Oh don’t we all wish that a kitchen full of vegetables, poultry, condiments and starches could transform themselves into a perfect holiday feast!? There you are, fighting the clock, chopping away at potatoes and pickles, sweating the big and small things, actually sweating—ewww—as the turkey, ham, or tofurkey refuses to cook fast enough, wondering all the while what desired dish you have forgotten. These holiday cooking hacks from trusted culinary artists may help you carve out some serenity before you carve up that turkey. 

Plan a Moon Mission

Plan your holiday feast like a rocket scientist, balancing limitations and assets while scheduling every step. Some limitations to consider: 

• How many stoves, microwaves and stove top burners do you have? 
• How much counter space? 
• How much freezer and refrigerator space? 
• How many serving dishes do you own? 
• Do you have enough tables and chairs enough? 

Inventory your assets, thinking creatively: 

• Can friends or relatives attending the celebration provide space at their homes, cook a part of the feast, or offer refrigerator and freezer storage? 
• Will you need to rent chafing dishes, extra chairs or an additional table? 
• What is the phone number of the caterers? No! Never mind that! You can do this!

Plan three weekends in advance, so you can shop unhurriedly. Selecting your menu, considering cooking times, assigning the various foods to every available stove and burner, assigning the sous chefs to their jobs, you orchestrate the entire event with quiet determination:

• Your stove gets the ham or turkey
• The microwave gets the frozen peas
• Your spouse gets the bags of ice
• Cousin Wally buys and brings two kinds of cranberry sauce

As Launch Director of this mission, diplomatically communicate—in advance—to all the “helpers” what their roles will be, so the holiday kitchen is calm. 

Mise en Place 

Mise en place, the French term for preparing to cook, can be done long before the actual holiday. Some foods can be prepped very early, while others should wait until the day before: 

• Fruits—Cut these up as many as nine days before use with little loss of visual appeal and almost no nutritional loss
• Gravy—Egg-free homemade gravy freezes well; just stir during reheating
• Breads—Yeast rolls and loaves freeze well; most pies do not
• Mashed Potatoes—Whether Yukon Gold or sweet, your mashed potatoes can be made days ahead of time, frozen, and reheated in the microwave
• Stuffing—If made without eggs, freeze before cooking; if made with eggs, bake or cook first, then freeze
• Celery—Dice or cube the night before; cover with plastic wrap
• Onions—Slice, dice or cube the night before; cover with plastic wrap and sequester well apart from other vegetables
• Relish Trays—Arrange, cover with plastic wrap, and store in the refrigerator away from the onions

Thaw in Time

Thaw the turkey with plenty of time for it to roast, or brine and then roast. Frozen turkey thawing in the refrigerator takes around five hours per pound. So that 14-pound bird is going to need a staggering 70 hours to thaw! To speed thawing by a factor of ten, immerse the bagged bird in a sink of cold water, changing the water every half hour. That 14-pound bird now needs only seven hours to thaw. 

Brining a thawed turkey restores moisture and flavor, but takes preparation and additional time, usually overnight. 

Dress Rehearsal

Lay out the serving dishes and place settings several evenings early. Put slips of paper on each serving dish to identify what will land on it. Survey the scene to see if your plan makes sense. Perhaps the mashed potatoes are fine near the string bean casserole, but perhaps they are better near endearing Cousin Ida. 

Avoid Disaster

Refuse to deep-fry the turkey anywhere but at your local fire station (seriously—people burn down their houses frying those things). Have cans of whipped cream on hand to mask cracked pumpkin pie. Have cartons of French Vanilla ice cream ready to recast the failed, sloshy pecan pie as scooped topping; garnish with whipped cream. 

Turkey cooking brings its own annual nightmares, which is why Butterball’s hotline lights up like NASA’s Mission Control every holiday. Keep their number handy, but also realize you should have a few emergency tools:

• Aluminum foil to tent the turkey, preventing burning
• Brine solution to soak the frozen bird to rehydrate and flavor it
• A meat thermometer to ensure you have cooked the turkey adequately
• Kitchen twine to keep the bird trussed up for even cooking
• Olive oil or real butter to rub on the skin before cooking, for proper browning

Ecpi #Culinary school sooooo excited. .. pic.twitter.com/5ffahbRJIM

— Lakisha Lilly (@lakisha_lilly) August 4, 2015

Hack Your Way to Culinary School!

Learn to cook like a confident chef by contacting ECPI University to learn more about the Culinary Institute of Virginia’s 15-month program. You could earn an Associate of Applied Science Degree in Culinary Arts and face that fowl fearlessly. Call today—it could be the Best Decision You Ever Make!

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