Even if you won't be joining us here at
Chow for your Thanksgiving meal, we still want you to have a delicious holiday.
Regardless of how big your crowd is, we have noticed a couple of things that
help things go smoothly. Hopefully, they will be of help to you too.
1) Do not try something new for the first
time when you have company coming. With dishes that you cook infrequently, you
have less confidence in the final product. You haven't seen how the food will
react to your situation, to your skills, and to your kitchen. Something that
worked great in my kitchen may not work so great in yours if you've never made
it before. This is why whenever I am about to try a new recipe for a big day,
I'll make a small test batch first to see how the mechanics of the recipe work.
This way, if things go belly-up, I'll not have wasted too many ingredients.
Furthermore, with my smaller batch, I can make tweaks without using up huge
amounts of ingredients.
What am I talking about? Imagine that you
have about a cup or so of a gravy. You made it because the recipe looked good.
Now imagine that you did like I said, and decided to make only about half that
amount, because you're not sure how the recipe will work. You half all the
ingredients, and measure them out ahead of time. You survey all your
ingredients in front of you, and they look to be reasonable for what you're
making. (Yesterday, Bossman came up to me and said, "I'm making a single
cheesecake. 2 TB of salt doesn't seem right, does it?" I agreed with his
assessment. It turns out that the TB was a typo. In other words, look at each
ingredient in the context of the whole recipe and ask yourself if such an
amount makes sense for what you're making.)
You go to make the recipe exactly as
stated. Midway through, you realise that the recipe never mentioned that you're
to turn down the heat. You didn't think to do so, because you're following the
damned recipe. All of a sudden, your gravy gets burned, and you're furious.
Since it is a tiny amount, you're not that bothered. You can try again, and
this time, turn down the heat a bit. Suppose that you did make the gravy, and
it turned out great. You taste it. SALT BOMB. You're gasping for water, and the
thing tastes just awful. Now imagine what would happen if this is a random
mid-week meal. You quietly bin the gravy, and decide to have that dinner with
ketchup instead. Again. (Yes, this is personal experience talking.) Imagine the
same scenario if you've got guests coming in less than 20 minutes. They won't
be as forgiving as your husband, or your dog.
Suppose you make everything as stated, but
the end result seems really bland. This frequently happens with pressure cooker
or slow cooker recipes. The extreme cooking seems to dull out the flavours.
Again, suppose you only have a small batch to fix. A few drops of lemon will
brighten any dull tasting dish. A fresh bunch of herbs will do the same.
Sometimes it'll take a combination of the two. Either way, if you're dealing
with large quantities, you may not have all the ingredients you need to fix the
mistake. In small quantities, the small amounts of ingredients you add to tweak
something will make a huge difference. All this leads to the second tenet.
2) When you change a recipe, make a note of
it. In fact, make frequent notes. Why? Because if it took a few things to tweak
a recipe that was otherwise great, you'll want to remember what it is you did
to make it work. If you make something truly great, you'll want to recreate it.
A piece of paper and a sharpie will work wonders for you.
3) Do as much preparation work ahead of
time as is feasible. Or cheat. We're all busy. We have a thousand things to get
done in an average day. And I'm sorry, but that cute kitty video isn't going to
watch itself. For whatever reason, there will be times when you have time
consuming prep work (peeling onions or garlic, chopping root veggies, chopping
potatoes, etc) that you'll put off until the last minute. Then the day of
comes, and you're about to wind up serving everyone a pizza. Don't do this.
If you go to many Supermarkets now, you'll
see pre-diced vegetables of every shape and size. I want you to go to that
store, look at what they're charging for those things, and then resolve to do
it yourself. If you're a wealthy type, who's getting paid enough at work that
your time is worth more than the cost difference of buying pre-prepped versus
whole vegetables, go ahead and buy the jars. Either way, figure out what you've
got more of, be it time or money, and reach a compromise.
If the time is what you have plenty of, go
ahead and set aside about four days before the major event to do the boring
prep. Peel and chop your onions. Peel your garlic. Dice the carrots and celery.
All these can be done up to four days in advance with no problems. Three days
ahead, go ahead and slice or chop the garlic. Dice your potatoes or other root
veggies, and leave them to sit in cold water. Soak your beans and brown rice
(brown rice cooks much more quickly when soaked ahead of time). Two days ahead
of time, drain the soaked beans, and boil them. Cook your root veggies and/or
potatoes. They take a long time to cook, so it's great if you can have them
pre-cooked. Wash and chop your dark leafy greens. Wash and chop your
cauliflower/broccoli. Drain the brown
rice, and let it sit in the fridge. On the day of, bring all the magic
together.
All these little tasks, when taken
separately, take no more than 30 - 45 minutes or so to do at the very most. Then,
on the day of, when all your ingredients are prepared, you can generally knock
out any major cooking in about 1 - 2 hours or so. This also makes it easy for
you to do your dishes as you're working.
If you have more money than time, go ahead
and buy the pre-chopped aromatics (carrots, celery, onions), the pre-peeled
garlic, the frozen chopped kale, the broccoli crowns (some stores even sell
florets all chopped neatly), or whatever other ingredient you don't feel like
prepping. Heck, Trader Joe even sells these cooked lentils in a vacuum pack.
They don't come with all that gooey liquid, so you can totally use them in
salads or purees. They cost more than dried beans, but they're still not
prohibitively expensive.
Or, if you're like most people, find a
happy medium. Do as much prep work as you're comfortable with, and then buy the
rest prepped already.
4) If you have the option, delegate as much
as you can. If you're standing there over a blazing hot stove, and a screaming
hot oven, you're likely going to need some help with the cleanup. Recruit
anyone who's willing to help to start clearing up the prep dishes as you use
them up. Recruit people who are willing, to chop herbs or keep an eye on the
pot. Recruit someone to keep your wineglass replenished. Recruit someone to
taste (and if you're making anything with kale, or anything fried, you'll have
plenty of volunteers). Treat your kitchen helpers to extra little treats.
Anyone who helps me in the kitchen always gets first dibs on the fried food.
Only after we've eaten our fill do we call anyone else in to try some.
5) Taste. Frequently. Why? Because the food
will change as it cooks. And unlike meat foods, which try to kill you back,
there isn't likely to be that much harm in tasting a piece of vegetable halfway
through its cooking process. Taste that soup liquid as it begins to cook, and
then throughout the cooking process. Not only will it alert you to problems as
they occur (such as the soup sticking to the bottom of the pot when you're
using ingredients like split peas), it will also get you used to knowing what
something should taste like at various points during the cooking. This
knowledge will help you to gauge how anything in the pot should taste.
Don't just rely on your own taste either.
Ask for feedback from others who are around while the food cooks. If you get
multiple opinions, you can tweak the food as
necessary. Or, in some cases, you can beam with pride when everyone
raves about how delicious something is, on a one-on-one basis. When someone
piles his or her plate with food, and eats it with great gusto, you don't know
what they love about each and every dish. When they have a little taste of each
thing as it's prepared, you know that they love each thing. OK, so I do enjoy a
little ego boost once in a while.
Most of all, relax. People aren't
necessarily here for your food (although it is a nice bonus). They're here to
see you. The food is secondary. I have had wonderful times with friends when
the food was nothing more than a bowl of nuts, some piping hot mugs of hot
chocolate, and some fine conversation. That fills me up just as much as a fancy
meal in a nice restaurant. If someone takes all that effort to come out and see
you, they'll be happy that you made the effort to bring something nice to the
table, even if it really is delivery or take out from a restaurant. The meal is
the excuse to share the warm feelings and good times.
We love you all, and wish you a happy and
healthy Thanksgiving!
