksgiving

By Nicole L Barry
Cooking Columnist

Thanksgiving dinner seems to be the event, above all others, that requires hours upon hours in the kitchen. I manned thanksgiving dinner singlehandedly this year. Not only was it not stressful, but I had plenty of time to spare. It was a pleasure, even.

Turkey was something that I have not done by myself before, so I acknowledge that this mastery was not complete. My mom helped me man the 14 pound turkey and get it into the oven. My mother likes to talk to me like I have no idea what I'm doing. No, really mom, saute the celery and onions before I add them to the stuffing? No way.

Turkey, two kinds of stuffing (an apple chestnut version which I adore being one of them), green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry jello salad, three pies (apple, pumpkin, and pecan) and just because I was feeling adventurous, buttered nuts and marinated olives.

As I was cooking and simultaneously bantering back with my mother on the level of my cooking ability, since mothers are infamously critical, I tried to gather a couple of ideas of tips I could share with you this holiday, basic enough that it would have immediate applicability. Since this is where we're starting off, we'll talk about sauteeing onions another time.

I chopped onions, celery, chestnuts, and apples for my apple chestnut stuffing. I was using a prepackaged stuffing mix, so when I went to cut up all the other elements, I kept in mind the size of the stuffing I was working with and kept everything roughly the same size. This is a good basic principle to keep in mind when constructing salads, stuffings, stir-frys, or anything involving a bunch of chopped up ingredients.

It is practically essential, and let me count the ways.

For my stuffing, or for salads, or for anything similarly constructed, it keeps all the ingredients evenly distributed. Larger items tend to gravitate towards the top and all the tiny bits stay on the bottom otherwise. In something like a stir-fry, the same concept is crucial for the same reason and more- all the individual elements need the same size and same surface area so that they cook evenly. When I cooked the potatoes for my mashed potatoes, chopping the potatoes into similarly sized pieces was crucial. Otherwise, you'd test a smaller piece, figure that they're done, pour off the water, only to realize that the bigger bits are still crunchy in the middle. And that's always a bitch to fix.

Mashed potatoes from scratch, by the way, are a million times better than from a box. Didn't take much to figure that one out, right? So what can you do to make really excellent mashed potatoes? You wash, peel, and chop potatoes (in uniformly sized pieces!), put them in a pot with enough water to cover- bring to a boil, cook for about 25 minutes after the water starts boiling.

After that point, test them with a fork and see if they fall apart when you stab them violently and they seem soft throughout, if so, then drain off the water and keep them in the hot pan, lid off. You want some of the extra water to evaporate, so let them stand for a few minutes. You definitely don't want watery mashed potatoes. The only liquid you're going to be incorporating after this point is in the form of fat. Cream and butter, preferably, if you do in fact want excellent mashed potatoes, but margarine and milk will work as well.

The basic logic behind resturaunt food being better than the stuff you make at home is because we don't use enough fat when we cook at home. Show them what you're made of, and incorporate butter and cream in equal amounts, mashing away as you add bit by bit, until you have the right texture to bring you to mashed potato glory. The exact viscocity is up to you, so be gradual with your additions. If you only have milk and margarine, use more margarine than milk.

Always, always, veer on the side of caution. You cant undo too much when you cook, but you can almost always fix not enough. (Which is an invaluable lesson I'll elaborate on next time.) Salt, pepper, and my preference, garlic, can be added at this point, to taste! (Always taste as you cook!)

Do we feel like we're getting somewhere? I hope so.