4 helpful tips from a North Texas chef to avoid Thanksgiving cooking drama

Thanksgiving is on the minds of family foodies and home cooks alike, including Morning Edition host Andrew Garcia and, well, me.

Andrew loves to cook, but admits he’s not an expert: “The first time I spent Thanksgiving with my family, I made several mistakes.”

On the other hand, I can cook something, but the kitchen is just not my happy place. I am the designated napkin bearer at our Thanksgiving gatherings.

So with holiday dinners coming up, we got professional help from Daniel Alvarenga, who is the sous chef at Joey Dallas. Chef Alvarenga also does a cooking demonstration at A tasteful spot at the Dallas Arboretum. Recently he gave a demo of a dessert perfect for Thanksgiving –Banana bread pumpkin mousse trifli.

Between whisks, we asked for some tips on how to avoid Thanksgiving cooking mishaps and about the times he ran into Thanksgiving problems himself.

“So we used to do turkeys back at the Four Seasons and we had these two big Blodgett ovens and we’d only do four turkeys at a time,” he said. “And one day we actually started a little late and we needed our oven for our cookies. So we ended up having to run all the way across the street to the hotel side and have to use their oven.”

TIP ONE: BE PREPARED

Make a plan, start early and schedule your oven time.

“So if you’re making a Thanksgiving turkey, start as early, early in the morning,” Alvarenga said

TIP TWO: BE FLEXIBLE

Alvarenga told us about one Thanksgiving when he made bacon-wrapped stuffed jalapenos for his family. The recipe started out great, but unfortunately he burned the bacon. Luckily, he thought quickly, took off the charred bacon and mixed the stuffed jalapenos into a cheesy dip instead.

So be flexible. Not only will it save you from potential disaster, it can also inspire you.

“Just being able to rotate something you’re making is really good because then you can experiment,” Alvarenga said. “You find new tastes. This is creativity at its best.”

TIP THREE: KNOW YOUR OVEN

Hailey Scontrino is Alvarenga’s fiancee. She joined him at the demonstration. She has her own bakery YouTube channel and that Banana bread and pumpkin mousse trifli shown on the demo is her recipe.

Hailey weighed in on our third tip, which is geared toward baking specifically, and that is: Know your oven.

“I had a really bad oven for a while, and so it messed up a lot of my baked goods,” Scontrino said. “It would just bake unevenly. It was either way too cold and it just wouldn’t bake, or it was too hot , and it would burn it. So the oven is definitely affecting your baking and may not even be you. You need to know your oven and keep an eye on it.”

Andrew really liked this one. “I’m terrible at baking and it’s good to know it might just be my oven’s fault.”

It could be TIP 3.5 – Reject the blame.

TIP FOUR: KNOW WHEN TO CALL IT END

One of my worst Thanksgiving dinners happened a few years ago when my friend and I invited a bunch of people over for a Friendsgiving. We started the turkey early, but 3 hours later we noticed we didn’t smell that delicious turkey smell. That’s because my friend’s fancy oven had decided to shut down. My friend’s solution was to push it all into the oven and turn the heat all the way up.

“Well, yeah, that sounds scary,” Alvarenga said. “Especially since your turkey is probably going to take six hours when your casseroles only take an hour or two hours at most. Try to avoid overcooking everything.”

So there you have it. Do not cook everything at once on full blast.

And if all else fails, remember our last tip: There’s always takeaway!

Need more help? Take a look at my post about area cooking classes with a Thanksgiving twist. And for more fall events, head to See DFW.

The See DFW calendar is a partnership between KERA and The Dallas Morning News.

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