♪ ♪ - Here's the problem with roast turkey.

There are three dozen ways to do it.

Everyone has a different approach: smoked and spatchcocked and low heat, high heat, etcetera.

After 40 years of experience, we're going to show you the best method, we think.

It's super simple, you know, there's no wet brine.

The white meat is juicy and flavorful and it looks great, almost like Peking duck.

The other thing we're going to do is change how you cook mashed potatoes; normally, you cook the potatoes, add melted butter and then cream or milk.

We're actually going to butter braise the potatoes.

You end up with this amazing texture and amazing flavor, so stay tuned as we rethink the Thanksgiving turkey and the mashed potatoes.

- Funding for this series was provided by the following.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - Every November, 20 people ask me how to cook their turkey.

I've been doing this 45 years, and I have 30 different answers to that, and there is no one right answer, okay?

But this is the technique we've come to now at Milk Street; it's easy to do.

You get a beautiful looking bird, and it's moist inside without being soaked in brine.

So what's the basic method?

The basic method is a dry brine.

Instead of just using salt, two tablespoons of kosher salt, we're going to add two other things.

A tablespoon of sugar, and then what is a surprise ingredient, is buttermilk powder.

Two tablespoons.

Now, I keep this in my fridge all the time in case I don't have buttermilk on hand.

You add buttermilk powder to water and it makes a good substitute for buttermilk.

Now this is-- we got this idea because some people buttermilk brine their turkey, right?

I got sick and tired of wet brining because I have, you know, these big containers, like, the beer containers, or I have two, you know, big garbage bags and I have the thing in the basement or have it on the porch.

Hopefully, the dog didn't get to it.

So we take this mixture and we're going to put it not just on top of the skin, we're going to put it underneath the skin, okay?

That's going to help do a couple things, it'll help penetrate the meat and you're going to get a nice thin, crispy skin when you're done.

The buttermilk does, really, one thing really well.

It helps to brown the skin.

So the first thing you gotta do is get over your fear of putting your hands underneath the skin of a 14-pound bird.

So you can sometimes use something like this to get in there.

Now we're gonna let this sit overnight in the fridge, by the way, which it needs that time.

And what happens when you salt or brine something?

The salt brings moisture out.

Now, I'm going to get my hand in there and see what's going on here.

If you're afraid of using your hands in the kitchen, you probably should do something else.

Because, I mean, like, it's the best tool in the world, right?

And you can wash it when you're done.

My wife lets me do this, by the way.

She decides this is my job.

(whispering): It's just so much fun doing this.

I mean, how much more fun can it be than putting your hands under the skin of a turkey?

This is pretty dry-- you should make sure the skin is dry.

I'm going to trim off the wingtips because they tend to burn, okay.

Now we have the buttermilk, sugar, salt mixture and we're gonna put it underneath the skin.

So this now goes in your cold storage, wherever that may be.

In my case, I could just throw in the basement, in the fridge overnight, up to 24 hours.

We do have a little secret here, 'cause our goal is not only to make this easy, this is gonna be a low roast, 325.

We want to end up with a great-looking glaze, like in all those stupid commercials from the '50s.

So we'll be back, we'll let this sit, and we'll finish up.

So we're ready to get this in the oven, and put a little oil on it.

You know, all these recipes say cook the breast meat to 160 to 165, which is fine.

And then it says the dark meat should be 175.

That's wrong, actually.

Especially, on a turkey because there are all these ligaments and tendons and other things which at 175, aren't really fully cooked.

And it's kind of gnarly-- is that the right term for that?

If you want the whole bird, because you want the presentation, fine... but, in my case, what I do is I take the entire breast and just cut down and take the legs off.

And I take the breast out when it's 165 or so, and I let the legs stay in the oven, and I cook the legs not to 175 or 180.

I cook them to, like, 195 to 200.

Then all that connective tissue really dissolves and the meat is really juicy and delicious.

Put a couple cups of water.

Not on the bird.

Um.

If you don't do that, you're gonna get a lot of smoking in the oven, and finally... ...a little black pepper.

So this goes into the oven for an hour-and-a-half and then... we'll mix it up.

Now, we have our... I was gonna say secret.

It's not a big secret, but it's maple syrup, three tablespoons and soy sauce which has, of course, got a little salt in it as well.

So after an hour-and-a-half, we're gonna take it out, glaze it another 30 minutes, take it out, glaze it and then finish it up.

So that way, hopefully, you'll agree when you see it, you have the best-looking bird on the block.

Applause ensues.

So, this is without any glaze yet.

And that buttermilk powder really helped a lot.

So this already looks twice as good as most roast turkeys I do.

Nicely glazed.

Back in the oven for 30 minutes.

Second glaze goes on.

So, that could be another half-hour depending on the size of the bird.

Like a 12 pound bird, maybe half an hour.

Another hour for a 14, 15-pounder.

I usually do, like, a 20-pounder, so that might be a little bit more than that, but should be done within an hour.

(groans) That was not a (groans) because it was heavy.

That was (groans) because it looks so good.

Now that, may I say, it looks like Peking duck, actually smells a little bit like Peking duck because of soy sauce.

So that looks pretty good.

So, I'm not usually one to care about visuals.

As a friend of mine, an Italian chef said many years ago, "Properly cooked food always looks good on the plate," which I believe.

We've done a lot of testing.

And, you know, letting things sit isn't going to really contain that many more juices, but it's just too hot for me to carve it right now.

So we're going to let it cool down for about 30 minutes.

And there's so much weight here, it's not going to end up being cold.

So carving is not about cutting through bone with a big knife, right?

It's all about finding the joints and cutting in between, separating the joints.

A long time ago, I was invited to my future in-laws' for Thanksgiving and they said, "Well, why don't you carve the bird?"

So they had one of these fancy, you know, carving knives.

It was essentially a butter knife and it had no edge at all.

And so I said, "Well, I'll just carve it in the kitchen."

And then I found a paring knife in the drawer, carved the entire bird with a paring knife and brought it out.

That's why I recommend, as Julia Child often said, you know, no one can see what you do in the kitchen.

So when it comes to Thanksgiving bird, I do all the carving in the kitchen.

It looks like a complete mess, but I put it on a nice platter, fix it up, and then I bring it out.

So since I'm the cook, I'll just take a little piece.

Pretty good.

Mm.

You can really taste the maple syrup, which is one of my favorite ingredients of all time.

So it looks good and it tastes good at the same time.

So this is what I do when no one's looking in the kitchen.

I just take my hands and I cut and eat pieces and stuff, so by the time I actually sit down for Thanksgiving dinner, I'm full because I've actually eaten everything.

So if you want a pretty simple recipe for Thanksgiving turkey and you want it to look, you know, cover-worthy-- not something I'd normally say.

But Thanksgiving, sure.

I think this is the way to go, so happy Thanksgiving from all of us here at Milk Street.

♪ ♪ - If making gravy at the holidays strikes terror in you, don't sweat it.

I've got you covered with the world's easiest gravy recipe.

Our burnt leek gravy.

You heard it right-- burnt.

This is a technique that's used a lot in Vietnamese and Mexican cuisine, where you're actually scorching some of the aromatic vegetables to draw out a lot of deep, rich, sweet flavor.

And it works beautifully in this gravy.

So I just cut a whole leek in half.

Even some of the dark green parts which we normally throw out.

You can use them here and then rinse them out.

In between the layers, as a leek grows, it picks up dirt.

That's why you find dirt in between when you cut them apart and then pat them a little dry, 'cause we're gonna scorch these.

We're gonna burn these under the broiler.

If there's too much water on them, they won't scorch.

Just spread them out on a sheet pan and pop them in there for about ten minutes.

That's it.

So while those are cooking, the other elements to this gravy, the other three elements, very simple.

Butter and flour-- I'm going to make what's called a beurre manié.

This is a classic way to thicken gravy.

Four tablespoons of butter and four tablespoons of flour.

So, the flour just goes right over the butter.

Make sure your butter is a little soft and room temp, and just mash it up.

There it is, that's ready to go.

I love to use this technique for thickening gravies and stalks, because a flour and butter paste in a gravy will come back if you just warm it gently.

So, there you go.

Looks like a mistake, right?

Those deep, dark pockets of burnt leeks are actually all the sugars within the vegetable that have caramelized, so now I'm just going to pop them right into a blender jar.

Burnt bits and all.

And then chicken stock, if you've got a little homemade or just a box broth is fine.

Put a couple cups in there, and we're going to pureé this.

♪ ♪ Make sure you let that blender go for a couple minutes.

You want to really break down all those vegetable fibers.

That's the base, that's the backbone of this gravy.

Leeks do have some stringy bits here and there, so we're going to strain that really quickly and press on the solids that are left there.

Keep pressing until you get all the liquid out-- now, doesn't look like much so far, but I guarantee you this has got a big pop of flavor.

So now I'll add the rest of the chicken stock.

And bring that up to a boil.

We'll add the beurre manié, the butter paste, and whisk it until it's nice and melted; add that butter paste, that beurre manié in a little bit at a time.

If you plop the whole thing in there, sometimes the flour can seize up before you get it nice and mixed, and you want it to stay nice and smooth and velvety.

Just gonna add a little bit of salt.

Black pepper.

Just takes a couple minutes to thicken up and you're ready to go.

So this simple gravy you can make anytime.

But if you're roasting a turkey, here's the other thing you can do.

Save those pan drippings, just add a tablespoon or two.

In fact, anytime you roast a chicken or a turkey during the year, save the pan drippings.

Just put them in a little container and throw them in the freezer, because that'll add a lot of flavor to any gravy you make.

That's all there is to it, if you're making this the day of, just set it on the back burner very, very low.

In fact, you can make it a couple days before the holiday, bring it out, warm it up, and it's ready to go.

It's really only four ingredients, and anyone can make it.

Burn some leeks under the broiler, throw them in a blender, with stock and thicken them up with a flour and butter paste.

And change the way you make gravy.

Now all I need are mashed potatoes.

Rosie's got us covered on those, too.

♪ ♪ - Sometimes, I think Thanksgiving is set up just to make the cook cry.

There are so many things to juggle and balance and oven time and stovetop time.

And just when the turkey comes out, you have to make mashed potatoes.

But we fixed it.

We have developed a mashed potato recipe that you can make in advance and reheat.

You need two things-- russet potatoes and 18 tablespoons of butter.

You need the butter because we're gonna butter braise our potatoes.

Instead of using a lot of water or milk to cook our potatoes, we're going to use all of that butter, and we're going to get fluffy, rich potatoes that we can reheat so Thanksgiving is relaxed.

So we have three pounds of russet potatoes we've peeled and rinsed, we want to rinse to get some of the starch off so they don't get gluey.

We're gonna put them into a wide pot.

So you want a Dutch oven, not a tall, narrow pot, so you get the right amount of evaporation, the right type of butter bath.

Then we're gonna add in our 18 tablespoons of butter.

We are gonna add in a cup and a half of water, which isn't much when you have a wide pot like this.

It's only gonna come up the potatoes a quarter of an inch.

And this is so nothing burns at the beginning, but we're gonna cook that off and get a nice butter glaze on all of these potatoes.

We also wanna add in a little salt.

So we're gonna bring this up to a boil, and then we're gonna cover and reduce it and let it simmer and braise for 25 or 30 minutes.

So, let's talk about why this recipe works.

The secret is the fat content of butter.

As the butter melts, it coats the starches from the potatoes, and prevents them from getting gluey, which is why we use butter instead of milk or cream, which has less fat than butter.

So, the mashed potatoes have cooked for about 30 minutes.

We removed the lid, and there's a little liquid left on the bottom, so we're gonna cook that off until there's almost none, and you really can see how all the fat is coating the potatoes, which means we won't get gluey mashed potatoes.

You get about a half a cup of boiling water.

We're gonna add it to the potatoes and mash them in the pot.

And the water loosens things.

That's why we're adding it now.

We've already coated all the starches, so we don't worry about the glueyness, but we do want them looser.

We want to get a nice texture, and we want to make it a little more fluid.

Now, how much do you mash them?

That's up to you.

Some people like a rustic mash.

Some people like a really velvety mash.

I like a little texture.

I also like black pepper on top of mine and some chives, because contrast, to me, is the cornerstone of all great cooking.

And if you just have butter and potatoes, it needs a little something extra.

Season them to taste.

Because I used salted butter and I added salt, they don't need much salt.

But again, like I said, I love contrast.

So I'm gonna add a little black pepper now so I can stir it evenly throughout.

But I'm also gonna add some more at the end.

I can smell the pepper.

Because there's so much butter, it's almost like it's blooming and not just toasting in here, it smells so good.

Because it's the holiday and appearances matter, I like to spoon my mashed potatoes in and, sort of, gently, not thump them in.

♪ ♪ That black pepper, if you so choose-- I choose.

And chives, some sort of green for color, but one with a little of that onion punch, like chives or scallions, I think is just a beautiful compliment with these buttery, rich potatoes.

So, this is the step if you're serving them right away, but the magic is you can make them ahead.

So let me show you how you reheat them so that they come to the table perfect.

Here we have cold mashed potatoes.

Everyone's worst nightmare, but not today.

I made these two days ago, I'm saving myself so much time.

Get these starchy potatoes into the pot, and then you want to add three-quarters of a cup of water.

We're going to reheat these really slowly.

Like everything else at Thanksgiving, do this while the turkey rests.

But this one is background labor.

You're not actually doing anything.

So you can either do the 30 other things people tell you to do while the turkey rests, or you can just, you know, enjoy a glass of wine with your guests.

'Cause remember, it doesn't have to be perfect.

The point of the holidays is not the perfect food.

It's gathering together with people you love.

So you can see these are already loosening, as the pan heats up.

Beautiful, these are completely reconstituted into the same beautiful mashed potatoes that we made fresh.

The impossible has been made possible, folks.

Re-heatable mashed potatoes.

You can't tell which ones were made two days before and which ones I just made fresh in front of you, right?

They look exactly the same.

And I'm actually gonna go for the ones that I made two days ago.

And we have our beautiful burnt leek gravy.

Given that they have 18 tablespoons of butter, it's surprising that these are potato-y before they're buttery, they're rich and decadent, as they should be, it's the holidays.

But you really can taste the potato flavor.

What I like about these most, though, is that they make your life easier so that Thanksgiving can be about you and your loved ones together having a good time.

♪ ♪ - Hey, I am glad you are here for this Thanksgiving show, because we are going to change the way you think about dinner rolls.

These are a potato bread roll, but the secret is instead of cooking a whole potato, taking the skin off, mashing it up to get that really delicious, starchy potato goodness, we are actually using instant potato flakes.

It's a fabulous alternative to cooking a whole potato, and it saves you an entire step.

Into our whole milk, we'll mix one egg yolk and that little bit of honey.

And then over here, we have regular all-purpose flour.

These are the potato flakes.

They're very dry, they're thin.

They're almost like papery flakes.

And we'll just add that into the flour.

Of course, we have our dry instant yeast.

And a little bit of salt.

You know, potato flakes are something you can actually keep in your pantry.

They keep for a really long time.

They're shelf stable, and they're great to have on hand for times you want to make a bread like this.

We'll turn this on low, let it mix a little bit, and then we'll start streaming in our wet ingredients.

Turn it up and let the dough hook pull all this together.

♪ ♪ Teeny bit more.

There we go, all right.

It's nice, it's pulling together.

It's in a ball now.

Now we need to let this knead for about eight minutes.

What happens during that eight minutes time is the gluten has a chance to develop.

The dough may come together and be smooth, but what's important for the texture of these rolls is that the gluten is strengthened.

And the more that kneads, the stronger the gluten gets.

You can see how this dough has pulled together in a smooth, cohesive ball.

It's been about eight minutes, so now we're ready to start adding the butter very gradually.

We'll just toss it in one tablespoon at a time, wait until it's mostly absorbed, and then add the next tablespoon.

Okay, all the butter is in.

It's been about two minutes of kneading.

Now, I'm going to turn the speed up to medium and let it go for another seven to nine minutes.

Yes, because we added the fat from the butter, the gluten needs even more time to develop.

(mixer whirring) All right.

Now, this is what you want, actually, this is sticking, look, it's soft and pliable, but not sticky.

Just going to... ...smoosh it together in the bottom of the bowl.

Okay.

Leave everything else the way it is.

Put a nice clean towel over the top.

Set this in a warm, draft-free place.

It'll take about an hour for the dough to double as the yeast begins activating.

Now, the reason this dough rises is because yeast loves sugar.

But the yeast will also convert starch into sugar.

You have the starch from the flour, and you have the starch from the potato.

And that type of starch actually helps the dough hold on to moisture.

That's one of the best things about these rolls.

Not only are they pillowy and soft, but they are very moist and they stay moist for a good long time.

So the potato, whether you cook a whole potato or use these potato flakes, it contributes quite a lot to the dough in terms of texture and flavor.

It's time to peek at the dough.

Oh, that looks lovely.

You can see it's about doubled in size.

And on the bottom, it does have a much lighter, airier texture.

Now, if you touch it, still once again, no sticking.

That's what you want.

But it's even softer and more pliable than it was before because there's a lot of air in it now.

So, we will roll this into a log because we're going to cut 12 rolls out of this.

♪ ♪ So we'll set most of these aside.

We're going to shape each of these into a little ball.

This is one of my favorite things to do with dough, so I'm really going to show you how to do this.

Smash it down, begin rolling with the palm of your hand.

Then as it starts pulling together, can you see how it's kind of getting into a ball?

You start pulling in your pinky and your thumb, and that gives you a border and that makes the ball even rounder and tighter and you get this cute little tight ball.

We have a nine-inch round cake pan here.

We'll put eight of these around the rim of the pan, and these last four, we'll put right in the middle.

Now we need to let the yeast rise again, and this takes about 45 minutes, assuming you have a semi-warm spot to put them in.

About 30 minutes into the proofing process, preheat your oven to 350 degrees so it's nice and hot when the rolls are ready to go in.

It's been 45 minutes, we have the moment of truth, which is, I love this moment.

Oh, look at these.

They're puffed up, they're touching, which they're supposed to be.

They're beautifully round on top.

Now we want to test to see if they actually are fully proofed and ready for the oven.

So just give a little press with your finger and what you want is that finger impression stays just slightly or either it's very, very slow to come up.

If it's firm and bouncy, give them about five or ten more minutes so they're ready for the oven, and they only need about 20 minutes in the oven until they get light and puffy and beautiful golden brown on top.

Hm!

Look at these beauties!

Little things.

All right, they have been in the oven 20 minutes, and I know I said that all they take is 20 minutes, but, if you want, you can put a rosemary garlic butter on them, which I highly recommend.

Little Parmesan cheese, then they go back in the oven for about 15 minutes to finish baking.

This is simply a little melted butter with some chopped rosemary in it, and some freshly grated garlic right in the butter.

We'll brush this over the top.

You get these nice little specks of rosemary and, of course, the delicious garlic, and that butter seeps down between the rolls.

These are so delicious.

Okay, back in the oven for about 15 minutes.

They will continue to brown.

That cheese will get melted on top.

Oh, just too good.

Okay, these came out of the oven about ten minutes ago.

Now we're simply going to invert them.

♪ ♪ Now, isn't that a lovely sight?

If you put them on the table like this, everyone gets to pull apart the roll they want.

And, you know, everybody loves doing that.

Or if you prefer, pull them apart yourself, put them in the basket and just pass the rolls around the table.

Mm... Look at that, that is just beautiful.

So you have the contrast of the crust on top, which of course has that Parmesan cheese and the garlic rosemary butter.

You have a little bit of golden crust on the outside, which adds a lot of flavor.

And then you have that beautiful, soft, fluffy surface where the rolls were nestled together as they baked.

Mm.

If you have never had potato bread before, much less homemade potato bread, you will likely be amazed at the texture, the moistness, the flavor that comes out of this bread.

One of our Thanksgiving traditions is every member of the family sort of has a different thing that they bring every year.

One sister-in-law brings her famous mashed potatoes.

Another sister-in-law brings the dinner rolls, but she doesn't make the dinner rolls herself.

They're delicious rolls, but nonetheless, they're store-bought rolls.

I'm thinking I might send her this recipe, hint, hint, (chuckles) and maybe she will reconsider her dinner rolls this year.

You can get this recipe and all the recipes from this season of Milk Street at MilkStreetTV.com.

And a very happy Thanksgiving to you, however you choose to celebrate.

- Recipes and episodes from this season of Milk Street are available at MilkStreetTV.com.

Along with shopping lists, printer-ready recipes, and our tips and techniques library.

Access our content anytime to change the way you cook.

- The season ten Milk Street Cookbook is now available, and includes every recipe from our TV show, from Brazilian cheese puffs and French toast, to skillet lasagna and Japanese cheesecake.

The new Milk Street Cookbook offers bolder, fresher, simpler recipes.

Order your copy of the Milk Street Cookbook for $34.95.

40% less than the cover price.

Call 855-MILK-177, or order online.

- Funding for this series was provided by the following.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪