Essential Tools for an Easier Thanksgiving Feast

Everything You Need No Images? Click here   Essential Tools​ for an Easier Thanksgiving Feast Hosting Thanksgiving dinner is stressful even in the best-case scenarios. Between choosing the right bird, settling on a menu, and stocking your pantry, not to mention cooking the whole thing, there's already plenty on your plate. Toss in the inevitable array of rowdy/late/antagonistic/drunk/inappropriate/whatever-drives-you-insane guests, and throwing a full-blown holiday temper tantrum starts to look pretty tempting.   Thankfully, while you can't control the chaos that is family, you can have a firm grasp on what's going on in the kitchen. That means getting all your shopping done early, making what you can in advance, and stocking your toolkit with every vessel and utensil you'll need to make cooking and serving your Thanksgiving meal a breeze. Here's the equipment that the Serious Eats staff uses, both to test our Thanksgiving recipes at work and to make our Thanksgiving dinners at home.   Cast Iron Skillet​ An excellent cast iron skillet is useful year-round, but it's especially handy come the holidays. If you use yours exclusively for stovetop preparations, then you're in for a treat—since they're oven-safe, cast iron pans are just as useful for baked items, like Stella's sweet and savory corn casserole and these delicious pull-apart stuffing rolls.   Glass Pie Plate The Thanksgiving table needs a pie, and a pie needs a good pie plate. We're big fans of the tempered-glass pie plates from Pyrex for our gooey deep-dish apple pie. Want to know if that pretty stoneware dish you bought will do the trick? Here's how to pick the right pie plate for every job.   Food Processor We recently tested a number of food processors on the market. Sure, they can be heavy and pricey, but a food processor is an excellent tool to have in your kitchen, especially when you're cooking for a crowd. Use it to quickly blitz your mirepoix, slice potatoes, and put together your flaky pie dough in a flash.   French Rolling Pin We know you might think that rolling out your pie dough with a bottle of wine is just fine. But a good, tapered French-style rolling pin offers a lot more control and precision. Once you have your rolling pin, you'll be ready to make any kind of pie recipe Stella throws at you.    Poultry Shears If you're going to spatchcock your turkey, you’ll need a strong pair of shears. Good thing we finally got around to testing out a whole bunch. OXO's poultry shears were the winners: The looped handle will keep your hands from slipping (in case of grease), and there's a take-apart hinge that makes them super easy to clean.   See the Rest Right Here   Serious Eats 88 35th St Ste 602 Brooklyn, NY 11232 Click Preferences to control which emails you receive from Serious Eats. Clicking Unsubscribe will remove you from all Serious Eats emails…which would be sad. Preferences  |  Unsubscribe

π r2: How to Formulate the Perfect Pie

Plus, the pies we'll be making this year No Images? Click here   The Must-Know Techniques How to Make Foolproof Flaky Pie Crust Know that you have the power to make a perfect pie. How to Blind-Bake Pie Crust Our guide to how, when, and why to blind-bake a crust for single-crusted pies. The Science of Pie: 7 Pie Crust Myths that Need to Go Away The pie world is full of myths. (You can’t make good pie dough on a humid day; acid will tenderize the crust; butter will make it tough). We sort the fact from fiction. Our Pie Picks  Double-Chocolate Cream Pie Done right, chocolate cream pie is a study in contrast: rich and light, creamy and fluffy, chocolate and vanilla, too. There's a lot of moving parts for this one, so we recommend making the crust in advance. BraveTart's Old-Fashioned Apple Pie Classic Pecan Pie Cranberry Apple Slab Pie Pumpkin Cheesecake with Gingersnap Crust   Serious Eats 88 35th St Ste 602 Brooklyn, NY 11232-2017 Click Preferences to control which emails you receive from Serious Eats. Clicking Unsubscribe will remove you from all Serious Eats emails…which would be sad. Preferences  |  Unsubscribe

A Southern-Inspired Thanksgiving Menu

Spice up your turkey No Images? Click here   The Main Event Cajun-Spiced Spatchcocked Turkey Taking a page out of the Louisiana playbook, this turkey is rubbed all over with a fragrant, lightly spicy mix. The result is a rich, deeply flavored bird with a gorgeous rust-colored skin. It's different, yet recognizably all-American in the best sort of way.   The Side-Spiration Braised Collard Greens Southern-Style Cornbread Creamed Brussels Sprout Gratin Baked Macaroni and Cheese View all the sides → The Dessert Silky Sweet Potato Pie Instead of roasting the sweet potatoes for this pie, we simmer them in milk and spices until the potatoes are velvety and the milk is condensed and flavorful. That’s the key to the richest, most aromatic sweet potato pie you’ll ever make. Oh, and a tempered-glass pie plate, too. View the desserts →   Serious Eats 88 35th St Ste 602 Brooklyn, NY 11232-2017 Click Preferences to control which emails you receive from Serious Eats. Clicking Unsubscribe will remove you from all Serious Eats emails…which would be sad. Preferences  |  Unsubscribe