Thanksgiving meals are the marathon of the food world. It takes days, even weeks, of planning and multiple steps to prepare the plethora of dishes that hit the holiday table. Some folks even do a practice run.

By the end of Thanksgiving, exhausted cooks embody the spirit of the holiday: They’re thankful — thankful it’s all over. Even champion eaters feel the strain of the day. Many a belt is loosened, many a drowsy diner nods off during post-meal socializing.

So it’s natural that jook is part of our post-Thanksgiving tradition. Not only does the dish provide a use for the turkey scraps and carcass, but it’s also easily prepared and a welcome comfort food in the aftermath of massive consumption.

Chinese jook is Hawaii’s favored preparation of the congee, or rice gruel. Virtually every Asian culture has its own version. Chinese jook usually starts with a pork or poultry stock to which rice is added and cooked until it is softened to varying degrees and the liquid thickened to varying consistencies. An array of condiments, from lettuce strips and cilantro to Chinese preserved egg and peanuts, are usually put out for diners to customize their own bowls.

Stock ingredients vary, though most utilize turkey, chicken or ham bones. Some use a combination. But today’s busy cooks often turn to canned chicken broth or bouillon cubes to flavor their broth. Some use a combination of homemade stock boosted with broth or bouillon flavoring.

Add-in stock ingredients vary according to family traditions and personal preferences. Some believe every pot of jook stock must include chung choy, or preserved turnip, for instance, while others don’t include it at all.

Ginger root, another common ingredient, adds a depth of flavor to the broth, according to Laura Baker, who grew up on grandmother Mary Sia’s Chinese cooking. Sia is the author of the iconic "Classic Chinese Cookbook," published in Hawaii in 1956. (A fourth edition of Sia’s tome was released this year by University of Hawaii Press.)

But "every family has their own way; there’s no right or wrong way," said the Manoa resident, who continues to use her grandma’s cookbook today.

Avid cook Lynette Lo Tom agrees.

"It’s so personal," said Tom, who lives in Aina­koa. "My family likes to be adventurous, so we use tripe and innards. The old, old style was to use roasted pig head and feet, strictly for the broth, but we don’t do that."

Today, Tom says her family’s "secret weapon" is winter melon. Cooked until it’s dissolved in the stock, the melon provides a distinctive dimension to the flavor. When the stock is finished, bones and other ingredients are usually strained out, meat is picked off the bones, then raw rice added to cook in the flavorful liquid.

But Maunawili resident Gladys Heu, who’s been making jook for decades, doesn’t always remove the turkey carcass when she adds rice to the pot.

"If you want more flavor, leave it in. But you have to pick out the bones before you serve," she said.

As for the ratio of rice to stock, it’s all about preference. Some use a 1-to-6 ratio, while others prefer much more liquid, at a ratio of about 1-to-12.

Heu says she was taught to soak washed rice in water with salt and oil for about 15 minutes so that when the grains crack while cooking, "they open up like the petals of a flower."

"I don’t know if that’s true, but I do it anyway," she said.

Heu makes her jook with foo jook (dried bean curd) and peanuts cooked in the pot. Chunks of chung choy are used as a seasoning base for the broth, though Heu says it can be excluded if the sodium intake is a concern. "Chop it up small and use it as a topping instead."

Her tip: Be watchful while the rice cooks. If the heat is too high, the rice could scorch. Simmer it on low.

Kailua resident Kathleen Frei­tas, 34, who, like Baker, grew up on a Chinese grandmother’s cuisine, uses a slow-cooker to make a stripped-down Westernized version of jook that utilizes the carcass of a Costco rotisserie chicken.

Freitas adds aromatics — onion, celery, carrot and bay leaf — to the crock and cooks up a broth overnight. She said she learned the method from "Barefoot Contessa" TV chef Ina Garten.

The next day she strains the broth and picks the meat off the chicken bones, then chops up carrots and adds them to the stock with the rice. After about 40 minutes of simmering, and a dash of kosher salt if necessary, she has a "superthick" jook with rice that melts on the tongue.

Toppings?

"If I have Manoa lettuce, I’ll put some on top. But nothing else. I like mine plain, just like that," she said.

The jook is a win for Frei­tas in numerous ways.

First, it’s an easy dish to feed both infants and the rest of the family.

"I’ve had jook my whole life, but I didn’t like it as a kid," she said. It was when she started cooking it for her son when he was a baby that she came up with a version that suited her.

Then there’s the economy of deriving two meals out of "a $5 chicken" — roast chicken one night, jook the next.

"I can stretch my dollar and I use everything. There’s no waste," Freitas said.

Finally, "it’s hearty, filling and comforting. It’s one of my favorite comfort foods."