Roasted turkey or chicken can be one of the most satisfying dishes you’ll ever make. Crispy skin and juicy meat make for an unbeatable combination. But getting both results at the same time is surprisingly difficult.
If you don’t care as much about the crispy skin, skip cooking the bird whole and instead prepare the dark and light meat separately. For holidays, we like to create a confit of turkey legs, brine the breast meat, and cook both sous vide at their respective times and temperatures. Cooking sous vide provides a precision-based strategy for maximizing juiciness, and it has an additional bonus: It frees up precious oven space for other dishes on your menu. The only downside of this method is that you won’t get the crispy skin.
If you want to roast the bird whole and get both crispy skin and juicy meat, the challenge comes down to the fact that the skin needs high heat to crisp, but that same heat dries out the breast meat. This is a big issue with chicken, but even more so with turkey. If you manage to get a crispy exterior, chances are the breast meat will end up too dry. The usual solution is brining, which means soaking the bird in a salt-water solution to boost moisture, tenderness, and flavor. This helps the meat retain more juices during cooking, resulting in a juicier, more flavorful dish. The catch is that brining a whole bird makes it nearly impossible to crisp the skin.
Fortunately, there’s a way to get the best of both worlds: Inject the brine directly into the breast meat using a brine injector or syringe. You can learn more about this technique in our blog: Building a Better Turkey. This is very easy to do using a butcher’s syringe, also called a meat injector. Meat injectors usually include two large needles: one has a slanted tip for marinades with spices, and one is perforated for diffusing liquids. You can also see it used in our Slow-Baked Chicken with Onions.
In the recipe below, we use a mixture of milk and apple juice to create a unique brine that infuses the meat with phosphates, creating an unbeatable tenderness and flavor within the turkey.
The true secret to great, fluffy mashed potatoes is to first heat treat your potatoes prior to boiling. Heat treating and then cooling before boiling gelatinizes the starch and stabilizes the starch granules. For our mashed potatoes (we call it potato puree), we heat treat the potatoes by cooking them sous vide; it makes a huge difference!
The technique for this recipe is relatively simple. Essentially, we cook the potatoes sous vide for 35 minutes. Then the potatoes are refrigerated until completely cooled, about 30 minutes. Next, they’re boiled for another 25 minutes, then drained and passed through a ricer or food mill. Then we stir butter into the mashed mixture with the option of passing it again through a fine sieve if you desire a finer texture. This method creates a silky, stable puree that doesn’t turn gummy.
If you’re making this recipe ahead of time, stop after step 9 and refrigerate. Continue with step 10 just before serving.
Want something dairy free instead? Check out our alternative recipe here.
Neapolitan pizza has influenced every other style of pizza in the world, yet it shares very little with those styles in terms of appearance, texture, and flavor. It’s characterized by a crust with a large cornicione, or rim, marked by small charred spots called leoparding. The crust is soft and the rim has an open crumb.
Baked at 840–900°F, Neapolitan pizza is ready in just 60–90 seconds. Traditional dough contains only four ingredients: flour, water, yeast, and salt. The hydration level is crucial to achieve the right texture and bake.
00 flour is commonly used for a tender crust, but other types like Tipo 0, 1, and 2 are also popular. Fermentation, whether at room temperature or cold-proofed, enhances flavor and texture. In Naples, dough ferments for 2 to 24 hours; some pizzaioli opt for bulk fermentation.
Our approach in Modernist Pizza involved using instant dry yeast for reliability. We fully develop gluten during mixing, bulk ferment at room temperature for 20–24 hours, then proof for another 3 hours. This method yields a dough with a balanced hydration level (62.3%) and an airy crumb.
Our oven bake times vary according to what you have on hand—take a look at our chart in the recipe below to get a better sense of what is required.
Check out Modernist Pizza for additional variations, such as our classic AVPN-style dough or our doughs that incorporate poolish and cold-proofing for enhanced hydration and texture.
There are thousands upon thousands of kinds of leavened breads in the world, but only a handful of types—injera and dosa, for example—are gluten-free by nature. The others rely on gluten for their elasticity and structure. That means making a gluten-free loaf of bread is a very difficult endeavor—after all, the familiar structure and texture of bread is defined by gluten. Because they lack the signature texture of wheat-based breads, gluten-free loaves are technically more like savory cakes than breads.
For us, creating a successful version of gluten-free bread means replicating the consistency of traditional bread and trying to make our experimental gluten-free loaves as bread-like as we can. While this process is not without challenges, we believe our recipes come very close to achieving our goal. We’ve come up with a blend of flours and then add thickening agents and enzymes to make loaves that resemble regular bread as closely as possible.
Even if you’re not gluten-free, learning to bake a gluten-free loaf is a valuable skill—perfect for making something special for a friend or family member who is.
Gluten-free brioche is a great place to start. Brioche is the granddaddy of sweet enriched breads; it’s rich and tender (and deeply satisfying) because it’s laden with butter. The richness of butter and eggs provides gluten-free dough (which is typically dense) with some welcome softness. For this recipe, the hydration level is slightly lower than it would be for a wheat-flour dough. This is to ensure that the dough is easy to work with given that there is no gluten to contribute structure. Many of our tasters did not know this brioche was gluten-free—it’s that good.
Vollkornbrot is one of the hallmark breads of Germany. It is a type of brick-like bread that has rye integrated into the dough in many forms: a rye levain, cooked rye berries, rye flour, and cracked rye (as a soaker and in the preferment). All that cracked rye goes beyond being simple dough-enhancing inclusions to providing much of the bread’s structure—overall, the recipe uses only a small proportion of rye flour, just enough to help the dough coalesce.
Vollkornbrot is highly versatile and perfect for incorporating a variety of inclusions, offering endless creative possibilities. Our books feature Vollkornbrot variations including caramelized grain, nuts, and dried fruit; chocolate chunks and cocoa powder; and candied fruits.
While ring-shaped wheat breads have long existed in many parts of the world, the bagel has two main distinctions: it’s traditionally boiled and then baked, and it’s often associated with Jewish culture. Bagels have been around for centuries, their origins tracing back to Poland over 400 years ago. What began as a local specialty in Europe became a New York City staple by the 1950s and has since spread around the world.
The secret to the perfect bagel is a subject of heated discourse. After trying bagels from New York City to Seattle, we can tell you one thing: it’s not the water source; it’s the baker. One of our biggest breakthroughs was a starch slurry, which not only helps toppings stick but also makes it possible to use larger items, such as sunflower seeds or chopped nuts, that otherwise wouldn’t cling well.
Black raisins, cinnamon, and a cinnamon smear are swirled throughout this enriched bread to provide an irresistible and classic flavor combination. This bread is best when sliced and toasted to bring out its aromas and texture. We suggest using an offset spatula to spread the smear evenly and thinly onto the dough before shaping it—that way, the flavor distribution will be consistent, and there won’t be large gaps with no swirl in the baked loaf.
Some might believe you need a cherished heirloom starter passed down from your grandmother to make sourdough, but the truth is, all you need is flour, water, and a bit of patience. Crafting a sourdough starter, also known as a levain, at home is not only easy but also a fun and rewarding process that opens the door to baking delicious sourdough breads.
Why do we say that the pedigree of your sourdough starter isn’t important? Our answer is that a long-lived levain will almost certainly change in composition over time. Think of it like a city; a great city may be just as grand two centuries from now as it is today, but it will have different inhabitants—some descended from the original residents and others who will arrive later. Overall, the pedigree of your levain isn’t important. As long as the levain is fed on the same schedule and kept at about the same temperature and level of hydration, it will ripen and mature as expected.
We’ve found that the following flours work best for a sourdough starter: bread flour; all-purpose flour; light, medium, or dark rye flour; 100% whole wheat flour; or a combination of these. We don’t recommend using high-gluten flours (essentially anything with more than 11%–13% of protein), as they contain less starch—the source of the simple sugars yeast and lactic acid bacteria (LAB) feed on. Rye sourdough starters need an additional 20% water due to the thirsty nature of rye flour.
Regular feedings of your sourdough starter will progressively strengthen the lactic and acetic acid flavors, with the souring process leveling off after around 10 days. For a stronger metabolism and more depth of flavor, feed your sourdough starter twice a day.
If you’re looking to learn more about the sourdough starter—such as what feeding and caring looks like, top tips to keep your starter alive and thriving, and more—then check out our free online sourdough course at the Modernist Bread School.
Maintaining a sourdough starter, also known as a levain, involves commitment. You have to remember at the same time each day to remove a portion and add more flour and water. This routine can lead to a lot of waste unless you’re baking every day. Schedules can get in the way. Going on vacation or having a busy week often means neglecting your sourdough starter. Whether you’re off to explore new places or just swamped with work, maintaining your sourdough starter can become challenging. Missing a feeding can cause the sourdough starter to become inactive and change in composition, leading to a neglected starter that you feel is unusable.
But instead of throwing away that neglected starter, why not give it a second chance? With our Second Chance Sourdough recipe, you can transform leftover or inactive sourdough starter into delicious, flavorful bread.
This method captures that complex sourdough flavor using inactive sourdough starter, without the hassle and waste of daily feeding. The idea involves adding a small amount of commercial yeast to inert sourdough starter. The sourdough starter provides complex flavor, and the yeast makes the dough rise. Simply freeze portions of inert sourdough starter in a zip-top bag and defrost as needed (learn more freezing tips from our blog here). Then mix it into dough made with a little instant dry yeast.
This technique is also great if you want to make a big batch of sourdough starter and use it over time. Freezing active sourdough starter allows you to thaw and use portions as you would a regular sourdough starter for about 2 weeks. As storage time goes on and the thawed sourdough starter becomes less active, simply add 0.4% –0.5% commercial yeast to boost leavening power. To help protect the sourdough starter from the effects of cold, you can add a bit of glycerin before freezing. Think of this method as a way to minimize waste or as a rather spectacular form of instant sourdough flavoring. Second-chance sourdough is a way for you to enjoy the rich flavors of sourdough bread without the constant maintenance of your starter.
The Direct Farmer’s Bread is a great, time-saving recipe for beginner home bakers that can be made in a day.
Of the rye bread recipes that can be found in Modernist Cuisine at Home, this one has a lower rye flour percentage. The blend of wheat and rye offers the best of both flours: gluten provided by the wheat gives the bread structure and a more open crumb, while the rye offers flavor and a chewy texture. One twist that’s different from many breads is that the loaf is baked seam side up rather than down. This creates natural—if irregular—splits in the surface of the bread while baking. The splits act as a score on the bread, which is not only practical but also creates a beautiful, rustic-looking loaf.
Using commercial yeast is not only easier than relying on a preferment for the leavener but also a speedier option since the proofing time is significantly reduced. What you miss out on—what only time can contribute—is the depth and complexity of flavor that levain and prolonged proofing time offer. But to have a rustic loaf with this much character in a fraction of the original time is not a bad compromise.
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While ring-shaped wheat breads have long existed in many parts of the world, the bagel has two main distinctions: it’s traditionally boiled and then baked, and it’s often associated with Jewish culture. Bagels have been around for centuries, their origins tracing back to Poland over 400 years ago. What began as a local specialty in Europe became a New York City staple by the 1950s and has since spread around the world.
