America's Test Kitchen

-Today on "America's Test Kitchen," we're making a classic Thanksgiving dinner.

Julia makes Bridget turkey and gravy perfect for a crowd.

Adam reviews stock pots, and Dan explores the science of stale bread.

It's all coming up right here on "America's Test Kitchen."

-Cooking for a big crowd on Thanksgiving?

Well, you might be asking for a recipe for disaster.

There's the timing, the planning and the execution.

So it pays to think like an organized executive chef at a restaurant.

Julia's here, and she's going to show us how we can tackle turkey time without all the sweat.

-That's it, because I know a lot of people that regularly have 18 to 20 people at their Thanksgiving table.

That's a lot of work.

-That's a lot.

I'm really glad I don't have that many friends.

-This recipe is designed with a lot of make ahead in mind to serve 18 to 20 people or 10 people with a lot of leftovers.

-I like that.

-So the first step is, you're not going to buy a whole turkey.

Buy parts because the dark meat, the thighs and the drumsticks, cook very differently than the white meat, which is the breast, so we're going to treat them separately and cook them ahead of time.

So we're going to make enough meat that it's actually two whole birds.

Dark meat -- really well suited to braising.

So we're going to braise it in a roasting pan, and at the same time, we're going to make a flavorful broth that we'll turn into gravy, so it's a twofer.

-Love it.

Love it.

-So here we have a nice big roasting pan off the heat.

We're just going to add some mirepoix.

That's onions, carrots and celery, so this is three onions, four carrots and four ribs of celery, all nicely chopped, a lot of thyme.

Thyme is classic, 10 sprigs of thyme... -Okay.

-...10 sprigs of parsley, 10 cloves of peeled, smashed garlic... -Mm.

-...3 tablespoons of melted, unsalted butter, three bay leaves and last, a tablespoon of black peppercorns.

All right.

So we're just going to stir this all together, and now I'm going to put this over medium heat.

We're going to let this start to soften and wilt and form a little bit of a fond on the bottom of the pan.

It'll take about 15 minutes.

I'm going to ask you to keep an eye on this and stir it every once in a while.

-I can do that.

-All right.

Now I'm going to turn our attention to some turkey.

Now here I have turkey legs.

Now this is four turkey legs.

Each leg weighs about a pound and a half to 2 pounds, and they're called turkey quarters sometimes when you buy them in the store.

We're going to separate the drumsticks from the thighs.

That'll just make it easier to carve on the other end.

And you can see this line of fat that separates the thigh from the drumstick.

You want to cut down that line of fat, but kind of cheat it over to the drumstick side.

Find that bone, and then when you find it, you can kind of go right through.

And you can do this up to three days before Thanksgiving.

-Nice.

-All right.

So there we have our four drumsticks and our four giant turkey thighs.

We're going to season it with some salt and pepper.

This is 3 tablespoons of kosher salt.

And I've added just enough black pepper in there to give it a little flavor, and I've premixed it.

This way, I'm not dirtying the box of salt or the pepper mill.

All right.

How are the veg doing over there?

-They're looking lovely.

Now you're not looking for any color at this point, right, just softening?

-Yeah, just softening.

At the end of about 15 minutes, we're going to start to see just a little bit of fond start to appear on the bottom of the pot.

-Okay.

-All right.

So this has been cooking for about 15 minutes.

-Ahh!

-It smells like Thanksgiving, doesn't it?

-It smells like Thanksgiving.

-All right.

So you can see there's a little bit of nice fond building on the bottom of this pan, and some of the vegetables have started to get brown, so that's just what we wanted.

Now it's time to add the liquids.

I'm going to add 4 cups of chicken broth, and as I add it, you can see I'm going to start to scrape up those flavorful bits off the bottom of the pan.

-Always a good idea.

-I'm going to add a little bit of water.

This is 1 cup of water and, last but not least, 1 cup of dry white wine.

For white wine, you can use anything like an unoaked Chardonnay or sauvignon blanc.

-Okay.

-All right.

So we're just going to bring this up to a simmer before we put the meat in and then start to braise it.

All right.

That has come to a simmer.

So now I'm going to take this off the heat, and I'm going to start to add the dark meat to the pan, but I'm going to add it skin side up so the skin can render and eventually roast and become crisp later on.

So there's the four thighs, and here are the four drumsticks.

We're going to cook this in the oven.

This is going to take 2 1/2 to 3 hours to cook through completely, and one thing we found is, it's best to put a piece of parchment paper right on top of the turkey before you add the foil because there's a lot of wine in here, and that acidic steam will actually start to corrode that aluminum foil.

All right.

Here we have a nice big piece of foil.

Crimp it down around the edges, in there around the handles.

We're going to use the classic braising temperature of 325, right on the lower middle rack, and the final temperature of that dark meat should be about 170 degrees.

Thank you.

All right.

So it's been almost 3 hours.

Let's take a peek at the dark meat.

-Hmm, looks papery.

-[ Laughs ] All right, so again, we're looking for a temperature of 170 degrees.

I'll go right into the thickest part of this thigh.

All right.

172 on the nose.

So I'm going to take this dark meat out, but very gently because the skin now is quite delicate, and the meat now is quite delicate.

There is all that dark meat.

Now I'm going to let it sit on the counter and cool down for about an hour, but then I'm going to cover it, and we can refrigerate it again for up to three days.

Now I'm just going to go in here with a stiff rubber spatula and really make sure all those brown bits... -Look at that color.

-...are scraped up, and this is going to become the base of our gravy.

Now if you could help me... -Sure.

-...I am going to pour the contents... -I will switch sides.

-...of that pan into the strainer.

We're just going to strain out all the solids.

-Oh, oh.

-All right.

So I'm just going to press on all these vegetables, make sure we get every last bit of liquid out of there because that is liquid turkey gold.

-Mm-hmm.

-Now, of course, we want to defat this broth, and we're going to use both the fat and the broth for the gravy.

Best way to defat it is to use a defatting device.

-How about that?

-How about that?

But we're going to have to do this in two batches because, again, we're making a lot of gravy.

We're going to let it sit for about 5 minutes, and then we're going to strain off the fat from the broth, and we're going to reserve both.

Then we'll do it again with the second batch.

All right.

So I defatted all of that broth, and I wound up with 8 cups of broth and 1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoons or 9 tablespoons of fat, and we're going to use all of it in the pot.

-Yes!

-Now if you didn't have enough fat, you could substitute whatever you missing in melted butter, and it would taste just fine.

-Mm-hmm.

-We're going to heat the fat up over medium-high heat, so we're just going to let this heat up a little bit, then we're going to add 8 tablespoons of all-purpose flour to make a roux.

So we're only going to cook this for about 5 minutes.

We're going for a golden roux.

So you can see that this roux has turned nice and golden, has that toasty aroma.

Now we're going to slowly add our 8 cups of broth, and whisk as you go.

Oh, that just smells like gravy.

All right.

So we're just going to bring this up to a boil, and then we're going to reduce it down to medium-low and let it simmer until it's nice and thick, and it measures about 6 cups.

And, yes, that is a quart and a half... -Yes!

-...of straight gravy.

-You're welcome.

-[ Laughs ] -That'll take 15 to 20 minutes.

All right.

So it's been just over 15 minutes.

You can see it has reduced down and thickened nicely.

-I'm not hovering.

-[ Laughs ] I'm going to taste it right in front of you.

Ooh, it's good.

So now is a good time to season it with salt and pepper.

I actually think it's pretty well seasoned with salt, just could use a little bit of pepper.

So we're going to take this off the heat.

We're going to let this cool down for an hour just like the turkey, and we're going to cover both and put them in the fridge.

Again, you can do this up to three days ahead of time.

-Having a large stock pot is key for making big batches of stew and chili or cooking lots of corn on the cob, and Adam's here to tell us which brand and size is best.

-How about making stock, Julia?

-Definitely.

-Got to do that in a stock pot.

You know, stock pot is like an umbrella.

You don't use it that often, but when you need it, you really need it.

We like 12-quart stock pots.

We've done some testing in the past.

We know that 12 quarts is big enough to get big jobs done, but it's not so huge that it's a super big hassle to store.

So we have a lineup of seven 12-quart stock pots.

The materials ranged from stainless steel and aluminum, both fully clad and disc bottom, and we have this blue one here, which is enameled steel.

-Mm.

It's quite pretty.

-The price range is about $28 at a low to almost $400 on the high.

-Wow!

Oh, good morning.

-Yeah, and the testing was fairly extensive.

We cooked 2 pounds of angel hair pasta in 8 quarts of boiling water, cooked two dozens ears of corn, cooked diced onions to get a sense of how moderately or quickly or slowly they cooked, and of course we made a full batch of chicken stock.

-Mm-hmm.

-And testers also considered the weight, the fit of the lid, and the handles.

The cooking performance across all the materials was pretty equal.

-Really?

-Yeah, not big differences there.

It was more design factors that had to do with how they handled that set apart the winners and the losers.

The first one was weight.

The range was about 3 1/2 pounds at the low to 7 pounds at the high, and, you know, a 7-pound pot is not necessarily light, and when you're making stock, you're adding almost 11 pounds worth of ingredients.

-Yeah, it can get heavy and hot.

-Let's do a little lifting for you.

-All right.

-I have some oven mitts for you.

-Thank you.

-This one was the heaviest pot there, and it's got 11 pounds of water in there to mimic a stock recipe.

-Oh, my goodness.

Oh, yeah.

-Not light.

-Wow.

That is not light.

I'd actually be worried for my safety a little bit if this were hot, and I was trying to drain it over the sink.

-Exactly.

Testers definitely preferred slightly lighter pots.

The second thing was the handles.

-Mm-hmm.

-Very important.

Same thing -- safety.

You're handling a lot of hot liquid.

You want to have good, secure handles.

They liked handles that were more generous and more loop-shaped.

Why don't you try that one first?

Those are less generous and less loop-shaped.

See how you feel about that.

-All right.

Well, especially with pot holders, right?

-Yeah.

-Oh, yeah, no, I don't feel like this is very secure.

-Right.

-I don't have a lot to grab onto, and they're kind of slippery, actually.

-Now why don't you check out the handles on this one?

-All right.

Ooh, that's good.

You know what?

My hands aren't slipping around even with mitts, and also, I'm picturing these if they got a little wet.

It's this rubber coating that's giving me a little something to grip onto.

-These handles had a lot going for them.

They were generously sized.

They're about 2 inches.

-Mm-hmm.

-They have that loop shape, so you can really grab on, and like you said, the rubber coating.

-Mm!

-So this is the winning stock pot.

-A-ha!

-That's the 12-quart Cook N Home stainless-steel stock pot with lid.

It's got great handles.

It was the second lightest one in the lineup... -Nice.

-...and it was only 28 bucks.

-[ Gasps ] Even better.

So there you have it.

When it comes to buying a large stock pot, check out this one.

It's the Cook N Home 12-quart stainless-steel stock pot with lid at only $28.

All right.

So we dealt with the dark meat.

Now we're going to deal with the white meat, and as I promised, we're going to have two turkeys worth of meat, but we're not going to use two turkeys.

-Two whole turkeys worth of meat.

-You got it.

-Love it.

-So here we have turkey breasts, which you can buy separately.

Each one of these weighs between 5 and 6 pounds.

You don't need to do much before you put it in the oven, but very often there is this backbone attached, which means they're a little wobbly and hard to carve, so it's easy just to trim this out.

See this nice line of fat here.

-Mm-hmm.

-You can just follow that right up with a good pair of poultry shears right to that bone, and here I'll do it on the other side.

And then when you get here, this is where you get to be a little bit of a chiropractor, and you snap it open.

You're basically just opening it at that joint, and this is where I like to take the tip of a boning knife.

You just get right in there to cut that out.

And then cut this away, and then when you get to the skin, I really like to use scissors.

I just feel like it's a nice, safe way to trim that away.

This, for me, is valuable.

This goes in the freezer and goes into a nice, big batch of stock.

-That's future gravy.

-[ Laughs ] All right.

I'm just trimming away any big lumps of skin.

But that looks pretty good.

I have the other breast that we've already done, so now we're going to salt this, and you would do this the day before Thanksgiving.

I'm just going to loosen the skin on both sides of the breast here.

Want to get your fingers in there.

You want to loosen it right up to the middle, and you're going to use a teaspoon of kosher salt on each of the breast halves.

-Okay.

-And then we're just going to rub it in there all nice and even.

Try not to rip the skin.

You really want that skin to be able to cover the meat completely as it cooks.

All right.

Last but not least, we're going to flip it over and we're going to sprinkle the rest of the salt, which is about a teaspoon per breast, right on the back side.

So that's about a tablespoon of kosher salt per breast.

-Okay.

-So these breasts are ready for the refrigerator.

They're going to go in uncovered for 24 hours.

-What's the difference between this hard piece of bread and this hard piece of bread?

Well, one is stale, and the other has been dried out in a low oven.

They both feel dry and hard, but they're actually quite different.

Joe here is going to help me demonstrate the difference.

I made bread crumbs with a slice of each and combined it with 3/4 cup of water that I dyed blue in these beakers.

They've been sitting here for a few minutes to let the bread crumbs absorb liquid.

Now, on the count of three, we're going to invert these over our heads, and we'll see what happens.

One, two, three.

The oven-dried bread absorbed water so well, it formed a solid puck that didn't even come out of the container.

On the other hand, the stale bread failed to absorb much liquid, and the sludgy bread crumbs spilled right out onto Joe's head.

Thanks, Joe.

Here's what's going on.

Stale bread may feel firm and dry, but it's got hidden reserves of water.

Its firmness is a result of the slow rearrangement of its starch molecules into crystalline structures.

Most of the water remains trapped by the starch, preventing it from absorbing much added liquid, and that's a problem because absorption is necessary for trapping liquid, which is important, whether you're making a panade with bread crumbs, a stuffing for Thanksgiving, or inverting things over your head.

-All right, Bridget.

It's the big day.

It's Thanksgiving Day, and the pressure is on.

Time to cook the white meat.

-I like this.

The pressure's on you.

-It is.

-I'm just here for the ride.

-[ Chuckles ] So this is what you want to do about 3 hours before serving time, to give you a little goalpost.

-Okay.

-The first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to take a piece of foil.

I'm going to crumple it up, believe it or not, make some wrinkles in it before I spread it out onto the baking sheet.

And, no, I'm not crazy.

When the drippings drip down from the turkey as it roasts onto the wrinkled foil, they won't burn as much.

-Huh.

-Yeah, so it prevents smoking in the oven.

And put the rack on top, and now it's time to take the turkey breasts that have salted for 24 hours, and I'm just going to move them over to the foil-lined rack.

And I'm going to brush them with 4 tablespoons of melted, unsalted butter.

Of course, this butter will help that skin get nice and crisp.

-Yes.

And just taste really good.

-Oh, yeah.

And the butter is also going to help the salt stick to the skin because we haven't salted the outside of these breasts yet.

So this is 2 teaspoons of kosher salt, and that's about a teaspoon of salt per breast, and then these are ready for the oven.

Now when it comes to roasting the turkey breast, we like to use two oven temperatures.

We like to start it nice and low at 325 degrees.

That's just a gentle cooking temperature so that the turkey cooks through and stays moist, and that's going to take about an hour and a half.

We're going to roast them until they register 130 degrees, but then the magic happens... -Uh-oh.

-...'cause they're not done yet.

-Right.

-I'm going to take them out.

I'm going to crank that oven up to 500 degrees, and then when it's up to temperature, I'm going to put them back in, and they're going to go for about 20 to 30 minutes longer until they're nice and golden, and the meat is fully cooked at 160 degrees.

-Oh, boy.

-They are beauties, aren't they?

-Gorgeous.

-Oh!

-Don't go too far.

-Mm.

Hello!

We're going to want to temp these again.

We're looking for, in the very thickest part of the breast, about 160.

Oh, perfect, 162.

I'm going to transfer these over to this big board and let them rest for 20 to 30 minutes before we start carving.

In the meantime, we're going to reheat that dark meat, but we're going to change the oven rack one level.

By raising the rack, we're going to get more heat on the top of that dark meat so that skin browns.

And we're going to leave these breasts uncovered to rest for 30 minutes.

So I'm going to pour off any of the juices that have collected in that foil because that is really good flavor, and we're going to add that to the gravy.

Here we go, and we're going to reuse this rack for the dark meat.

So now we're just going to transfer the dark meat, which is straight from the fridge, onto the rack.

Right before they go in the oven, we're going to brush it with a little butter.

This is 3 tablespoons of melted, unsalted butter, and then this is going to go back in that 500-degree oven, and it's going to warm through, and the skin is going to get nice and crisp.

It only takes about 18 to 22 minutes.

We're looking for a temperature of about 110 degrees.

-So why is it that we can reheat dark meat but not reheat the white meat?

Well, as it turns out, white meat and dark meat come from different types of muscles, and they each have very different purposes.

Now dark meat contains slow-twitch muscle fibers, which are for regular repetitive motions like walking around and standing.

White meat contains fast-twitch muscle fibers.

Those generate quick, power movements such as when a burst of activity is needed, like flying away from a predator.

And this makes all the difference when cooking.

Slow-twitch leg muscles rely on slow-burning stored fat to fuel their movements.

On the other hand, fast-twitch breast muscle has evolved for quick action, and fat burns too slowly to fuel quick muscle movements.

So instead of fat, these muscles get their energy from quick-burning stored carbohydrates.

So the reason that we can reheat dark meat and not white meat, well, it all comes down to fat content.

Dark meat has a higher fat content, which allows it to be reheated without drying out, while breast meat, or white meat, has a lower fat content, meaning it needs to only be cooked once.

-All right.

I'm going to buy it, yeah.

-Mm.

-Those look great.

Uh-huh.

I'm amending my reactions.

Those look amazing.

-Gorgeous, don't they?

-Yes.

-And because they're reheated, they're going to be so tender.

All right.

Of course, we want to temp them to make sure they're nice and hot.

Again, we're looking for about 110.

-That's perfect.

-Nice.

So we're going to let the dark meat rest while we start to carve the white meat.

-Okay.

-I have this working board over here, carving board, and I have a breast here, and now I'm just going to start to carve the meat away from the breastbone, and there's that keel bone that runs right down the center.

Just going to one side of it, and this can get hot.

My hands are kind of used to it, but if it gets too hot, there's no shame in grabbing a towel just to protect your hands.

You can see that steam escaping from there, and so now I'm just cracking it open a bit.

You can take your time, and you just follow the curve of that breastbone all the way down.

-That keel bone is shaped -- It's called keel bone because, like the keel of a boat, it's shaped in a dome, and then it kind of flattens out at the very bottom, so a good, flexible boning knife is a perfect knife for the job.

-All right.

So I'm going to show you with just one breast here -- I have a magic tool up my sleeve.

It's called an electric knife!

-Nice.

-I love these because it makes it really easy to cut this nice, crisp skin so everyone gets a piece.

So I'm just going to cut it cross-wise into about 1/2-inch to 1/4-inch-thick slices.

I just love how it goes right through that skin, and your pieces just look so professionally done.

-1953 called.

They want their Thanksgiving back.

-I don't blame them.

This thing is amazing.

So I'm going to use a fork to help me transfer this gorgeous meat over to this platter, and then you can just shingle the meat nicely.

-Beautiful.

-Now continue to do this with all the other pieces of turkey.

-Okay.

I got to tell you, this is stunning.

-Yeah, it's quite a spread, right?

Most of it can be made ahead, which is perfect when you have a lot of friends coming over.

Hey!

The gang's here.

-There you go.

There you go.

-Oh, a little turkey and gravy... -Thank you.

-...for everybody.

All right.

You gravy yourselves.

You understand?

-Right.

-Yes, ma'am.

-So I pulled that gravy out of the refrigerator, reheated it, seasoned it with a little more salt and pepper, and added the rest of those juices from underneath the roasting turkey breasts.

-I want to say thank you to Steve, Steve Dunn here.

He's the one that developed this amazing recipe.

-The breast meat is so moist and tender because it was salted overnight and then roasted at that lower temperature for so long.

-It's kind of amazing, the texture of the breast meat.

That's the one that I'm always like, "Huh, lower my expectations."

It's beautiful.

It's succulent.

It's juicy.

So, Julia and Steve, got to call you out, thank you so much for this amazing Thanksgiving dinner here.

And if you'd like to make this great Thanksgiving dinner for a crowd in your own house, start with a broth made by roasting separated leg quarters with browned aromatics.

Then strain and defat the broth, make a roux, and then whisk that broth to make a thick and rich gravy.

Trim and cut turkey breasts from the backbone, and then rub salt under the skin and in the cavity.

Roast the breast on top of crumpled foil, then reheat that dark meat.

Carve the thighs and breast meat and serve with that delicious gravy.

So from "America's Test Kitchen" to your kitchen, the ultimate turkey and gravy for a crowd.

And you can get this recipe and all the recipes from this season along with tastings, testings, and selected episodes on our website, and that's americastestkitchen.com.

-Let us help you with dinner tonight.

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