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Six forty KFI six forty. Neil Savader for Bill Handled today. Happy to be with you, Happy Thanksgiving. Eight hundred five to zero one five three four eight hundred five two zero one five three four here for you today to answer any of your questions, baking, cooking, drinks, whatever it may be.
Hit me up.
I'm happy to be here until nine o'clock and then you know what, You're gonna have to take off those Neils Vader training wheels and be on your own.
Okay, but you can. He'll still hit me up on social media.
I'll do my best to keep an eye on it on Instagram and X and the like.
You can hit me up.
At Fork Reporter, at Fork Reporter, and I'll do my best to help you out there. Let's talk to Jim and up upland Hey Jim, how are you.
Great?
Neil, thanks for taking my call.
Of course, Happy Thanksgiving, my friend.
I'm just starting, okay, I'm wrapping the turkey. I just want to know we're not going to stuff it this year. Okay, we rinse it out before we.
Cook it.
No need throw it, no need.
No Actually I prefer that you don't.
There's an old I don't know where this came from, but for some reason, and I was taught this too, and my mom was taught it, and so on and so forth. Is everybody thinks you're supposed to wash poultry. Do not wash poultry it. All it does is splash bacteria all over the place. Any bacteria on the bird is going to be cooked off when you cook the bird properly, So there's no reason to wash poultry at all. It just makes your sink dirty and it splashes on
towels and you and everything else. So you want to remove whatever's in there. There usually is a bag with all of the giblets and all of those things you want to remove. Yeah, and then you want to put in you're aromatics, so you chop up and you don't even need to.
Do anything to the onions. You can just get an onion and.
Chop it up and put it in there, you know, put chop it into fourths or something like that.
Throw that in there.
Maybe throw some carrots in there. You want to salt it pretty heavily and pepper it pretty heavily on the inside, and you can put some time in there. You can put some rosemary in there and that's it. You just put that in there and you're good to go. And that you know, those flavors are going to kind of
base the inside. The salt and pepper is incredibly important, and then the others just kind of add to that and then help that those juices come out into the roasting pan, and then that you're going to use that as you're you're gonna sive that off, and then that you're going to use that as your gravy based base.
Should I tint it or leave it? Leave it off at first and then tint.
It or people go back and forth and all this. You can tent it for the first part of it and then you know, maybe the last hour or so untented to make sure that you're not steaming the skin. But you know, oftentimes I don't do that. There's people it's a what pound, eighteen pounds, that's a big and well when you get up to that size, it's not going to hurt you to tend it the first part of the cooking, maybe the first two thirds.
Okay, and then you toast off that skin at the end there.
How long do I cook it you're.
Looking at probably unstuffed. You're looking about between twelve and fifteen minutes a pound.
Okay, super, but that's rough.
I mean the reality is, Jim, no matter what I tell you, it's done when it's done, and that means that it's one sixty at the thickest part of the bird, which is between the leg, the thigh there and the breast where they meet and you don't want to be
touching bone. Put the thermometer, instant read thermometer in there, and once it comes up to one sixty, you take it out of there and you let it rest and it will go up another five degrees or so, hit that one sixty five sweet spot, and then start traveling down. And when it hits one twenty in that same spot, it means it's cooled enough and it's ready to cut. Oh okay, Trooper, thank you very much, Neil, My absolute pleasure,
my friend. Have a very happy Thanksgiving. Bump bump by What time is it?
What time is the buh? Okay, let's go to Kathy. Hi, Kathy, welcome to KF five.
Good morning, Hi, good morning, happy Thanksgiving and to you. Thanks. So here's the thing. My turkey is going to and all plaze my big O. Okay, but I have other things. I have a ham, I have the Greenman casserole, I have the stuffing and then the rolls. But I know the rolls can go last. But can I stack my two cast roles in the left oven the small oven? Or should at the ham in first? And then I just trying to coordinate everything so they kind of come out at the same time.
But sure, I don't know if that's good, do you? Okay?
A couple of things, A couple of options for you. Yes, you can stack foods. Just keep in mind, the more stuff in the oven, the hearder the oven has to work to make sure that they're even, which means that you should probably not only switch them from top to bottom halfway through, but you should probably turn them one hundred and eighty degrees as well, so that there is even as possible under the circumstance you want them to
be in. They should be in similar temperature zones, meaning that if you're going to be cooking at three point fifty, hopefully both of them need to be cooked at three fifty. They don't have to be, it can be within a range there, but keep in mind, one might finish before and one could be a little drier, but probably not
very noticeable. When it comes to reheating ham, do you have, like I'm a fan of reheating ham in what they call a souvid, which means it's a it's a circulator that keeps the temperature or the water at a particular temperature consistently, and then you vacuum seal the slices of ham and you reheat it.
There is it a part? Is it a pre cooked ham?
Yes, it's just a half ham. It's not that big, but it's pre cooked. But I don't have a suv.
Okay, well, but what you still could do is you could you could take it, slice it, put it into
like a freezer bag, like a gallon freezer bag. Don't stack them too much, keep them almost like a single layer, a double layer all the way through the slices, and then you ziplock it until there is only about an inch left of the ziplock, and you slowly lower that into water and it will push out the air and you can ziplock it and that makes it pretty kind of air tight in there, and then you can lay that into you know, boiling water and then you let it cool and it will reheat it that way. That's
a method that keeps it incredibly moist. If you have to put it into an oven, then I would I would probably slice it and put a rapid in foil and heat it at three point fifty until warmed through.
Okay, So if it takes an hour for the ham, but a half an hour for the other two casseroles, would you put your ham in first and then put the two cashroles in. I mean it's going to come out.
I wouldn't try and reheat the ham hoole.
I really would still cut it into slices, which means it's gonna be much it's gonna warm up much quicker, much more quickly than you think.
And I'd probably do that last.
Okay, that's all. I didn't think of that. Okay, great, Well, thank.
You, You're very welcome.
I hope that helps, and I hope you have a very happy Thanksgiving with you and yours.
Time is it?
Oh, I'm late, so we'll come back and take some more calls. I see you, Debbie, I see you, Memo, I see you, Paul.
We'll get to you. Eight hundred and five two day, Sidry, I miss Sally from Rumper room.
I see you, I see you, Peter and his suits, I see you, Kono and Amy, I see you.
What what are you doing in my room?
Hi?
Lisa, welcome to KFI.
Hi, good morning.
Hello.
We are going to cook our turkey using this spatchcock method, uh huh, and just wanted to get some helpful hints on that and how to.
Do it right.
First of all, don't ever say spatchcock in front of it. Six year old boy. That's the first thing, okay, I think it's hilarious. And then as far as anything else, really what it is. It's for those that don't know, spatchcocking is basically the fifty cent word for butterflying your bird. You're cutting the spine out and then you're pressing the breastplate down and breaking the breastplate so that it lays flat. It is the most efficient and the best way to
cook a turkey. It cooks faster, it cooks more evenly. Really, otherwise you're looking at roughly the same thing, maybe a little more quickly. So let's say, I don't know, nine to ten minutes per pound, check it on that level.
But otherwise, it's just like doing anything any other.
Turkey, okay. And what are your thoughts on doing it in the oven versus putting the big baking sheet and doing it out on the barbecue.
Oh, they're both great. Barbecue is going to have slight more smoking, you know, to it. But you could put that directly on the grill too, we could, okay.
And what about putting like lemons, the lemons and herbs under the turkey if it's going in the oven, to like marinate it, if you will.
It's a great idea.
If not that, I would put your aromatics, you know, you're cut some onions, maybe some carrots underneath it, you know, some rosemary, thyme, anything like that.
You could put that under it as well.
And those will all come up and be, you know, really beautiful, and it'll smell great and you can use those still use those drippings that The important thing is it's hard to get drippings when you're grilling things because of the heat. But either way it's going to be delicious for sure.
Well that's the plan. Okay, Well, thank you so much. Have a happy Thanksgiving.
Of course, my friend you as well. Lisa out they're in Orange County, being bull ball. Let's see here my glass. I broke my glasses, my normal everyday glasses. I broke them the other day at Smart and Final and and so I'm wearing different glasses right.
Now and you can't see there.
My other ones are progressive, so I just tip my head and I can see better. These are just single, Like I don't know, it's bugging me. It's bugging me. It's not not as much as Cono bugs me, but it's enough to be bothersome a right, look at that, like out of nowhere, I just take shots at you.
Nothing but nice. You're a great man.
You know what's funny is your mom and dad text me, and sometimes your brother does, and your sisters just like that's hilarious.
Bro. Sometimes they give me some No they don't, Yeah they do at all. Yeah they do. They might call in. They do.
They they hit me up and they're like, oh, that was funny to talk about his left ear low because that thing's freaky. And I'm like, thanks for you know, I didn't even have that one written down.
Got a full slit of calls here.
Oh sorry, I get distracted, man, that freaking left ear lobe.
It is.
I don't know what to call that thing. Lefty memo. Welcome to the forkport in for Bill Handle.
Happy Thanksgiving, Happy Thanksgiving.
Good morning, Neil. I'd love to hear you.
I appreciate that anyway.
My question is I'm making candy jams. Oh, and I want to know if I can make them right now to be used later on or should I make them right before dinner.
You can absolutely make them ahead of time and reheat them. The one thing I would not do is I would not put the marshmallows on them.
So what I would do if you're.
Gonna, if you're gonna bake them, bake them and then when you reheat them, that's when i'd put the marshmallows on. Start to heat them up, and then put them on near the end.
And I'm going to use, uh, the Mexican brown sugar that pilono, I don't know, Yeah, a little better.
The canonical Oh yeah, it's a it's a that flavor is fantastic, as you know, and so yeah, it's a it's a slightly more muted or less because really it is brown sugar is you know, molasses and white sugar, refined sugar usually and so it has a little bit of different flavor.
But yeah, I think that would be excellent. That's a wonderful idea.
Okay, great, thank you very much, and I'm taking tips from all your colors, and of course from the master.
Oh that's a grass, my friend. Whoa, whoa, whoa Amy, Hey, Amo, are you going to take with.
An army cook? I know what I'm talking about.
Thank you for your service.
But oh my my, my pleasure. But I really lost all the good habits because I left. I was in the National Guard lift like many years ago.
So my brother, my brother Daniel, was a cook in the Marines, and he's a great cook. Yeah, so he he continues to bust out. He's cooking today. Unfortunately I'm not with my side of the family this year. We will be with them at Christmas. But yeah, he and his wife make a feast that I'm bummed to miss today. But thank you again for your service, my friend. Enjoy You're in good hands. And no problem with heating. I
just you don't want to bake the marshmallows twice. It won't be as as good as if you reheat and then once it started to heat through, put some fresh marshmallows on there and bake them off that way.
All right?
Neil Sevadra in for Bill handle today. Of course it's Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving to you, just hanging out talking about food, answering you for food questions as you're getting ready for some people that you like and some that you don't like coming over, so you know I'm here for you. Eight hundred and five two zero one five three four. That's eight hundred five two zero one five three four. Let's go to uh Georgia en. Welcome to Canfi. How can I help you?
Thank you? Yes, I'm getting ready to make my yam casse role, okay, with a with a brown sugar and pecan topping. I bought a brand new box of the light brown sugar and it's as hard as a rock. I hit it with a hammer. That doesn't even help.
Oh do I it?
Yeah?
Wow? Okay.
The easiest way to soften it is is to put it put take the bag out of the box there, put it on a microwave safe plate, put it in the microwave and hit it for about ten seconds and see if that helps. If it's not quite soft enough, hit it for another ten seconds. Keep doing that until it gets soft.
Okay, that helps, thank you?
Yeah it will, and I will do Marles.
The recipe for the toppee calls for a three fourth cups pack like brown sugar and one fourth cup all purpose flour and two tablespoons of melted butter. That usually doesn't seem like enough butter. It doesn't seem to mix. I'm always adding more butter. What would you suggest that? Does that sound right to you? A cup of the flour and sugar to two tablespoons.
Of butter, George, And do you think I'm ever going to tell you not to put more butter in something? Does that seem like something that I would say because I felt.
I guess, but if I put too much of it in then then it doesn't cook. I bake it for another half hour, it's.
Gonna start talking too greasy.
The whole point of the flour is to thicken it up a bit, so you're basically making a root. A typical ru is going to be one to one fat to flour. So that's kind of the basic rule there, Georgia, Anne, And I hope that gets you through your situation there, But happy Thanksgiving to you Abby here in Burbank welcome.
Yes.
So I want to make the perfect mashed potato with that using the powder and all that, But there's ten million recipes on the internet, and I don't know what is the best potato to use for a nice, yummy mashed potato.
Yukon gold the gold standard, if you will. It's a great potato. One of the things that makes it so great. And people try and get fancy and they think, oh, I'll use this and use that, But there's chemistry here. It's not just flavor and those things, but it's the amount of starch. It's the density. And one of the things Yukon gold doesn't do is it it doesn't absorb a ton of water, which ends up making kind of gummy pasty. So Yukon gold is the first thing to go with for me.
And then to cook the potatoes with the skin on first or skin off, and then keep some of that starch water to use or just use milk and no other liquid.
Starch water is wonderful and it's a it's just like pasta water in the sense that it is kind of liquid gold there for thickening. You can use that milk is you're not thickening necessarily with milk, but you're adding fat and flavor to it with that, so you can use a little of both for sure. But as far as skin on, are you going to leave skin on in the mashed potatoes.
Not necessarily get the best flavor?
No?
Then I would peel them first because you know, trying to get it off afterwards is going to be a pain in the arse, So I wouldn't bother putting yourself through that.
And then butter portion to potato, Is there anything that I'm supposed to follow?
No, I mean you're gonna you if you think of it this way, kind of breaking it down, break it down to the amount of potatoes in there. So if somebody's gonna have a baked potato, they're going to put a table spoon or pat of butter on it. So if you're putting you know, eight potatoes in there, even though you're cutting them up to par boil them, then think of it at least a pat of butter per potato.
The same way as if yeah, you know, kind of think of it in that sense, like if you were going to make baked potatoes instead of mashed potatoes, what would you do per potato if you were serving them to each person as a potato, and that gives you basic the basic proportions of you know, other stuff to put in there.
Fantastic. Thank you very much. We have a great thanksgiving.
You as well. Abby.
Enjoy have a good one. Let's see here, trying to get one for it here, Jimmy.
Welcome to KFI.
Sir.
Hey, so good morning, Neil. Hello there, you're showing me how to eat.
Let me teach you, baby, teach me how to eat.
Sorry, I love that song. So I have to make a pivot, and I need a little I need a little bit of help and advice on how to pivot. I thought I was going to be this whole week. I've been prepping to smoke a turkey and uh then all of a sudden they wake up early and I said, you're not smoking that? Oh all right?
Does she sound like that? Bro? It's like, get out if that's her voice, get.
Out right now? The thing for that?
So she said, she said no, no, Uh wow, she sounds like a lot of fun. But then again, I'm only hearing your side. If you want to put her on, I'd like to get, you know, the other side.
She's going to do this run out to run out and everything I told.
I told her I was gonna smoke and she's gonna be like, no, he didn't. He said, she'll do your voice and then I'll laugh And I say, if that's his voice, I'd get out. But AnyWho, Uh, how big a bird is it?
Ooh, that's a big bird. Okay.
So, uh you know the party and the Brian Okay, Brian, he prepped.
I prepped both ways, you know, say in both ways?
Right, Yeah, so.
You're you're to change for smoking.
It doesn't change anything.
I got one of.
Those roasters, those plug in roasters that I've used this in the past.
Oh, those are nice. They do they do well? Yeah, they do quite well.
Everything the turkey in the past hasn't come out like dry per se. But like I don't know, I've I've been able to pull the all the the bones just out of it. I go three twenty five for what five hours roughly?
Yeah, you're looking at about fifteen minutes per pound. But really, the key, the more important thing is is the temp in the thickest part of the bird between the thigh and the breast not hitting any bone. Your instant read thermometer and the thickest part should read one sixty when you pull it out. I don't care what you're cooking it in, it's got to come out at that and.
I mean smoking it's going to be have its own set.
But in this case, when you're roasting it like that, you want to pull it out and the thermometer in the thickest part of the bird should be one sixty and then you let it rest and cool down to one twenty and it's ready to carve.
So that's it.
I mean, as far as you want to lather that thing up with some butter or some olive oil and some salt and pepper, I would get some of that butter under the skin gently all over the bird, and that's gonna help base it as it cooks.
And then you're you're gonna be fine, and it's going to be the same same.
But yeah, you're you're knocking on the door of between four and five hours. But I would check it a little early three and a half hours, check where that temperature is in that thick part and go from there. My friend, Thanks Jimmy, I appreciate you. Happy Thanksgiving to you.
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