The chef behind Gallo Blanco prepares a traditional Thanksgiving meal — with some twists

Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and you might be getting ready to stock your kitchen with all of the ingredients to make the turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce — the typical stuff.

Doug Robson, the chef and founder of Gallo Blanco Cafe, Otro Cafe and Tesota, has some tips. He joined The Show to talk all things Thanksgiving cooking.

Full conversation

DOUG ROBSON: I like to do a lot of baking around the holidays, so every year, I take on the baking aspect of it, as well as making the turkey and mashed potatoes. I mean, I pretty much do all of it. I enjoy the whole ensemble of it. But what I get fixated on is usually, you know, what goes with the turkey that is not the mashed potatoes and the green beans, but the breads and the, and the pastries.

LAUREN GILGER: Like rolls, things like that.

ROBSON: Oh, yeah, yeah. I do rolls. So I've been doing variations, you know, from an Irish soda bread to your traditional dinner rolls. This year, I'm gonna attempt something a little bit different that I've been working on. I've been laminating my own dough. So I'm basically gonna do some croissant rolls, but more in the style of, not a croissant, but you roll them like you would a cinnamon roll, and then you bake them in a cast iron skillet. So you have the flakiness and the buttery aspects of, you know, a croissant.

GILGER: I love that. Because if you think about bread and Thanksgiving, yes, it's all about the gravy and the use of the bread in the meal, right?

ROBSON: Oh, you gotta have a vehicle, right, for the gravy to get in your mouth. And you're not gonna use a spoon. We're much more civilized, so we'll just like, dunk it in bread and shove it in our mouths, you know.

GILGER: [LAUGHS] So you come from an interesting kind of culinary background. Your mother is French Vietnamese. You grew up in Mexico. You do sort of international food at Tesota, but you do Mexican food at some of your other restaurants. You're kind of known for that.

But I want to talk a little bit about how those culinary influences tend to manifest themselves in this very Americana meal on Thanksgiving. Do you tend to do a traditional Thanksgiving at home?

ROBSON: You know, it's just been recently that, you know, we've kind of made it a tradition to do turkey on Thanksgiving. Years before, we've done chayo spring rolls and pho. Like, we've made a turkey pho one year. It was really good. It was really good. But, you know, as all the kids are grown up and, you know, in the last couple years, we've settled to do a traditional Thanksgiving meal.

But I do a couple things, you know, like with my turkey stuffing. We usually use, you know, a variety of bread and croutons. And my stuffing mix is usually celery, onions, you know, lots of garlic — all the traditional stuff. The fresh herbs, like the thyme, little sage, fresh parsley.

But what I like to do is I actually use a little bit of soy sauce when I'm seasoning my stuffing, and I chop up water chestnuts, and I add water chestnuts to my stuffing. So when you eat this — in addition with the celery — when you eat it, you have this little crunch of texture of the water chestnuts. It's actually, you know, pretty darn tasty.

And you just reminded me I need to get my list going for Thanksgiving. Make sure we don't forget these ingredients.

GILGER: What made you want to go back to a traditional Thanksgiving meal after doing it differently in the past? That's interesting. Like, after the kids are gone, you're like, no, we're going to do it this way now.

ROBSON: Well, you know, the kids come home and because my brother lives out here, and my niece and nephew. And now because they're in their 20s, they bring their better halves. So it's kind of grown into, oh, wow ... there's going to be 16 of us at the table.

So I made a decision. Let's go traditional for Thanksgiving and allow ourselves like Christmas to be a little less traditional. And we'll either do our Vietnamese food or, you know, last year we did a prime rib. But we smoked the prime rib, and that was really good, too.

One of the things that I do with my turkey is I don't roast my whole turkey anymore. I do the spatchcock method. And I know that I said that, you know, my focus is the rolls. But I do that, you know, the whole ensemble. If you miss one part, you know, the whole thing crumbles on you.

GILGER: Well, and the turkey is obviously the center point of any Thanksgiving, so you don't do it traditionally, but it sounds like you get some better flavor out of that. ... What's your advice to home cooks who are all, you know, going to head to the kitchen and try and make this very important meal this year?

ROBSON: You know, one of the things that people really miss is the timing. If you're going to do a turkey, make sure you make room in your fridge the night before or two nights before, actually. Take your turkey out of the packaging, get yourself a rack where you can put that turkey on and let it air dry. Nine out of 10 times, if your skin's not crispy is because you either brined your turkey and didn't give it enough time to dry the skin. And that's just going to level up your game.

The other thing that I do, and this is something that my dad did growing up, I take a gin and I actually, you know, put some, some little garlic salt in there, a little chicken bouillon, to believe it or not, and I inject the turkey breast with it as much as I can.

And you know, when you cook it, the alcohol evaporates and you're just left with the, the botanical flavors of the juniper and you know, the little salt from the bouillon. And it gives just a well-rounded flavor. And it keeps the breast moist and it really comes out phenomenal.

GILGER: Oh, that sounds really good. Yeah. I want to ask you one final quick question before I let you go, because I think part of Thanksgiving is the meal and the cooking and the timing and all these kind of methods you're describing. But part of it's like the traditions, the nostalgia, the sort of ambiance.

What do you, what do you make of that? Like, what are your favorite parts of just sitting at that table with the family and, you know, participating in this big holiday every year?

ROBSON: Well, you know, it's, I think, for, for us, you know, building our own traditions. I obviously, you know, I came to the United States when I was young. And, you know, we never really built the Thanksgiving traditions that we have now. And so when you sit around the table and you're breaking bread with family and friends and you're really, you know, just sitting there and you're catching up with your whole family.

You're hearing about, you know, what Nick is doing, what Maddie's doing in school. I mean, at the end of the day, you know, we're making great memories with our family and eating some good food. And every year we look forward to it and it just keeps, keeps growing and growing.

Eventually, you know, I wouldn't mind having grandkids. Down the road I could just see generations of Robsons.

GILGER: Well, best of luck on that. I hope that that comes to fruition for you. That is chef Doug Robson, chef and founder of Gallo Blano Cafe, Otro Cafe and Tesota. Doug, thank you so much for coming back on The Show. I really appreciate it. And happy Thanksgiving.

ROBSON: You as well. Thanks for having me.

Arizona chef Doug Robson's croissant rolls recipe

Doug Robson

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Handout

Sponge

• Water (55 degrees F), 87 grams
• '00' flour or Oatman Farms Blue beard and white Sonoran wheat, 93 grams
• Active dry yeast, 1 gram

Mix the three ingredients in a 2 quart bowl. Ferment for 12 hours between 60-70 degrees F.

Dough

In a mixer with a dough hook, mix:

• Sponge mixture
• Water 55 degrees F, 183 grams
• Honey, 1 gram
• Instant yeast, 1 gram
• Bread flour, 106 grams
• Oatman Farms Blue beard and white Sonoran wheat, 237 grams
• Salt, 11 grams
• Olive oil, 11 grams

Mix until dough is smooth and comes of the bowl, about 10 to 12 minutes. Refrigerate for three hours covered. Add olive oil to the bowl you are storing the dough in.

After initial proofing

Butter 12 oz, or 3 sticks. Cut lengthwise into three even pieces, total of nine pieces. Keep refrigerated until later step.

1. Place cold butter between parchment.
2. Pound/roll into a thin square (about ¼–½ inch thick).
3. Chill until firm but pliable — it should bend without cracking.

Next:

1. Roll dough into a rectangle twice the size of the butter block.
2. Place butter in the center.
3. Fold dough over like an envelope to completely seal the butter.

Next:

• Roll dough into a long rectangle.
• Fold in thirds (like a letter).
• Chill 20–30 minutes.

One letter + one book fold (or two book folds). Chill between each fold so the butter stays solid.

1. Roll dough to your final thickness (⅛–¼ inch).
2. Chill again before cutting/shaping — this keeps layers sharp.

Cut into rolls, place in a buttered pan. Proof for one to two hours. Allow the rolls to double in size.

Egg wash and bake at 375-400 degrees F until golden brown, about 12 to 15 minutes. Turn temperature down to 300 degrees F for an additional 7 to 10 minutes.

Cool and serve.