The Best Of...
Thanksgiving Tales and Tastes with the Beer Brothers
Are you Team Turkey or Team Ham for Thanksgiving's main course? We, the Beer Brothers, are putting our mitts in the ring to settle this debate once and for all. From our special techniques to cook a mouth-watering, moist turkey to the controversial question of leaving the gizzards in, we share it all. And let's be real, who doesn't love a good Thanksgiving discussion where turkey is the undisputed star of the show?
But hey, Thanksgiving isn't just about the turkey, right? It's also about the laughter, love, and let's not forget, the unforgettable sides that make the holiday complete. Brace yourselves for a trip down memory lane as we reminisce about our favorite (and not so favorite) Thanksgiving dishes. We're talking about everything from the classic mashed potatoes to a German potato dressing, and a cornbread sausage dressing that will make your taste buds dance. And just between us, don't miss out on our secret tip for getting your hands on the best frozen rolls from Texas Roadhouse! So join us for a hearty serving of Thanksgiving cheer, gastronomic conversations, and some good old banter.
Are you Team Turkey or Team Ham for Thanksgiving's main course? We, the Beer Brothers, are putting our mitts in the ring to settle this debate once and for all. From our special techniques to cook a mouth-watering, moist turkey to the controversial question of leaving the gizzards in, we share it all. And let's be real, who doesn't love a good Thanksgiving discussion where turkey is the undisputed star of the show?
But hey, Thanksgiving isn't just about the turkey, right? It's also about the laughter, love, and let's not forget, the unforgettable sides that make the holiday complete. Brace yourselves for a trip down memory lane as we reminisce about our favorite (and not so favorite) Thanksgiving dishes. We're talking about everything from the classic mashed potatoes to a German potato dressing, and a cornbread sausage dressing that will make your taste buds dance. And just between us, don't miss out on our secret tip for getting your hands on the best frozen rolls from Texas Roadhouse! So join us for a hearty serving of Thanksgiving cheer, gastronomic conversations, and some good old banter.
The Beer Brothers proudly presents the.
Speaker 2:Best of A podcast about the best of everything, From the mundane to the ridiculous just three buddies sitting around the car table talking about things that absolutely matter to no one.
Speaker 1:Thanksgiving is right around the corner and the episode tonight is all about Thanksgiving, the best of Thanksgiving. What makes it such a special holiday? What kind of food can we talk about in terms of the best of? We'll talk about the main course, we'll talk about sides. We may even talk about football, you never know. I'm Mark, I'm Chris, I'm Greg and we are the Beer Brothers talking about the best of Thanksgiving. Now, the first thing I think we got to address, boys, is what kind of meat is it at Thanksgiving? Are we turkey guys or are we?
Speaker 2:ham guys. Have I ever told you all about the time that I had omelettes that had sliced hot dogs in them?
Speaker 3:So it sounds like he's a ham man.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So any type of pork side up to carry him Pork chop, pork tenderloins oh, the pork Fried bologna sandwiches.
Speaker 3:I like a fried bologna sandwich. I mean turkey guy through and through right.
Speaker 1:I think Thanksgiving is the best Turkey for the hunter household, that's the greatest of all the holidays is Thanksgiving. I don't understand the ham people at Thanksgiving.
Speaker 3:That's Eastern Christmas, ham's. The Christmas To me, ham's.
Speaker 1:Christmas, Ham's Christmas. I would agree with Easter as well. The Honeybaked Ham stores, you know that, stay open all year long because of the business that they get for those two holidays.
Speaker 1:But turkey can be made a lot of different ways, gentlemen. So, as you know, there's been a lot of, you know, a lot of improvements over the years to how turkey is made and turkey is served. So what's the best of the best way to cook a turkey? What's the best way to make a turkey? What's the best way to keep it moist? All that good stuff.
Speaker 2:I've never made a turkey, I mean, that's something that's never created one. No, that's interesting.
Speaker 3:You got to get organic on this. Apparently, I do Wow.
Speaker 1:Sure, you haven't made one out of tofu.
Speaker 3:I think.
Speaker 2:I've an oldest brother that does that occasionally. Say let me get my Petri dish out of the one.
Speaker 1:I think he calls it a tofurky.
Speaker 3:I don't think that would survive my smoker. Yeah, oh, it'd be interesting.
Speaker 2:So smoking a turkey.
Speaker 3:That's what I do, that's what we have at my house. How do you keep a little turkey?
Speaker 1:Yeah, what's the trick to making it so it doesn't blow out?
Speaker 3:So what I do is I get a Smoker yeah, I've got a few of those but I get a turkey that is not being injected already. Okay, I don't get one like a butter ball or anything like that. We get one that is not got anything else in it, it's just a pure turkey. I already bought it. We get one about 16, 17 pounds and we brine it.
Speaker 1:Wet brined dry brined Wet brined.
Speaker 3:So I'll start brining it 48 hours before. So like on Tuesday morning, monday night, tuesday morning, I will brine it with some seasonings in it, things like that. So it'll go in a meat bag that's where I can zip it up and then it goes back in the refrigerator.
Speaker 1:Well, let me ask this is the turkey at that point, is it still frozen? No, no, no, it's thought it out.
Speaker 3:It's completely thought out at that point. So this turkey will come out of the freezer. It's in the freezer now. It'll come out Wednesday or Thursday. Give it four days or so to get thought out in the refrigerator. Then I'll brine it for two days, okay.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:That's the way we keep it moist and I feel the cavity when I'm putting it on the smoker with what it depends. But what I usually do at Thanksgiving is usually like the classic, what you considered the Norman Rockwell turkey. I've got celery in it and sage and thyme and garlic and onions and every once in a while I'll put lemon in there and that'll just cook while it's in the smoker. The purpose of it really is to feel that mass so that when you smoke it that it cooks more evenly.
Speaker 1:Now, have you ever left the neck or the gizzards in the turkey when you've cooked it?
Speaker 2:I have not. Hey save the neck for me, Clark.
Speaker 1:I have not, yeah, I uh have you.
Speaker 2:I can't say that I uh, oh, you're kidding me and you put it in the oven with the bag.
Speaker 1:When I first started out I thought I got it all out right Because I got the bag of the giblets out and I was like okay, good, Didn't realize that the neck was in there. That's the best part. Oh, I cooked it with the neck inside of it.
Speaker 3:That's extra flavor, not good. So how do you cook your?
Speaker 1:turkey, so I am an oven bag guy. Bag yes we use a great big Reynolds oven bag and same thing. I'll get it completely thawed and I do not brine mine. I take about two sticks of butter.
Speaker 3:That makes it better.
Speaker 1:That makes it better Butter on the outside, butter in the cavity and then lift the skin up.
Speaker 3:I do lift in the skin up and put butter in. I do that.
Speaker 1:And it's a seasoned butter that. I do I do sage and some poetry. Seasoning, a little garlic powder, a little lemon. Inside Same thing I fill the cavity Onions, lemons, occasionally apples, a little garlic and I do a whole. I do rosemary, parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme.
Speaker 2:Do you put the little white boots on the feet?
Speaker 1:No, no, we don't do that. I was thinking about it. I do chuck the wings under Yep, don't want to fly in a way. And the second year that first year I did the turkey, I left the neck. In the second year we got a small turkey because it was just my wife and I. We were just starting out and everything, and I didn't realize it. But I cooked the turkey upside down. I had the breast side down because it was so small. Does that make a difference? Though it actually it was one of the better turkeys because, from what they said, a lot of people do it upside down because you get a lot more of the moisture that goes into the breast that way. It didn't look very good though, so, but no, I the bag has been great. You have to understand. I grew up with a mom who would get up at four in the morning and put the turkey in the oven.
Speaker 1:My mom did too, and it would cook all day and you would bite into it and it was just like ha ha ha.
Speaker 3:It's the national lamb boot. Exactly, it's the turkey.
Speaker 1:Dry, just dry, just cracklings.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And this method of doing it. You know about a 14 pound bird or so doing it in the bag. You can get it done. Does it brown up? Yeah, really nicely. I didn't know if it would in the bag or not. It does Two and a half hours, maybe three at the most. Does great. So anyway, chris, what do you do so?
Speaker 2:I'm completely different from you guys. Yep, so I am a frying turkey guy. The key to that, really, at the very, the very, very end of the day, the key at the end, is 100% peanut oil Hot tips. Sure, a lot of them do up. You get that blend now most of the time because peanut oil is like 50 bucks.
Speaker 3:It's outrageous. I saw it at Kroger. It's outrageous.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and I use 100% peanut oil. What temperature do you get the oil at? I take mine all the way up to 375. Okay, and I try to keep it around there, but it always creeps up. And you know, when I really get the turkey, I drop the turkey in and I'll let it creep on up to about four or four or five. You know four, 10, something like that. That's the good thing about the peanut oil it allows the higher temperatures. It doesn't smoke, it doesn't burn like that. But while the oil is heating up, you know I'm in there injecting the turkey A lot of times. I'll do it about an hour and a half, two hours prior I'll inject the turkey. I'm a big fan of the Tony Chakri's Creole Butter and I'm really like a lot of that in there. So I'll go through two to three jars of that, you know. You know mom always buys the turkey and she'll buy the biggest one she can and it's, you know, 18, 19, 20 pounds.
Speaker 1:Now do you have to like, do a test run first to you? Pretty much, just wing it. Man, I have fried, so yeah I do, I wing it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have fried so many turkeys over the years. I used to do it for my brother would have you know stuff with his business and we'd fry a lot of turkeys. But anyhow, actually, you still my tailgates to. I mean the big perk of frying it is how much quicker it cooks, right? Oh yeah, I mean.
Speaker 3:I mean how quick minutes a pound?
Speaker 2:right, right so.
Speaker 3:So 45 minutes, you got a 15 pound bird in an hour. Yeah, but you know what?
Speaker 2:I'm injecting it, and I, you know, try to get it all filled up the best way I can, and you know I'm, of course, using their injector, and, you know, put in the wings, the breast and thine everywhere else, and then I'll do the rub on the outside. Now, I've used a combination of the Tony Chakri spicy, I've got a rub that my buddy, bill, came up with, I got a rub that a good friend of mine, roger, has come up with, and I'll combine all those and we really pack it on there and we'll get it down in the cavity and that kind of thing. Now, the key is with this, though, is to be able to stand the bird up If, as he was standing up right at one point Before you put the, the star base through him, to drop him in the fryer and course go. You know, you see all these horror stories about how they catch fire, and all that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, ghosts, you know, gotta make sure your turkey's dry it's not dripping butter. When you lower him in, you go slow when he sits and you put the top on it, so you don't just like drop it in there, right you could?
Speaker 1:yeah, my first, the first one I ever did.
Speaker 2:I actually did that and overflowed on my deck and caught fire, and this was Detest terrible, but yeah, and don't got a new dick always.
Speaker 3:I.
Speaker 2:So yeah, and that's what I do. I've been frying the turkey now for 25 years probably. You know mom always asks every year if you're gonna fry it. And the best part about when you pull the turkey out like that Is that skin is so crispy and it's seasoned and it's like a bunch of vultures. And my brother always cuts the turkey and it's always all the vultures around picking the skin and then they're picking all the meat off of the bone and the carcass. Wouldn't. It's done, it's um, it's quite the experience, that's for sure. But you know turkey's can't fly.
Speaker 1:I Is that so, as God is my witness.
Speaker 2:I thought turkeys could fly, oh the humanity. They're hitting the guy like wing sex of concrete.
Speaker 1:One of the greatest tv shows of all time and that was very clearly the best episode there of all time, and it looks like, since we're talking about, we got to do a fun fact, yeah name the show.
Speaker 3:I know it. Greg, I got no idea.
Speaker 1:I'm at wkrp.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I've never watched that.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's so good. Insincinati Les Nessman. Yeah, fantastic show.
Speaker 3:That's yep yes.
Speaker 1:Uh all right. So besides, now we've got the bird, we're gonna eat the bird three different ways here, apparently smoke.
Speaker 3:This is the best.
Speaker 1:Well then we got to kind of talk about what's the best of sides to go with the bird. Yeah, what's your top one first?
Speaker 2:dressing.
Speaker 1:What kind? Because now is it dressing or is it stuffing right?
Speaker 2:I just told you there's nothing stuffed right.
Speaker 3:So what are you do? You actually didn't tell us that. Well, you didn't tell us if you deep fried, if there's anything.
Speaker 2:There's just in the cavity, it's just the rub, right? No, it's, it's called dressing at my house. Now a quick, quick story. When my my nephew was younger, much younger he's 29 years old now when he was younger we were at my aunt's house for Thanksgiving and I said, kevin, will you do me a favor? He went to go get something, said what do you bring me into the plate of of dressing down here? He shows up and he's has a plate that has ranch dressing on it. I'm like, uh, no the other dressing.
Speaker 2:No, we call it dressing. I like it. I like my dressing Very moist and I like a lot of sage in it. Mm-hmm, and I don't. I can't stand when they do the little. You know the little dressing balls and they're dry. No, I can't do that. What about you?
Speaker 3:Um, dressing is my daughter's favorite. She calls it stuffing, even though it's not stuffed in anything, because stovetop makes one, I guess.
Speaker 1:In 19 delicious varieties um.
Speaker 3:My consensus at my house is probably mashed potatoes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I mean, I don't like mashed potatoes particularly, but they all love it like mashed potatoes with a lot of butter, homemade of course. Oh yeah, 100%. Gotta leave a lump that somebody knows it's real.
Speaker 1:So so you have a secret ingredient in the mashed potatoes, uh half and half yeah, really yeah butter and half and half butter, half and half. Sometimes a little cream cheese in mine.
Speaker 3:I don't put cream cheese in my but butter and half and half, yeah, and a really good restaurant in lexington that that I know the owner of. I talked to him because his mashed potatoes are unbelievable and you know what he told me. His secret was equal amounts of butter and potato. I.
Speaker 2:Couldn't believe it, and what type of establishment is this?
Speaker 3:pretty good McDonald's.
Speaker 1:McDonald's people have it all backwards.
Speaker 3:It's the arc. It's not that one. And what?
Speaker 2:movie are we talking about?
Speaker 3:coming to America.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I knew that one, John Amos. I've met him, got my picture with him. Great guy.
Speaker 3:So what about you mark?
Speaker 1:So I'm gonna have to go with with dressing Stuffing. Yeah, so the way my mom made it was stuffing. She made, and my grandma also. They both made a German potato dressing that they stuffed in the turkey. Mm-hmm and so it's not your traditional stuffing that's got you know, bread, it's potatoes, big chunks of potatoes, onions.
Speaker 3:It's a good. Hey, I mean, how much money did he have grown?
Speaker 2:up. We decided you gotta remember this was right before the Great Depression.
Speaker 3:I didn't know they had this rich money up in Lorraine Lima, my, my brother. Can we Know my brother?
Speaker 1:Mike still makes the German potato dressing stuffing. He he does not stuff it, so he for him it's dressing. But I like a Recipe that that I've kind of adapted over the years. That's cornbread Sausage dressing. Oh, that'd be good. So it's a sage cornbread cubed up. I'm sorry, sage sausage cubed up, cornbread that you bake and then your herb stuffing, mix, celery onions, butter, chicken stock, all and a lot of poultry seasoning.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's, it's my favorite thing, you know, when we were kids, dad would always make the dressing and Is yeah, starting you know, the day after Thanksgiving, after Christmas, I guess any bread you'd have, as it's getting old, go put it in the freezer. Yeah, and we have one of those deep freezes. It was, you know, big enough to put 30 bodies in.
Speaker 3:That's the way I measure my.
Speaker 2:It was one of those Right and there'd be like 30 levels of bread down there and some cornbread. He's like all right time to make the dressing and you go to bring up these frozen bags and he would just break all this old bread.
Speaker 1:I mean it was Amazing, right do we have an honorable mention, by the way?
Speaker 3:Sure, I can give you an honorable mention. Go ahead, chris.
Speaker 1:You said you had corn pudding, also known as corn casserole. No, no, no, no different, different okay corn pudding is.
Speaker 2:Corn. Casserole typically has onions and that kind of stuff in it, right, oh yeah, yeah, corn pudding is very thin. It's a.
Speaker 1:It's a southern thing my family's always had they make it with corn and cream corn and yes, and that's it, no cornbread.
Speaker 3:No like corn cream corn like half and half and it's like really thin.
Speaker 2:I mean it's like a quarter inch thick in the bottom of this big Pyrex dish my you know?
Speaker 3:yeah, I do. I do know what you're talking about. We don't ever eat it. Yeah, we've never. We don't ever eat that. Oh, we love that stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's a local thing really my son Cameron.
Speaker 3:He said corn. He, we always fix him corn on the cob at Thanksgiving because he loves it. But the other thing that's big at my house, or rolls, oh yeah my family loves them some rolls.
Speaker 1:So what do you do for For the rolls?
Speaker 3:just, we don't do anything special, they're just store-bought, right what's the first?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's the one.
Speaker 3:Yeah, my family can eat tens of those things.
Speaker 1:My mom was always big on making rolls and they were always pretty good. I've tried.
Speaker 2:You know I had a great aunt used to make them and they were. They were made of.
Speaker 3:They had potatoes in them Potato rolls, yeah, and they were so good for you, so you had a lot of money.
Speaker 2:Never told you about the omelet with the sliced on dogs.
Speaker 3:What about you? What about you're on your?
Speaker 1:momage. Well, before I say that, let me also just say when we're. Well, texas Roadhouse. By the way, rolls you can buy frozen rolls and the butter prior to Thanksgiving. I just saw this on in, you know, on the internet, so it's got to be true. I'm thinking of doing this.
Speaker 2:I don't care. You know, we could do good. We could all go eat there and just get a bunch rolls to go.
Speaker 1:Well, they sell them frozen and and they sell you the butter and all that. So I'm thinking about doing it. Okay, honorable mention for me, I got to go with Candy jam, sweet potatoes, sometimes with the marshmallows yeah so Occasionally we do it with the marshmallows, but we also do it with pecans and brown sugar on top, or pecans what?
Speaker 3:did you call?
Speaker 1:it. What was on top of it? Pecans, pecans, brown sugar. I like to call them pecans.
Speaker 2:I like to call them pecans.
Speaker 1:I'm pecan. I'm a pecan man.
Speaker 3:Are you? What what about desserts?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we got to do dessert pumpkin pie, the only one ever pumpkin roll for me, for us.
Speaker 3:Uh, reagan's would be. Reagan's loves a pumpkin roll, but the weird not weird, the dessert that I always get asked to make it Thanksgiving is banana pudding.
Speaker 2:Really.
Speaker 1:Banana pudding yeah, I love banana pudding, but I mean tonight.
Speaker 3:We were actually talking about Thanksgiving tonight, before this episode, and Reagan said Banana pudding. Yep, now Janie, pumpkin pie.
Speaker 1:Love a pumpkin pie pecan pie, pumpkin pie I don't like pumpkin pie at all. Oh, I love it any. Any pie is good, I agreed.
Speaker 3:You know, you don't discriminate.
Speaker 1:No, comes to pass. Nope, I do. But Kerry, no pump makes a heck of a good pumpkin roll. Her pumpkin roll is redheaded, it's very good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, my dad just like mince meat pie. I don't like mince meat, that's one pie.
Speaker 1:I don't like we would have minced meat at Christmas, mince meat pie. It's kind of a tradition thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I don't even know what it is. What kind of meat is that? What's, what ever it's?
Speaker 1:just called minced meat, but it's not really meat, it's like I don't know what it is. Yeah it's apples and raisins and cranberries and nuts and all ground together with sugar, it's, it's, it's pretty good. I mean dates. I think there's dates in it as well.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I like dates, dates hard, pay like dates so banana pudding at our house.
Speaker 1:So what's the best part of Thanksgiving overall? What's the best part of the day?
Speaker 2:My family.
Speaker 3:For years it was the sleep and after the turkey, my family is always tradition.
Speaker 2:We always go. You know we'd go out rabbit hunting or shooting.
Speaker 1:We've done sporting plays killing some of God's creatures.
Speaker 2:To this day. We still do that. We'll go out to the farm and and kill some of God's creatures, but the best, the best part about Thanksgiving to me and this is what I really miss on the most about being a you know when a kid you know Thanksgiving, everybody's in such a hurry to finish eating so they can open gifts.
Speaker 1:I you don't have that at Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2:No, no sorry Christmas, I'm sorry Christmas.
Speaker 3:I was like how rich was your family?
Speaker 2:I'm sorry, I mean at Christmas everybody at Christmas is such a hurry to finish, Especially when you're a kid man. I don't want to eat right, You're at the kids table in the kitchen.
Speaker 2:You don't want to eat Thanksgiving's not that you put the food out. First of all, you smell the food cooking all day, right, I mean that's the best part about it. And then you graze forever how long it takes you to eat. And then you rest, and then you may eat some more than you eat dessert, and there's no hurry, right, and that's that's the best part about it to me is the smells of the day.
Speaker 3:And nobody's in a hurry.
Speaker 2:It's just kind of like it's laid back and it is what it is.
Speaker 3:I know there's a bunch of people who go black Friday shopping and they stay up late at night and they get the ads and things like that. I will tell you, janie, and I have done that on one or twice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, to not be done again. Yes, I agree.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean to not be done again.
Speaker 2:You know what else is good about Thanksgiving? You always get to see the cowboys play the lions yeah, so football.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I would add that, you know, just just being home with the family is always great and well especially this year, because we all have kids in college.
Speaker 3:Yeah, right, yeah.
Speaker 1:You know my daughter, one of her favorite things is we make a big bowl of punch and it, you know, we put it out and I, just you know, drink off of it all day. We do what? Do you call it? Chocodery trays?
Speaker 3:Yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:And and put on the Macy's Day parade.
Speaker 3:Janie loves watching it. And the dog show. Yeah, and the dog show.
Speaker 1:Lots of good things to be thankful for this year. Absolutely so all right boys.
Speaker 2:And thanks for listening to this week's podcast, the best of presented by the beer brothers.
Speaker 1:The best of is available on all formats. Wherever you listen to podcasts, be sure to catch our next episode. You never know what or who will be the best of next. Have a great day, everyone.