Becky Krystal
| Washington Post
Your kitchen is not a restaurant.
Your kitchen is not a restaurant.
It bears repeating, because even I — despite making it a professional mission to take the pressure and guesswork out of cooking — have been known to forget it. I ought to recite it every time I go back to the kitchen until my son decides he’s done with his multicourse tasting menu, or when I’m feeling the completely self-inflicted stress of trying to impress friends and family coming over for dinner regardless of how long I’ve known them.
Ramp that pressure up to 11 and you’ve got Thanksgiving. It’s a day when many of us are trying to churn out restaurant-quality food for a large crowd without the benefits of a restaurant kitchen: a full staff, multiple ovens, many burners, warming trays or lamps, industrial refrigerators and more.
So what should you compromise on given the realities of being a home cook in a home kitchen on Thanksgiving? Serving everything hot.
That is, forgive the intentional pun, my hot take. It’s time to embrace just warm, or even room-temperature, food.
With so many dishes on the menu, the logistics of putting out a ton of piping-hot food simultaneously feels like an unsolvable math problem (or that time I started prepping for the LSAT and gave up). So don’t even try.
The truth is, by the time your guests make it through the buffet line, are waylaid by children or conversations with long-time-no-see relatives, and then finally sit down, the food is unlikely to be hot anyway. And will they even care? Probably not. (And if they do, why are you even inviting them?)
Remember that some of the best food needs time to rest anyway. The turkey should sit for 20 to 30 minutes before carving. The mac and cheese needs to cool slightly if there’s any hope of it holding together and diners avoiding scalding their tongues. While digging into a hot loaf of bread or warm pie can be irresistible, resist you must for the best slices.
My advice: Go into your cooking plan assuming not everything will be done at the same time. Stagger the dishes as needed to maximize your limited oven and stovetop space.
The good news is that it’s not hard to keep food warm, if you’d rather not cede complete control of the temperature of your food. A lot of the time, simply covering the dish with a lid, plate or platter, sheet pan or piece of foil is enough to trap the heat until you’re ready to eat. Picking your serving dishes smartly can help, too. Ceramic, stoneware and glass are all insulators, meaning they’ll more effectively retain heat than, say, metal. Ditto higher-sided pieces than shallower ones. Cast iron is also a great bet. An enameled Dutch oven with a lid will not only keep food warm for a while, it’s attractive enough to look nice on any table.
Don’t forget the other tools at your disposal, if you have them. Slow cookers and electric multicookers, such as Instant Pots, are equipped with a “keep warm” setting that will maintain a steady temperature of at least 140 degrees — in other words, out of the temperature danger zone between 40 to 140 degrees. For food safety reasons, you should only use this setting to keep food warm, not cook or reheat it to a safe internal temperature.
While we’re talking about food safety, being okay with less-than-hot fare does not mean disregarding one of the most important points worth reiterating: Perishable foods should not sit at room temperature for more than two hours.
Of course, the biggest pivot you can make for your sanity is to make more dishes that are designed to be served at room temperature, or at least will not suffer in any appreciable way at room temperature. Ditch the green bean casserole for a light and bright salad. Bag the mashed potatoes for some less temperamental roasted or smashed spuds. Forget the gravy and serve your turkey with a delectable barbecue sauce or chutney.
Once you free yourself from the preconceived Thanksgiving menu and all that it entails, you may find yourself adding some new and exciting dishes to your spread — not to mention enjoying the day, company and food, regardless of temperature, even more.