Today, I’m going to teach you how to save Thanksgiving dinner. ((Intro Music)) – Welcome to Mythical Kitchen, where dreams become food. Listen, we can give you all the cooking tips and tricks and recipes that we want to, but at the end of the day, this is a cooking show. This is not real life. We don’t have the distractions. We don’t have the messes. We don’t have all the real life situations that make cooking at home difficult, which is why we are fully recreating that with all of the Kitcheneers sabotaging me on the day when all cooking sabotages seem to come together and that is Thanksgiving. I have had to drive my father to the emergency room twice on Thanksgiving, one from third degree burns, one a knife fell in his foot that hopefully that’s not going to happen today. We have no stabbings planned? Scaldings? We’ll figure that out later. But we are cooking Thanksgiving dinner. Things are going to go wrong and I’m going to teach you how to solve all of those mistakes. ((Music)) – [God] All right, Josh, it’s Thanksgiving afternoon. Turkey’s in the oven. Guests are coming at six, but something doesn’t feel right. – God, what was your favorite dinosaur? – [God] Stegosaurus. – Dinosaurs were real. Take that, half the kids in my high school. I got a 17 pound turkey. I like to get big ass turkeys because I like to have big ass leftovers. And I love me a good turkey salad sandwich. 15 minutes per pound at 325 is typically how you do it, but then you start temp checking it. Make sure the breast gets to about 150 before you pull it, maybe 148 get up to 165. So turkey has been in for 4 hours and 15 minutes. Were you trying to keep warm? ((Music)) – [Josh] Well, let’s temp it, see where we’re at. Yeah, this is 94.2 degrees towards the bone on the breast. Get to the outside, about 102 degrees. So we need God damn it. To raise this turkey. We need to raise this turkey’s temperature 50 degrees roughly in a short amount of time. There’s a couple options here. What we could do, foil tenting is a big thing. I don’t like that, because it makes the skin rubbery. But also we’re screwed. This has happened to me before too. I tried to spatchcock a turkey, and they were like a spatchcock turkey only takes an hour to cook. And then I put it in for an hour and it was like 87 degrees. And I’m like, thanks, Serious Eats. What I would do, screw it, I’m doing it. I’m doing it. – Joshy, – No, ow, she got me in the taint. – Joshy, happy Thanksgiving, Joshy. – Happy Thanksgiving, Nana. Oh, you’ve really, really taken a turn since I last saw you in Jacksonville, Florida. – Joshy, when is the food going to be ready? – I just, the turkey is so cold right now. – Oh, I need to take my pills. I can’t do that without the turkey. – Can you eat a cracker? You need a couple Town House Club Crackers? – My hip’s about to go out. – You and me both. – Josh, I need to take my pills. Hurry up. – You need to take your piss? – Yes. – You haven’t taken a piss? – This wig, it’s like 80 years old. Hurry up. Hurry up. – Get out of the kitchen, Nana. – See you soon. – She needs to take her pills, Nana can’t eat anything else. This is also a thing. I actually deal with. Breakdown your turkey. Nobody needs a full turkey on Thanksgiving. You remove the breasts, you shouldn’t even cook a full turkey as it is because the breast is automatically going to overcook before the dark meat is actually cooked. If you want to do it properly, you have to like ice down the breasts and gently warm the bottom and it’s stupid. Nobody needs the Norman Rockwell ass, you know, ritual of carving a whole bird. Just break it down. Just break it down. Even though it’s hot, we’re just going to do it. I’m going to take the legs off first. This is going to drip all over the counter. But you just got to sanitize stuff later, oh, god, oh, it’s so cold in there. Oh, why did you put it to keep warm? Well, we’re just going to break off the quarters here and then we’re going to just start heating pans and just like killing this off, man, do you guys know why we call it a turkey? It’s actually really incredible. It literally so like the country was named Turkey first and there was like the Ethiopian guineafowls at a port in Turkey because turkeys are indigenous to the Americas. So, like, nobody had turkeys in the world until you know the Columbian exchange and they were like Ethiopian guineafowls that people were like thought were Turkish guineafowls but people mistook them for turkeys at a Turkish port. So, it was just like mistaking one bird for another bird for another bird. And they’re like, What are these rare birds called? And they’re like, Oh, I saw one in Turkey. It’s called a turkey. We’re working, we’re working. Where’s Grandma? Where’s Nana? Nana, are you okay? Are you fainting? Also, the pills she’s taking just Molly. She loves raving. – [Grandma] Oh, Joshy, I still need to take my pills. Can you stretch my hips? I don’t want to stretch your hips. Not in front of everybody else. I’ll do it later in private, Grandma. I know it’s important to you. All right. We got all the dark meat broken down. Now I’m going to break down the light meat. Like, normally, I’d like to remove the spine here because that’s going to let the breast set better. Love this for me. Oh, God, look at that. ((Donkey Noises)) – Yeah, no. Once my dad was trying to carve a turkey, his knife just slipped out of his hand. I’m just going to throw this somewhere and turn this into gravy. The knife slipped out of his hand, and he was barefoot in the kitchen, which is how I like to be. And then it just fell onto his foot. And then we’re like, Do we pull out the knife? Do you remember. When Dad? – My hips. – I know your hips. Do you remember when Russell had the knife in his foot, Nana? – I think I took my sleeping pills too early. – Don’t fall asleep. Don’t fall asleep. I think she has a concussion. So we’re going to take the knife and we’re going to run it right through, oh. I think she’s fine. Just if she starts to fall over, somebody let me know and I’ll catch her. No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, not now. Not today. Do not go gently into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light, Nana. – I’ll be on the couch. ((Alarm Ringing)) – When you are the only one cooking on Thanksgiving, it is a war. And when rank and file breaks down in war you must fire line of sight. You must get every single pan that you have going and you must cook everything like your life depends on, because it is Thanksgiving. It is about fun and it is about family, and it is ultimately about avoiding abject failure or melting a ton of, this is straight margarine. I think it tastes more like butter than butter. I grew up in a margarine household, I’ll die a margarine household. We’re just heating that in there and then we’re just going to start throwing our turkey bits in there. And a great way to save anything during Thanksgiving. Tony Chachere’s We already wet brine this chicken. But now listen, dad needs a little extra help. Dad needs a little extra help on his turkey Big ol’ breast going down there. Get that skin side down. And now at this point, it’s just about getting the meat done. It’s just about cooking it as much as you can. There ain’t no crowd in pans. There ain’t no, like, oh we don’t want any steam to happen. No, this doesn’t matter. This is about getting your family fed. This is about getting Nana her pills. Nana, are you dead yet? Are you okay? – [Grandma] I’m okay. – Nana, watch Judge Judy. – [Grandma] Who? – Judith Sheindlin. She’s Jewish. You like her. – [Grandma] Oh, I went to school with Judy. – You didn’t know. No, that’s. No, that’s Julie Liebowitz. Not Judith Sheindlin. Judith Sheindlin’s the judge. You like her because she’s tough, but fair. – [Grandma} Who? No. Julie Liebowitz, you went to school with her. – [Grandma] Oh, Liebowitz, that’s my ex-boyfriend. Yeah. No, that was Michael Liebowitz. Different Liebowitz and she’s, listen, she’s met so many people in her life. How could you possibly expect her to keep any of them straight? ((Alarm Ringing}} – We’re going take the gross turkey pan drippings. We’re going to add this in here. It’s going to cook. We’re throwing this back in the oven. What this is going to do is cause steam to rise and it’s actually going to steam the turkey get nice and juicy and moist oven has been taken off warm. Thanks, guys. – [Grandma] Oh, my hip. – Oh, God, Nana. No. ((Music)) what I like to do is I like to make my sides, like, really early in the morning, make sure they’re fully cooked and at a point where I can just throw them in the oven, because sometimes you got things rotating out. God dang it. Stop. No. Why do we keep giving you a blowtorch? Can we take the key away from her for the flammables cabinet? And she’s burning it. And I don’t, sometimes I think, like, if I was in an active shooter situation, I’d rush the gunman, but then I end up here, and I just don’t know what to do. I just freeze. I would just stand there and it’s just on fire. Are you happy with yourself? You’re like my cat. When he, oh, I was going to use those, I was. Can I just? Here, just, Just get away. Stop. Stop eating. Get it out of there. Get it out of there. Get it out. You got to wrestle. – Guess who? – Get out of here. – Oh, oopsie. – Why would you do that? – Oopsies. Oh, my God. Wait. Do you hear that? I think that’s Mom’s ghost. And she said, You suck. – I know she thought I sucked that’s why we got a divorce before she died. – You suck. – Yeah, I know. And we’re all just trying our best. Hey, your mac and cheese is a little wet there, Pops. What happened to your onions? Yeah, no, a maniac came in with a blowtorch. Because everything bad seems to happen to me. – Yeah, there it is. Doctor said let him cry it out, and it would help him and then turns out. Now he just never stops crying. You’re doing okay, though. How’s school? – Good luck – All right. – It’s times like these where I’m glad that I start drinking early in the morning on Thanksgiving just to cope with everything. Even if a maniac with a blowtorch doesn’t come in and completely obliterate your casserole. This is a thing that’s happened to me in the past where I swear to God, do not touch the broiler setting at all on Thanksgiving. Do not do it. You might think, just a little bit more crisp on this casserole, just a little bit of brûlée on that cheese. No, no, no. You’re always going to forget it. It’s always going to burn. That’s happened to me with green bean casserole multiple times. Okay. Okay, solution. Solution. I’m just gonna start bailing out. Just going to scrape all of this off and. Oh, smells like butane. We got to, Oh, it goes a full layer deep no, we got to get all this off. You can make fried onions from scratch. It’s actually really, really easy. The key is to fry them at a low temperature. This is something I’ve done a lot, like crispy shallots. I got the layer off. No topping on the casserole. Any more balls? I need more balls. No, Nana is hungry. Okay, where you at? I’m gonna fill this bowl with flour. Tony Chachere’s, season up the flour. Listen, honestly that’s why I love having just an all purpose seasoning blend at any point, because you can just, like, pop, pop, pop, and then you got boom flavor in your food. Unofficial seasoning of Thanksgiving. Cool. Give that a nice toss. The ghosts of Tony Chachere has entered me is the ghost of my dead ex-wife. Yeah, what’s up, guys? Keeping our oil over here. Do you need a jug of oil this big now? Smart and Final. That’s where you go. Save lots of money, shop like a pro non sponsor, it’s got a good jingle and sell a lot of oil. When are you getting married? You got engaged like two years ago. You want to plan the wedding, Aunt Sheila? All right, we’re cool. We’re cool. Onions. I’m going to add a little bit of wet to the onions. Just let the flour stick. That was just water like to hydrate. Although I usually wet because I want a lot of flour to stick to these and then we’re going to get it in the oil low heat. I know I’m trying my best. There we go, get a lot of flour covering those onions. Onions do have some natural wet to it. You don’t need to go crazy with like a double dredge egg batter. All of that stuff, you know? But you do want all that flour coverage, shake as much flour as you can off otherwise it will get gunk in the bottom of the pan and take these, and just lay them in your oil you don’t have to temp check it you want the oil to be at pretty low temperature because you do want these to sort of like dehydrate the onions. That’s why we’ve cut, cut, cut the onions small. Now, mac and cheese. That’s soupy, God dang it. water will naturally cook out of something, right? When you see something steam in the oven, even something like mac and cheese, steam is literally water exiting the vessel like the demon exiting that little green girl’s mouth that goes like ((Bleeping)) in that one movie ((Music)) – I’m gonna dump some of that water offering add a little bit of cornstarch and a little bit of milk to this pan. I don’t need that anymore. Oh, all the water is absorbed. ((Crying)) – Get out of here. Swim move. – Can I invite ten of my baby friends to dinner? – [Josh] Yeah, you can bring ten of your baby friends to dinner. – You promise? Are you going to cook enough? Are you going to make the mac and cheese better? It looks kinda soupy. – I’m going to make the mac and cheese better. Okay? If you just promise not to keep bringing up your dead mother, – The green bean casserole. – I know there’s onions frying right now. The onions are frying slowly. Okay? I just need you to know that I’ve done my best as a father. And I know that’s not always – I saw this video on TikTok about how to make your better fried onions than French’s. And it doesn’t really look like what you’re doing. – Stop going on TikTok, I thought I took away your phone. – There’s a lot to learn there. – I know there’s a lot. – Okay, my friends are going to be over in like 20, so I hope everything is ready. – [Josh] I’m just going to finger that in there. Who are your friends? Is it Rolf from the bowling alley again? – Yeah. – Well, Rolf, actually, you didn’t know this, but he’s staying in the garage. – Oh, God. – He’s already here. – The banging has been, mac and cheese is a resilient food. Just like I have a resilient son, that dealt with a lot of emotional trauma. Yeah, what? What? – You’re going to want to close the fridge when you’re done with it. – [Josh] Oh, my God, no. – Letting all the cold out. I’m a baby, and I know that. – Okay, yeah, the baby knows it. Okay, so the cornstarch is a great thickener. That’s a great save for mac and cheese if you have a cheese sauce, if you’ve tried to make a béchamel sauce or a mornay when you add cheese to it with the flour roux and all that, it’s kind of deceptively easy to screw up. Sometimes the cheese will break when you do that. Milk, cornstarch, pop it in there. The cornstarch is going to bind everything as long as you have a bunch of cheese, a bunch of fat and noodles. Like that’s all people want about their mac and cheese. If something bad happens to it in the oven, you can just do this. Add more cheese to the top and then pop that in. I’m going to take this in the pot, this has combined all the cornstarch milk. Oh, God. Back in there. Back in there. It’s fine. I’m just going to spread it back out. I thought it was another sabotage. It was just Meggie. Harry Potter looking ass. – [Meggie] We’re filming this on Halloween. – Onions still frying off. These need about 3 minutes. But, hey, we all know Thanksgiving’s a super easy and fun meal to cook every single year when it rolls around. But if you decide, hey, maybe you don’t want to put yourself through abject hell, you want to make it a little bit easier. Go to Sporked.com and see their official recs for all the shortcuts and hacks and pre-made foods that you can buy to make your life just a little bit better. I could have been on the couch right now watching Jared Goff slinging it to Amon-Ra. and I’m not, I’m here. Anybody Lions’ football? Come on, Dan Campbell, a new era begins. ((Music)) – [God] So, Josh, you’ve survived the sides. But now for the finishing touches before you, you have gravy and a pumpkin pie. But there are two things wrong. – Yeah. This gravy sucks. I made a perfectly good gravy earlier. Someone seems to have added clumps of flour into it who tried to cook? ((Music)) – We’re gonna unlump this in the damn blender. Also, that pie is so soupy. God dang it, you could just see it swirl around. Don’t make pies, outsource your desserts. If there’s anything you outsource, just make it desserts, desserts and entertainment. Hire a clown and then have somebody bake your pies. – [Cousin] Oh, my, golly gosh! Is that my Josh? – Oh, my long lost cousin from Alpharetta, Georgia. Has come to play. – You were this tall. Oh, my goodness. How is Julia doing? – Oh, she’s doing great. I remember you, when you said you got sober. – Oh, no I can still drink. A little one or two or three everyday. – Why do you have a straw if you’re not going to use it? – So when are y’all getting married? – We’re trying to figure it out. We thought we had a venue, but it didn’t work out. – Can I get a plus one or plus two? – No, you can’t. We’re still, you know, it’s expensive. We’re still trying to figure out. – You know, I remember when I got married to my first husband. – Yeah. Yeah. – And you remember? You remember? – Yeah. Gregory. – Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we found him with the priest and. – Yeah. They’re so happy together now, that’s my favorite thing. – They’re happy now. – The animal sanctuary. Yeah. – A bridesmaid also. Yeah. – Yeah. No, listen, I support their polyamorous throuple where they raise a baby, what is it? It’s Nigerian, pygmy goats. – Exactly. – Yeah. I know, I know, but Do you do you ever go visit or? No, I just. – Nigeria? – No, no. The animal sanctuary. The polyamorous goat sanctuary that – No, no, no. I don’t have time for that. – That’s okay. Do you have a good relationship with Gregory? Oh, gosh. Dang it! – Joshua! – I’m sorry. – I need a little more drinky drink. – Did you hear the news? I got my baby taken away. I got my baby taken away. – I refuse to take sides on this. Child Protective Services does good work overall. – You haven’t seen him at all? – No, I haven’t seen, what? You don’t know where your baby went? – No, I left him at the park. I left him at the park, and, yeah, I guess. I don’t know what happened. – Yeah. But the government took him away? or you just left him at the park and somebody did, like, are we talking a security guard, a van? What happened? You got to find your kid, find your kid. – Fast. You’re talking too fast. – All right. So I’m going to try and blend the lumps in. I’m adding a little bit of beef bouillon, even though we’re making a turkey and I’ve added a little bit of browning because this got pale because, and she’s on the counter – Can I sit right here? I’m just feeling a little dizzy. Yeah, if you throw up into the pie. I swear to God, you’re excommunicated from the family. You’re going to the goat farm. Don’t finger the Oh, God. Another great hack of bacteria will cook out, even from saliva in an oven. – That’s pretty good. – You just ate raw eggs. I’ve never begged for salmonella to come for somebody, so badly. No, you can’t try the gravy. I’m so sorry. Hey. Can you? Oh, my God. Is that Aunt Karen over there? And looks like she has a new certified pre-owned car. Who’s buying that car for her? You should go gossip with her. – So we’re going to do we’re going to make what’s called a foil halo. It actually feels like Thanksgiving. This really does, great job, everybody. This is like an immersive theater experience, except there’s a lot less frickin nerds here. So, you guys ever go to one of those? It’s weird. Create a foil halo. So basically what you need to do is you need to prevent direct heat from getting on the crust while having ambient heat, cook the custard in the middle. So you can literally take foil, tuck this in, and then gently, gently, gently press this around the crust. This is an annoying process. I’ve had to do this to many a pies. So many ovens are uneven. Like you’re not cooking one of them French combi ovens, you know what I mean? So you got to make do with what you got just gonna simply foil tent this. All right. So this is just going to make it easier to transport. Cool. Loose foil halos so you don’t destroy the integrity of the crust. But none of that heat is getting on there. Fantastic. Ovens are filled with everything. Okay, we’re going to put this in with the, God dang it. Pie’s going back in the oven till it stops, Well then, oh. – Do you know if there’s more vodka in this place? – Okay, no, here. You want to. Here take this. I’ll refill your drink. I’ll refill your drink if you, if you promise me that you’re going to leave. – It’s not working. – Oh. No, honey, no, that’s a. – Oh, that’s my cigarette. – Pencil, remember last week? No, you tried to smoke a plastic straw last week. You inhaled a lot of fumes. – No, that was Uncle Jerry Seinfeld. – No, that wasn’t Uncle Jerry Seinfeld. No, but I love this mixed Southern evangelical Jewish family that we have, no You had to inhale lots, we sent you to the hospital. – It’s like an espresso martini. I want those, you like those espresso martinis? – Yeah, no, I love that. I love that. But remember last time you had to get your lungs pumped and I didn’t know that was a medical procedure. – Me? Who? Me? No, that must’ve been – Oh, my God. Is that your baby? Go get it, find him! – My baby! Where’s my baby? ((Music)) – After a long and arduous Thanksgiving dinner preparation process, I mean, we ended up with a delicious looking plate of food. The turkey is cooked and it’s juicy. The fried onions. I mean, these look absolutely primo. Mac and cheese. All that water evaporated out. The cornstarch binded it, and the pie is completely set. I’m ready to eat. Let’s get some gravy on this turkey. It’s the most magical time of year Thanksgiving, where nothing goes wrong. – Welcome to Mythical Kitchen! I’m Josh! A little ripped, but not too ripped. Where stars become dreams. The dreams are also food. – That’s what I say. – That was all I worked out in my head. But I am Josh here I’m trying to take this from you, I guess, or sabotage it? Not really make it easy for you to eat. You’ll probably have a hard time doing it or something. I was told to arm wrestle. Arm wrestle you. I want to arm wrestle me, me and me. Arm wrestle now. Who’s got the bigger one, come on. Boom! – I want to go home. – You ain’t going anywhere. Track and field. It’s still interesting. – Well, you know what time it is. It wouldn’t be another sabotage episode if I didn’t have to do all the freaking dishes that are just swarming in salmonella. So, caring people, come follow me. Ven conmigo. Let’s go do some dishes. Just like normal. I cook, you clean, except No, I’m passed out. I’m looking for my baby. I’m a grandma and I haven’t taken my pills. – [Grandma] Hi. I heard my name. – Grandma, did you get your pills? – [Grandma] Why you didn’t stretch me, darling? – i”m covered in turkey grease. I can’t, stop poking me with the cane. Stop poking me with the cane. I’m 31 years old. How old are you? – You know. – We don’t want you to leave. – What? Why do you sound like that. – Are you getting my bath ready? – [Josh] Yes, I have your bubble bath ready. – I’m ready. – I got to add some salts like you like it. – Where am I? – We used to have a whole dish rack here. – Caroline, what’s your name again? What’s your name again? Can Rolf come in the house? – Yeah, Rolf can come in the house, man. He smells like a smell that I’ve never smelled before, and that unnerves me. ((Yelling)) – You are going in a home. – It’s my baby! Oh, god, you really just laying on this floor. That is the worst thing. You’ve seen what’s on this floor. – [Josh] Sporked is your resource for fast and easy. Last minute Thanksgiving foods find the best tasting canned cranberry sauce, instant gravy, frozen mashed potatoes, pre-made pies and more on Sporked.com