6 Delicious Holiday Main Dishes For The Ultimate Family Dinner

[Music] honey glazed ham that's right twas the week before christmas and all through the web people were asking hey how do you do the hem glaze it looks awesome tastes awesome and caramelizes to a crispy crackling finish well that's what i'm about to show you and it's way easier than you think and by the way i'm just doing a half ham here but this amazing technique will work no matter what size or style your ham so let's go ahead and get started by setting up our roasting pan so yes you're going to need a roasting pan big enough to fit your ham preferably comes with a rack and what we're going to do here is toss in a couple whole star nice and a bunch of whole cloves and i know traditionally the cloves are stuck in the ham but is there anything worse to bite into than a whole clove actually you know what don't answer that but the point is i hate to bite into cloves so with this method we're actually going to flavor the ham from underneath because what we're going to do is pour in some water and not only is that water going to make for a beautifully moist roasting environment but thanks to our spices it's also going to flavor the meat plus you know what else that water does it makes cleanup a breeze sorry i'm just practicing for when i get kicked off youtube and i have to do infomercials on late night basic cable but anyway we're gonna put in about an inch of water and then we'll put our rack in and place our ham on top of that and if the outside of your ham is kind of wet and or slimy go ahead and pat it dry with some paper towels and then it's time for a very easy yet critical step we have to score the ham with a knife and all that means is taking something sharp and make cuts all over this about a half inch apart about a quarter inch deep and of course we want to score it across we want to score it up and down but it really doesn't matter as long as you slash that surface all over that's going to help the flavor of our glaze permeate the meat and typically hams like this don't come with a lot of fat but don't worry like i said just cut down about a quarter inch into whatever you have and once that's done we're gonna go ahead and place that in the center of a 325 degree oven for 20 minutes all right so we're just going to give this a little head start while we make our glaze which is ridiculously simple so in a mixing bowl we're going to take a whole bunch of brown sugar ironically one of the secrets to a great honey glaze is not to use too much honey so we're going to use mostly brown sugar but of course we're also going to add some honey okay so we got our brown sugar and our honey for our sweet now for our tangy we're going to go with some dijon mustard and a splash of rice vinegar and then of course we're going to season this up with some cayenne pepper and a whole bunch of freshly ground black pepper and then last but not least a few dashes of worcestershire sauce and no salt by the way oh the ham has plenty of salt and then we'll simply take a whisk and give this a mix which is not going to be easy this is a very thick pasty glaze one of the keys here is keeping this very very thick okay so i give it a little mix if it seems too thick which it did we'll add just another little splash of rice vinegar and give it another mix and we'll do that until we have something that looks like this so we're just adding enough rice vinegar to make this brushable which you can see right here is actually stick my pastry brush in so that right there is the consistency you should be shooting for do not go any thinner than that okay so our glaze is set and we'll head back over to the stove where by now our ham is cooked to 325 for 20 minutes and we will pull it out and we will begin the glazing process we'll take our glaze and we will brush it all over and this is only the first application so we don't have to go on really thick here and fair warning because this is such a thick heavy glaze you may tear off some of your little squares of fat from the surface don't worry just kind of coax them back into place and hopefully they'll just stick back right where they came from so we'll go around and we'll glaze that ham and then we'll put it back in the oven for another 20 minutes and we're going to continue doing this every 20 minutes until our ham is ready and i didn't say cooked ham's already cooked so we're not going by that we're going to simply continue roasting at 325 glazing every 20 minutes for about approximately 18 minutes per pound until we have an internal temperature of 130 and that's for the type of ham i'm using depending on which ham you're using you may want to go a little higher but as usual i'll give all that extra info on the blog the bottom line every 20 minutes you're going to pull this out you're going to give it another glazing and you're going to continue doing that until you've reached your desired internal temp now one extra little thing you can do here when you get down to what you think is the final glaze i like to drip a little bit of that water from underneath on top which is of course flavored with that star nice and clove and that's going to kind of mingle with that glaze and kind of run in between the cracks and crevices so i'm not exactly sure how much effect that has but it feels right but anyway this was my last glaze i popped it in for another 20 minutes or so and at that point my ham was at the perfect internal temp of 130 and not to mention looked incredibly awesome but wait there's more we still need to achieve that classic caramelized crispy coating and if you want you could turn your oven up to like 500 and do it in there but i prefer this method the old blowtorch it's so much faster so much better plus it's way more fun so i'm going to go over that surface with the torch not too much we don't want to burn it we just want that sugar to bubble if your sugar bubbles that means it's going to be crisp when it cools so that's what i did here over the entire surface and that really is the trick here to get that amazing magazine cover quality crust and once we've brew laid our glaze we'll go ahead and transfer that onto our serving platter and what's a special occasion better than a bed of kale so i'm going to set my ham down on top of that and then of course because this is for a special holiday dinner i'm gonna garnish with some little apples i believe those are called lady apples or in french i believe it's la petite whatever the word for apple is and you know when it comes to food styling and play presentations i'm no martha stewart i'm not even rod stewart but it is the holiday so you want to try to make it look nice so we'll place those around and that honey glazed ham is done and looking pretty spectacular if i do say so and i know you're thinking sure it looks great i'm sure it tastes great but did that glaze really caramelize to a crispy crackling finish well check this out i think i made my point and then of course let me slice into this for a little taste and as you'll read about on the block i'm using an uncured country style ham which looks paller and has a much lower water content than your typical supermarket ham so if it looks a little different that's the reason plus of course my bad camera angles and lighting but just because something doesn't look wet doesn't mean it's dry these style of hams even though they have a much lower water content still have a beautiful tender rich malt feel and just incredible ham flavor of course the drawback is they're way more expensive but anyway like i said we'll talk about that on the blog and that crispy glaze not only has an amazing texture but that flavor really permeates that meat just incredible so if your ham came with that disgusting little packet of goo that you're supposed to spread over when you bake it throw that away throw it right in the garbage and do this instead alright so head over to foodwishes.com for all the ingredient amounts and more info as usual and as always enjoy [Music] hello this is chef john from foodwishes.com with salt crusted beef tenderloin that's right this video was inspired by a colombian technique where beef is encased with salt wrapped in a kitchen towel and then set over hot coals to cook and apparently this produces the juiciest most flavorful beef tenderloin you've ever had and while that does sound great i realized that roughly half the married population of the country would not be into burning up a perfectly good kitchen towel so i decided to try a towelless version of the same technique and this is that experiment so let's go ahead and get started with what's basically the adhesive here and for that we're going to start with one clove of crushed garlic to which we will add some freshly ground black pepper and then the key to the whole operation one egg white and believe it or not that's it we'll simply take a whisk and give that a mix and by the way i'm using garlic and black pepper here but as long as you have the egg white i'm pretty sure you can use any seasonings and spices you want okay don't forget you're not only chief of your beef you are also the sir of your loin so as long as we have that white here we can play around with the flavorings if we want but anyway we will give that a mix and then we'll grab a brush because this is now ready to apply to our tenderloin speaking of which there it is for this i got a two pound center cut beef tenderloin roast which as you can see has been fully trimmed and what we'll do is take our brush and our egg white adhesive and paint that all over we're talking top bottom and the sides so please make sure you're very thorough and generous because it's this egg white layer that's going to cause the salt to stick so we'll go ahead and apply that all over as shown at which point it's ready to coat in our coarse sea salt which should look something like this and by the way it doesn't have to be sea salt okay where the salt comes from is not as important as it is coarse ground and what i decided to do is coat my meat in the same baking dish i was going to cook it in so i started by covering the bottom with about a quarter inch of the stuff and we'll place our meat in there and kind of roll it around coating it with the salt and of course we're definitely going to want to coat all those sides as well as those ends so basically i just rolled that around adding more salt when i thought necessary making sure it was all nicely pressed in especially on the top and above and beyond encasing that beef with salt i also added a little more around the roast so the bottom of the pan was covered and i'm not sure exactly why but it felt right and then because i was staring at the bush out the back window i decided to cut a couple rosemary sprigs and add them to the salt i thought it could subtly scent the meat but more importantly make our house smell really good but anyway as with all things that's optional and then what we need to do once our beef has been encrusted with salts is simply let this sit out at room temperature for 30 minutes which is going to do a few things it's going to let our meat warm up a little bit it's also going to give our crust a little time to dry out and set up not to mention our tenderloin is being seasoned by what's basically a dry rub in fact you'll notice at the end of the 30 minutes there's a good amount of moisture in the bottom of the pan but don't worry what we're losing in liquid we are gaining in flavor and at this point after a half hour on the counter it is pretty much ready for the oven but before i pop it in i'm going to push in this probe thermometer okay this tenderloin is not cheap so we'll use this which will sound an alarm when we've reached the perfect temperature so i slid that in so the tip was right in the center but unfortunately the way i did it with that thermometer leaning on the edge of the dish caused the only major mishap with this experiment as you're just about to see but anyway once that's set we can go ahead and transfer that into the center of a very hot 475 degree oven for about 20 to 25 minutes or until we have a finished internal temp of about 125 which means we have to set our probe lower than that okay because this is going to keep cooking even after we take it out i like to set my probe for 116 because that internal temp can climb as much as 10 degrees so we will set our alarm for 116 at which point we'll pull that out and if everything's gone according to planet should look something like this except without pieces of your crust cracking and falling apart you see what happened because of my thermometer placement is the meat contracted that moved causing it to raise the crust which caused those pieces of the bomb to break off which caused me to say a bad word but the good news is that's going to be easy to avoid and yours will look perfect hey that's why i experiment so even with my cracked i thought it looked awesome and then what we need to do before we even think of serving this is let it rest at least 15 minutes which will give our guests plenty of time to get all their ooze and eyes out not to mention i imagine a few instagrams and then once that has rested we'll go ahead and crack and remove the crust which thanks to our egg white will come off very easily oh by the way because i was inspired by that colombian technique which i believe is called lomo el tropo but anyway because they don't sear the meat in that technique i did not sear mine which is why that surface is not the most appealing color so if that bothers you and you're going to carve this table side feel free to take an extra minute and brown that surface in a nice hot pan before you slice it but have you said that if you're gonna plate up slices like this it really doesn't matter oh by the way in case you're wondering a two pound roast like this will make enough to feed four friends or six acquaintances and yes i believe this technique will work with even a longer piece of tenderloin so i went ahead and sliced up my tenderloin and i could not believe how juicy it was i mean come on look at that i mean i was actually thinking it was too much juice i was thinking maybe it all leaked out and the meat's going to be really dry and tasteless but that was not the case every bite was dripping with moisture and above and beyond the incredibly tender and insanely juicy texture this was by far the most flavorful beef tenderloin i've ever had it really did remind me of eating a prime rib which is saying something because beef tenderloin is way way leaner but anyway i went ahead and sliced that up and i'll serve a couple pieces on a plate so i can enjoy it properly along with my all-time favorite steak sauce which would be bernays oh yeah don't worry i'm going to show you how to make that so i served up some sauce with my beautiful beef which by the way was so juicy i had to blossom up in between shots and you might think with all that salt we used in the crust that this might be too salty but it's not while i'd have to say it's aggressively seasoned it's not too much but anyway that's it salt crust beef tenderloin now withstanding that one little thermometer mishap i really loved how this came out and we didn't have to burn up any kitchen towels so i really do hope you give this great technique a try soon head over to foodwishes.com for all the ingredient amounts and more info as usual and as always enjoy [Music] hello this is chef john from foodwishes.com with hassleback turkey that's right i overcame my fear of being wrong many years ago which is a good thing because when i was asked to try the hasselbeck technique on a stuffed turkey i was absolutely sure it was not going to work and that the turkey was going to be dry and tough but much to my amazement it wasn't so what follows is that surprisingly successful experiment and to do this the first thing you're going to need is to put together some kind of stuffing and i'll be going through this part pretty quick because what you should probably do after watching this is go find one of our detailed stuffing videos where i go through the procedure much slower but one tip i will give you here is that you want to crumble or cut your bread very small okay so these pieces right here probably half the size if i was doing this in a pan but other than that we're following standard dressing stuffing procedure which means some kind of herb like that rub sage and or the mysterious poultry seasoning and of course our onions and celery that we sauteed in copious amounts of butter as well as a generous amount of seasoning including some salt freshly ground black pepper and cayenne and yes i'll give you these ingredients on the blog post but like i said we have so many great recipes for this stuff most of them i think more interesting than this but like i said i didn't think this was going to work so i didn't want to spend too much time on the stuffing which by the way is a horrible attitude all right we should always try to visualize and anticipate success but i had a moment of weakness that'll happen once in a while but anyway let's continue on and as you saw as usual we have to moisten this with some hot stock or broth and because my biggest fear with this technique was the turkey drying out i tried to make sure my mixture was nice and moist and with all stuffings what you want to do is give it a mix and then let it absorb and then see if you need more so that's what i did i let it sit for about 15 minutes and then went back and gave it a check and i was in fact very happy with the moistness level oh and speaking of moist i just read online that a lot of millennials hate that word which is crazy what am i supposed to say adequately hydrated because you're sensitive no sorry i'm going with moist moist moist moist and then what i did to finish this off after that was all absorbed was add one egg yolk for a little bit of extra richness but also to help bind it so i went ahead and stirred that in and then gave it one last check to make sure it was nice and adequately hydrated at which point we'll set that aside and move on to the actual point of the video our back turkey breast and what i have here is one skin on split breast still on the bone and i was thinking of trying this without the bone but then i decided that would be needed to hold this all together plus i knew for a fact that would make it more flavorful and yes even more moist and then what we'll do to prep this is cut down to the bone every i don't know three quarters of an inch or so which by the way is what the hasselback technique refers to slicing something multiple times vertically before roasting it most commonly done as many of you may know on potatoes which i haven't done a video for but one day but anyway i went ahead and sliced that as shown all the way down to the bone from one end to the other and then once i had done my initial cuts i went back in and did a little fine tuning to make sure those cuts went down as far as they could go at which point i decided to transfer this onto a piece of parchment because i figured that would make it easier to get onto the pan plus i knew the stuffing stuff might get a little messy but before i stuffed i decided since i had access to the inside of the meat i would go ahead and season this up with a little sprinkling of salt into each cut and once that was accomplished it was on to the stuffing phase and since i had never done this before i just started off putting one big old spoonful in each cut because i knew once i'd done that i could go back in and use up the rest of the stuffing wherever i thought i could fit a little more in so i'm going to go ahead and fast forward to that point and just by sheer luck or maybe good karma i ended up having just about the perfect amount of stuffing so that worked out but it posed one potential problem i was sort of afraid the skin parts weren't going to get enough heat as is cooked so what i did after i lifted this onto the sheet pan was to sort of wipe that skin clean with my finger of any residual stuffing because the last thing you want for your hasselback turkey breast is flabby skin and of course since i've never roasted one of these without doing that i can't really say how big of a deal that would have been but it just felt right so that little extra move will be up to you you are after all the huck finn of wiping the skin but anyway i cleaned it up and gave it a little bit of a pat down and i sort of tucked any and all scraps underneath and i finished up a little extra salt and pepper over the top at which point i deemed this ready for the oven so i went ahead and popped that into the center of a 350 degree oven for about an hour to an hour and 15 minutes or until we reached an internal temp of 150. and what i did at the 30 minute mark because i'm a curious fellow i pulled it out to see how it was going and i was not thrilled with how this was browning but i didn't really want to turn the temperature up so i decided to brush on some melted butter which we should probably do before this even goes in the oven so make a note but anyway i went ahead and buttered that breast like i should have been before and then popped it back in the oven for the remaining 40 to 45 minutes or so and once it was up to 150 internal temp i pulled it out and i was actually very happy with how it looked not to mention smelled this smelled really good so i decided at this point to let it rest for about 10 minutes before carving and while i waited i decided to sample a little bit of dressing from underneath and man was that good it was pretty well drenched with all that melted turkey fat and extremely flavorful so i was pretty sure this was going to taste good but as i mentioned before my big concern because of all the cuts was that this was going to be dry but anyway i was about to find out so i transferred that to a board and surrounded it with some fall foliage in the form of frise fancied up with a few sprigs of rosemary and i have to tell you i really wanted to go from this shot to this shot without showing you the slicing but you know what i just couldn't do it i really didn't want to teach you how to see what happened so i started carving and all my shuffly instincts said use a thin flexible knife and just carefully slice off one section at a time but i did not listen to those instincts i took a nice way too large stiff knife and tried hacking off a bunch of pieces at once and it did not go well and going in from the other direction wasn't any easier and i can't keep using the excuse i hadn't done this before but i hadn't so long story short it looks like i basically destroyed that end of the breast although it really wasn't quite as bad as it looked okay it was so from there i just cut one piece off at a time still with the wrong knife but anyway you'll have to take my word for it by the time i slice through the rest of the thick part of the breast i sort of figured it out and i was able to plate some up so i will discuss further the carving in the blog post and possibly post an update with the proper method but anyway i went ahead and served that up with some make-ahead gravy which if you want gravy is going to be the kind you need to make for this since you're really not going to have that much in the way of pen drippings to work with but we have a video for that so i went ahead and served that up with some typical fixins and i have to tell you when i cut in and took a taste of this much to my amazement it really wasn't dry it was still nice and juicy and as predicted very flavorful so as i said in the intro i was totally and completely wrong and very happy i was because if you're cooking for just a couple people this could be perfect for thanksgiving or any time of the year you want a thanksgiving type meal but don't want to deal with the whole bird so assuming we're able to carve this without shredding it into little pieces i'm going to deem this experiment a total success and even though you might be thinking i ain't no hassle back girl or boy i'm still gonna say and mean i really do hope you give this a try soon so head over to foodwishes.com for all the ingredient amounts and more info as usual and as always enjoy hello this is chef john from foodwishes.com with pig in a pumpkin that's right i've always wanted to cook a pig in a pumpkin but i could never find a pumpkin big enough or a pig small enough so i finally just settled for cooking part of a pig in a pumpkin and the results were almost as delicious as they were beautiful since this really was one of the more visually stunning things i've made in a long time so with that let's go ahead and get started and the first thing i did was cut up some pork shoulder which is often sold in butcher shops as pork butt and why that is is not nearly as entertaining of a story as you'd think but anyway i have about four pounds of pork shoulder here which were formerly sold as two pork roasts which is why they kind of have these weird flaps since the butcher's kind of tucked those in and then tied them up to make them look like one solid piece but anyway not withstanding a couple fatty flaps i went ahead and cut that into nice large chunks and then once that was set i transferred it into a large mixing bowl and proceeded to season it with a whole bunch of kosher salt and yes we do need that much i also tossed in some freshly ground black pepper and of course a little shake of cayenne as well as a little bit of dry thyme i hadn't planned on that but there was like a half teaspoon left in the bottom of one of my jars so i figured what the heck let's throw that in and then i followed that with something i did plan on adding which was some crushed fennel seed and then i finished up with a couple fresh items including some freshly chopped rosemary and some sliced shallots and then i went ahead and gave that a very thorough mixing and by the way of course garlic and or onions would have worked in place of the shallots or you could have used all three all right that kind of stuff's up to you i mean you are after all the chairman of the board for your pork stuff cord and this really is just a techniques video so feel free to season this any way you want and then once that's all mixed up i guess we could move to the browning stage but i actually decided to cover mine in parchment paper and pop it in the fridge overnight which will give our seasonings more time to penetrate that meat a little more deeply so i went ahead and covered that and popped it in the fridge overnight at which point we'll pull that out and then before we brown it i'm going to sprinkle over a couple tablespoons of flour and besides helping the meat develop a beautiful crust as we brown this i also thought that starch would help thicken up our cooking liquids which we would then use for a sauce later and yes i probably should have broken up that lump of meat first and then sprinkled that over but that's fine we'll just take the tongs give it a mix until each piece is sort of semi-evenly coated and then once my pork chunks were floured i went ahead and brown up this meat over medium high heat and a little bit of olive oil all right you don't need too much because remember fats going to render out as you cook these and i brown that very thoroughly on both sides and i should mention i did that in two batches so as not to crowd the pan and then besides browning up all our meat the only other thing we're going to have to prep is our pumpkin and we'll do that by first cutting off the top and to do that we will plunge our knife in very carefully to 45 degree angle two or three inches away from the stem and we're going to go very slowly just cutting around about an inch at a time and the reason we want to go in at a 45 degree angle is because if you cut straight down that top is just going to fall straight down through oh and i should mention this is not a regular ornamental pumpkin that you make your jack-o-lanterns out of okay these kind are commonly referred to as pie pumpkins since they have more and sweeter flesh but anyway we'll cut like that all the way around and we'll remove what's basically going to be our lid and of course we're going to trim off the seeds in any of that sticky orange hair or whatever those fibers are called and of course we're also going to have to scrape out the inside nice and clean using a large spoon or regular spoon or would i really use between shots which was an ice cream scooper and that did take a few minutes and was by far the hardest and most annoying part of the whole operation but eventually i got that nicely scooped out and when done it should look a little something like this and then what we'll do once our pumpkin is sand seeds is place that into some kind of baking dish or pan and as you can see i did put a little piece of parchment paper in there although to be honest with you i'm not exactly sure why but anyway once i had my pumpkin panned i proceeded to fill that with my browned meat and i was not sure it was all going to fit because i just guessed at the amounts but as luck would have it it actually all fit in perfectly including any of those shallots and scraps from the pan as well as of course any accumulated juices if you throw those away we can't be friends and then after that i finished up by pouring in my braising liquid which was a couple cups of hard cider or as my european friends call it cider because apparently it always has alcohol in it over there as so many things do so i poured in a couple cups of that and then pressed on the top which did not quite fit but close enough and i figured is this roasted and the meat shrunk up a little that lid would settle down and then once i had that all situated to my liking i went ahead and transferred that into a 350 degree oven for almost 4 hours or until it looked like one of the greatest things i've ever seen come out of an oven i mean come on check that out and yes of course as that was roasting i was checking it with this cure which i'm just pretending to do here but do not under any circumstances stop cooking this until when you test it with a skewer or knife or fork that meat is very very tender and then what i did was decide to let this rest a little bit and while it was sitting i decided to paint the outside with the rendered fat because even though we don't think something could look any better we always want to check so i brushed some of that hot melted pork fat all over and believe it or not it became even more gorgeous and then i didn't film it but i did spoon off the rest of the fat and reserved any of the juices in the bottom so i could mix that with the juices inside the pumpkin to use that as a sauce later and then just because i thought it would look nice for the pictures i surrounded that with some brussels sprouts sauteed and butter and once that was said i went ahead and took a few pictures like 100 or so and it took a while but eventually i got tired of looking at it and i pulled off the lid so i could serve some up and see how it tasted so i pulled out some pork which smelled absolutely amazing and i also cut out a serving of the pumpkin which if you've never had before actually tastes a lot like butternut squash and i went ahead and plated some up with some nice buttery mashed potatoes and then i finished it off by spooning over some of the cooking liquids after skimming off some of the fat and i will admit it was not the most beautiful sauce because i had a bunch of particles from the cooked pumpkin this sort of made it look a little grainy which is why i decided to finish this by distracting everybody with a nice sprinkling of freshly chopped italian parsley and i will give you more info about the sauce in the blog post but anyway i finished up with some parsley and that's it my pig in a pumpkin was ready to try and as far as the cooking method goes i thought this was very very successful and although it was very subtle the pork did pick up a little touch of sweetness and on the other hand the pumpkin really picked up a ton of that pork flavor mostly thanks to all those sausage-like seasonings and by the way if we have any kids watching don't eat things off the tip of a knife unless you're playing pirate then it's okay so to summarize the pork was amazing the pumpkin was amazing the sauce was pretty amazing although like i said i'm gonna give you a little advice about that in the blog post i probably could have poured in a little more cider so i would have had a little more but anyway all in all an amazingly successful experiment and visually just a total seasonally appropriate showstopper in fact i thought this looks so incredible that even if you're not going to use this technique to braise pork i think this is probably how you should cook your stuffing for thanksgiving i mean not that grandma's casserole dish is not impressive but imagine walking to the table with this or if you don't get some moves and as with this you might need to be thinking about a different guest list but anyway whether you're going to use part of a pig or some other savory stuffable substitute i really do hope you give this a try soon so head over to foodwishes.com for all the ingredient amounts of more info as usual and as always enjoy [Music] hello this is chef john from foodwishes.com with fast upside down turkey that's right people have posted fast right side up turkeys and slow upside down turkeys but as far as i know for the first time in internet video recipe history we're posting a fast upside down turkey and while i generally like to limit major experiments to one per video here i'm testing out two new things cooking a turkey at a very high heat as well as trying to cook it upside down which i've heard for decades is the way to go if you want moist juicy meat so with that let's go ahead and get started by prepping our turkey which as usual means removing the neck and any innards which we will of course use to help make our gravy preferably a make-ahead gravy so if you haven't seen that video check it out and then what we're going to do here is salt this turkey very generously inside and out with kosher salt which i'm going to edit down for time's sake but we want to be very thorough and make sure the inside as well as every inch of the outside surface is generously coated with like three to four tablespoons of kosher salt which no is not too much and in case you're wondering this technique is sometimes referred to as dry brining because it basically has the same effect as wet brining but i find it much easier and less messy and that's it once our turkey is very generously salted we'll go ahead and transfer that into the fridge uncovered for between 12 and 24 hours okay you could probably go 48 but don't go less than 12. and then what we'll do once we're ready to roast our bird is take a loaf of french bread or italian bread and cut it lengthwise into two pieces like this and once that's been accomplished we can go ahead and butter these halves very generously with some hopefully soft unsalted butter and what we're making here is basically an insulated pad for the bottom of our pan since as i mentioned earlier we're going to cook our turkey upside down so what we'll do once those are buttered is place them into our large foil roasting pan butter side up and please note our foil pan has been placed on a regular sheet pan which is going to make everything a lot more stable and easier to get in and out of the oven and that's it once we have our pan prepped we can pull out our turkey which has been sitting in the fridge dry brining for at least a day and then if we want which i did we can place some fresh turkey herbs in the cavity and by turkey herbs i mean sage rosemary and thyme sorry parsley i know you're in the song and then once that cavity has been herbed we can go ahead and tie up the legs using a little bit of kitchen string and if you don't have that you can just use some dental floss or you can bend a paper clip and that's it once bound we will carefully pick it up and transfer that backbone side up onto our buttered bread breast pads and once that's been placed upon we'll want to make sure it's as well balanced as possible and sitting up nice and straight and since the whole idea of this is that this bread's going to insulate the breast from the pan i tried to make sure those two halves were pressed together in the center all right since i figured we're doing this at such high heat i really don't want any part of the breast touching the pan and then once we have that situated i am definitely going to fold back and tuck in my wing tips since as you might know untucked wing tips are one of my all-time big culinary pet peeves and yes that hanging excess skin was bugging me too but i couldn't get it to stay pushed in so i guess if you want you could trim that off i mean you are after all the king george iii of this inverted bird but i didn't trim it hoping it would get crispy as it roasted which it did and then speaking of revolutionary times once all that set this is now ready to transfer into a way too hot oven for turkey all right we're going to roast this at an insane 450 degrees for just about two hours or until a thermometer stuck in the thickest part of the thigh reads 165 and if everything's gone according to plan your upside down turkey should look like this which appearance wise i would describe as a combination of absolutely gorgeous and slightly inappropriate looking and then once our turkey's out of the oven like all roast turkeys we want to let this rest for at least 15 or 20 minutes before we carve it and by the way if i had to do this all over again i would serve it just like this or as long as we warn our guests first since a turkey in this position can be a little disconcerting but part of the experiment here was to go ahead and flip this over and then pop this under a hot broiler for a few minutes to hopefully brown that pale skin covering the breast meat so i very carefully flipped it over and what i saw when i did caused a lot of concern because as you can see that breast bone had popped through the skin which i figured was caused by the weight of the turkey pressing down and or because we use such a high temperature the breast meat was horribly overcooked which is kind of what it looked like at this point but anyway i pressed on and went ahead and brushed over some turkey fat at which point like i said i popped this under a hot broiler for about five minutes which definitely made that pal skin a little browner although weather made it look better is debatable so like i said next time i might just serve it upside down but either way we're definitely going to want to remove our buttered bread breast pads from the bottom which were beautifully browned and crisp on the edges and had soaked in all that amazing herb scented turkey fat and of course what we'll do is cube all that up and serve that as a dressing alongside our turkey especially if you soak it with the additional turkey juices from the bottom of the pan or of course if you want you can just add that stuff to your gravy all right both of those things are very good ideas but anyway i went ahead and transferred that stuff onto a serving platter and topped it with my upside down turkey except i did it right side up and then to distract people i decided to garnish with a few persimmons and since that breast bone was still bugging me i actually went ahead and pulled a piece of crispy skin off the back and used it as sort of an edible sternum cod piece and if i'm being honest that was more delicious than it was effective but anyway at this point it was time to grab a knife so i could see how these grand experiments turned out and as i sliced this first piece i was really afraid this was going to be horribly dry and overcooked whoops but as i proceeded to this second slice i could see that it wasn't alright as hopefully you can see here it was beautifully moist and glistening and i really was at this point surprised by how well this breast meat came out despite using a temperature that's way way higher than is usually recommended for turkey and even this first slice i did which was right next where that bone popped out even that was really good although i really should have eaten that one bite because of this whoops so the thing i was most worried about here being a problem was not a problem and that breast meat really was lovely so that was good news because i knew that dark meat was going to be great all right the advantage of the upside down turkey is that that dark meat is inverted in higher and gets more of the direct heat and since that's where all the joints are and it usually takes longer to cook that should work out to our advantage so i hacked off this leg to be sure and then i turned off the camera and ate it pretending of course that i was at a renaissance fair i mean come on who doesn't love fake jousting and then after i devoured that i went ahead and finished up by slicing a few more pieces of the breast served alongside our famous roasted smashed potatoes with everything being smothered with our make ahead gravy and like i said earlier you'll definitely want to check out that recipe and of course the potato recipe but anyway that's it what i'm calling fast upside down turkey to summarize despite using very very high heat to cook this very quickly in two hours the white meat was still surprisingly moist and juicy and also due to the high temperature and cooking it upside down the dark meat came out wonderfully as well and like i said the only thing i think i'd do differently next time would be to not bother trying to brown the breast skin and just serve it upside down in all its provocative glory so whether you're looking for a method to cook your turkey in half the time or you just want to see some raised eyebrows when you bring it to the table i really do hope you give this a try soon so please follow the links below to get the ingredient amounts a printable written recipe and much more info as usual and as always enjoy [Music] hello this is chef john from food wishes.com with bacon wrapped cranberry walnut pork that's right my favorite kind of recipes to share are the ones that look super complicated and look like they take a lot of time and effort to do when they are actually relatively quick and easy to put together and by the way how simple this is is gonna be our secret okay when our guest asks was that as hard to make as it looks we'll say yes yes it was but you know what you are worth it or something to that effect and to get started here what we're going to need first is one fully trimmed pork tenderloin which is generally how they're sold these days but once you unwrap yours if you see some of that silvery tough membrane still attached go ahead and trim it off and then what we're going to do here is sort of roll it over on its side because we're going to need to butterfly this what that means is cut straight down the middle but not all the way through okay we only want to go like two-thirds to three-quarters of the way through okay so take your time and please be careful because what'll happen if you do cut all the way through is that you'll have to stop and make another recipe but assuming that your butterflying went perfectly what we'll do next is sandwich that between a couple pieces of plastic wrap and then using a meat pounder or some other flat heavy object we will pound this out to approximately a quarter inch thick okay maybe slightly under but we don't want to go too thin because once we roll this we do want to maintain a certain thickness of meat and then our post-pounding production will involve seasoning this very generously with kosher salt as well as some freshly ground black pepper and then in a little bit of a plot twist we are going to spread over a little bit of dijon mustard right not very much only like a teaspoon or two and we will spread that over until we have a nice thin coating and then once our meat's been mustard we're going to scatter over a little bit of freshly chopped pork friendly herbs which in my case are going to be some minced rosemary as well as some thinly sliced sage leaves and then once applied we can use our spoon to kind of distribute those evenly or at least semi-evenly all right just get it close that's all we ever ask and then next up we're going to do a very very light sprinkling of breadcrumbs since whenever you roast something like this you're going to create juices which can and will leak out but by doing a little bit of breadcrumb inside those will actually get absorbed and we can eat them so we will do a little dusting of bread crumbs at which point we can scatter over as much chopped walnut and dried cranberries we want and i probably should have measured those but i didn't but luckily thanks to the magic of video you can see how much i'm putting on oh in case you're keeping score at home those walnuts were toasted lightly first which always brings out a little more flavor but anyway we will apply those over the top and of course any rogue pieces that tried to escape will be placed back on at which point we'll fold either end in about an inch or so and then proceed to roll this up as tightly and neatly as we can and please note i like to leave about an inch unfruited and nutted on the edge we're gonna roll towards just so we're able to complete this roll with a fairly clean seam at the bottom and that's it once we've shaped that into as uniform a tube as we can we will simply wrap this up and transfer in the fridge for at least an hour okay because cold meat is always easier to work with plus that will give our meat a little bit of time to start absorbing those flavors so i popped mine in the fridge for about 60 minutes at which point i pulled it out and transferred it onto this foil line pan and then even though the inside was fairly well seasoned we still do want to lightly season the outside which i did with a blend of kosher salt freshly ground black pepper and cayenne all right so not too much just a light sprinkling and then once that's been seasoned we will go ahead and wrap it in bacon and not just any bacon cheap bacon and why i want you to use cheap bacon is it tends to be the thinnest sliced bacon which is gonna work a lot better here since this only cooks for about 25 minutes to a half hour which is really not enough time to properly cook thick sliced bacon and i know sure you can partially cook the bacon and then wrap this but i always find that a lot harder to work with so like i said just try to find the thinnest sliced bacon you can and we will go ahead and wrap the length trying our best to keep the bacon to a single layer with somehow the ends ending up underneath all right if you don't have enough bacon to go all the way over just leave it underneath and then start the next piece that way the bacon along the top will render out and brown evenly and by the way if you're not into the smokiness you can use pancetta for this or even a few slices of prosciutto if you want all right that's up to you i mean you are after all the bjork of your mummified pork and that's it once our pork is bacon wrapped it is ready to transfer into the center of a 450 degree oven for about 25 minutes or so or until we hit an internal temp of at least 145 and then if we want while that is roasting we can go ahead and make a simple sauce to serve alongside as in really simple since all we're going to do is take a splash of white wine plus a little bit of balsamic vinegar or the vinegar of your choice as well as one spoon of dijon and what we'll do is whisk that together over medium heat and simply cook it keeping a close eye on it until it reduces by about half and yes of course we can roast our pork in a pan and then just make the sauce while it's resting which works fine if you're just doing this for a few people or it's not a fancy holiday meal but if you're going to be busy and or stressed making this sauce while your pork roasts and having it ready is a lot easier and then all we need to do to finish this once it reduces by about half is turn off the heat and toss in a couple pieces of cold butter along with a little pinch of salt and pepper and as soon as those get stirred in and emulsified our sauce is done and for a bigger pan the whisk would be fine here but for a small pan like this it's probably better just to shake and swirl and you'll see after doing that for just about 30 seconds to a minute that butter will disappear and you will be left with a shiny absolutely gorgeous looking sauce which of course will taste for seasoning but remember it's going to go under that beautifully seasoned pork loin so don't do too much and speaking of pork line by now it should be cooked and looking pretty hot and tempting which people used to refer to as fat until people like me started using the term and then they stopped but anyway that's looking amazing and i'd love to slice right in but we should probably wait for at least five minutes to give that a little bit of a rest at which point then it's okay to slice in which i like to do at a little bit of an angle which is really going to show off our beautiful spiral pattern inside and even though it might look like we had a little too much stuffing when we rolled this as you can see once baked it's going to be the perfect amount of stuffing to the amount of meat and i'm sorry but i had to pull off and try that little piece of bacon which then inspired me to cut off the end piece and eat that which truly was incredible but anyway we'll cut a few nice thick slices and serve that over our sauce oh and a little tip for you young recipe video producers try not to block the shot with your large hairy hand that is not a great look although once properly arranged this is a great look and like i said in the intro looks like it's really complicated and hard to make and then above and beyond a stunning appearance this really is an incredibly delicious combination of flavors right we have that slightly smoky richness of the bacon with that lightly herb scented pork then when you add in that little bit of tanginess from the mustard plus the earthiness of our walnuts which are all contrasted perfectly with those little sweet and sour nuggets of cranberry when you put all that together you're talking about something very special indeed i mean the only downside here is how long and hard and difficult and complicated this is to make okay that's our story and we're sticking to it but anyway whether you admit this was simple and easy to make or not i really do hope you give it a try soon so head over to foodwishes.com for all the ingredient amounts of more info as usual and as always enjoy you

Channel: Food Wishes

Views: 65,023

Keywords: holiday recipes, holiday dinner, christmas recipes, international recipes, the ultimate family dinner, holiday main dishes, honey glazed ham recipe, beef tenderloin recipe, hassleback turkey recipe, turkey breast recipe, pumpkin braised pork, pig in a pumpkin, upside down turkey recipe, pork recipes, bacon, cranberry, cranberry walnut, pork tenderloin, pork tenderloin recipe, holidays, christmas dinner, christmas eve dinner, boxing day, chef john, food wishes, allrecipes

Id: DQ8h3MgqMnA

Length: 46min 31sec (2791 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 05 2021