Martha Stewart's Thanksgiving Recipes | How to Cook Turkey, Potatoes, and Pie

The Nugget

Martha Stewart demonstrates various cooking techniques to create different turkey dishes and a selection of complementary sides and desserts, emphasizing the versatility of cooking methods and ingredients to enhance traditional meals like Thanksgiving dinner.

Key insights

Roasting: Martha discusses the classic method of roasting a turkey, highlighting the use of butter-soaked cheesecloth draped over the turkey to achieve a moist and flavorful bird. She similarly introduces an alternative roasting method using parchment paper to create a steam packet that crisps the skin in the last cooking stage.
Braising: For dark meat lovers, Martha shows how to braise turkey legs in a herb-infused stock, leading to tender, fall-off-the-bone meat, differentiating from the usual whole bird approach.
Rolled Turkey Breast: A smaller scale turkey dinner option is demonstrated through a roasted and rolled turkey breast, seasoned with a compound butter for added flavor.

Stuffing and Side Dishes: Martha shares recipes for diverse stuffing variations and sides like scalloped potatoes and potato salad, emphasizing customization to suit different tastes and dietary requirements.
Desserts: Martha offers several pumpkin-based desserts, including a pumpkin pecan tart and pumpkin swirl cheesecake, showcasing innovative twists on traditional fall and Thanksgiving desserts.

Martha's methods often involve using common ingredients in novel ways (e.g., using condensed milk in the pumpkin pecan tart filling) or employing unique cooking techniques (e.g., braising turkey legs, rolling turkey breast for even cooking) to elevate the dishes' flavor and presentation.

"Don't push it in too tightly because it really does expand when it cooks." - On stuffing a turkey
"This goes into the 450 degree oven for 30 minutes." - On the initial high-heat roasting step to start the turkey cooking process
"Imagine turkey this good in less than two hours." - On the efficiency of her cooking methods
"Brown butter sauce makes these potatoes hard to resist." - On the appeal of her potato puree recipe

Soak cheesecloth in butter and wine for a moist, flavorful turkey.
Parchment paper can create a steam packet that keeps the turkey moist while allowing the skin to crisp up in the last stage of cooking.
Braising turkey legs in herb-infused stock can make the dark meat tender and flavorful.
Rolled turkey breast seasoned with compound butter offers a smaller, yet flavorful, alternative to whole turkey dinners.

This summary contains AI-generated information and may have important inaccuracies or omissions.