Thanksgiving falls on Nov. 26 this year, and many families will use food to unite in celebration.
After writing The Thanksgiving Table in 2001, chef and author Diane Morgan wrote a new cookbook titled The New Thanksgiving Table, which was released in October.
‘It was really my personal favorite (book),’ Morgan said about The Thanksgiving Table. ‘I started traveling around teaching cooking classes from that book, and I realized there were all these regional differences.’
Those differences range from chilies in Texas to oysters in Louisiana to crab in Maryland.
‘It’s really fun to think about all these regional specialties, and I thought it would be fun to do a new book focusing (on) these regional specialties,’ Morgan said.
Despite the complexities and time-consuming activities that revolve around preparing a Thanksgiving feast, Morgan said even novices in the kitchen can follow her recipes.
‘All of the directions are written almost as if you were taking a cooking class,’ she said. ‘I don’t assume one knows how to truss a turkey, which I teach in the book. It’s a great selection of recipes that I think are very manageable. There are not a hundred ingredients or a list.’
There are many ways to prepare turkey, but Morgan mostly uses the brining method.
‘When you brine a turkey, what you’re doing is you’re creating a very dilute salt solution with usually some flavoring,’ she said.
The idea is that the salt and flavoring seep into the meat to marinate the turkey. Various flavorings include juniper berries, apple cider and others. Morgan’s new book features buttermilk brine, which has a tangy flavor.
‘You submerge the turkey in this solution and you let it soak, completely immersed, for 12 to 24 hours. You take it out, rinse it off, pat it dry and (it’s) ready,’ Morgan said. ‘The salt acts as a conduit into the meat, and it allows moisture to go into the cells. You’re not plumping the bird, you’re adding in flavor and moisture.’
One of the methods Morgan doesn’t elaborate on is deep frying, a Cajun variation popular in the South.
‘In neither book did I do a deep-fried turkey because there are many things that can go wrong, and you have to be careful. Even though I’ve had them and they taste great, they’re tricky to do and they need a lot of safety precautions,’ she said.
Though the cookbook lays out recipes in an easy-to-follow manner, Morgan said there are a few simple things people can do to make cooking even easier.
‘If you get a few not very expensive pieces of equipment, like a meat thermometer, then you save yourself from potential disasters,’ she said.
A meat thermometer is important for gauging the doneness of a turkey and is the difference between having a juicy bird or a dry one, Morgan said. The best place to put the thermometer is in the thickest part of the thigh, so that it doesn’t touch the bone.
Also, roasted food generally keeps cooking, rising up to 10 more degrees after leaving the oven.
‘You might start to carve a turkey and realize the breast meat isn’t done, or worse, that it’s completely overdone,’ Morgan said.
Morgan also said that making shopping lists and planning ahead for the meal makes Thanksgiving easier.
‘Instead of (saying) the day before Thanksgiving ‘hellip; ‘Ahhh, (I’ve) got to grocery shop,’ plan ahead and pool together the recipes that you want to make,’ Morgan said. ‘Don’t do everything on Thanksgiving day. There are so many things that can be done ahead.’
Groceries can be bought days before Thanksgiving, and pie dough can be made beforehand and rolled out into pans to be put into the freezer. Bread cubes can also be cut and dried to make stuffing, and vegetables can be prepared in advance.
‘Make a plan instead of taking a recipe and saying ‘OK, now I’m going to make this.’ Maybe you need two chopped onions for one recipe and one for another. How efficient is it to chop them all at once and divide them up?’ Morgan said. ‘You can plastic wrap and mark ingredients and set aside this for the stuffing, this for the gravy or this for the vegetable dish.
‘If you like to cook, it’s fun to do that kind of planning and to think about the meal and think about the recipes and what you want to put together. It’s a big meal, and it’s a lot of work to put together.’
For Morgan, Thanksgiving means more than carving a turkey and eating a big meal. To her, the holiday is about celebrating the first Thanksgiving.
‘It’s my favorite holiday of the year, and I like it because it’s really so close to the original harvest feast that the Pilgrims and the Indians shared. There are so many things about that original feast that is really closely tied to ours,’ Morgan said. ‘I think it’s lovely that we have this flow of history, and we’re gathering as family and friends around the table. We’re not dealing with presents and religious rituals. We’re focused on camaraderie and friendship and good food. I like the spirit of that.’
Morgan, who has two college-aged children, had a very memorable Thanksgiving last year when both children were directly involved in the preparation of the meal.
‘That was the first year they were interested in actively helping and really wanting to learn how to cook,’ she said.
The whole family came together to prepare for the Thanksgiving dinner, and Morgan was happy to see the whole family together in her kitchen.
‘My husband was the official dishwasher, and we put on The Wizard of Oz,’ Morgan said. ‘We were all chopping and rolling out pastry dough, making pies and roasting the turkey. It wasn’t just the dinner. We just had fun all day in the kitchen.’
This year, Morgan’s children may plan to keep her out of the kitchen to cook Thanksgiving dinner alone.
‘They’re like, ‘She won’t let us do that.’ You know what? I just might do that this year. I could take a break. It might be fun to just let them try and pull it off,’ Morgan said.
