Christmas
1676 recipes found
Herb Mayonnaise (Sauce fines herbes)
Roast Chicken Vermentino
This rich, delicious roast uses the broth from rehydrated mushrooms for extra flavor. Porcinis aren’t a necessity, but pick some up if you can. You’ll be glad you did. Pair this with a nice salad and the leftover wine for an excellent evening.
Tourtière
This savory French-Canadian meat pie combines ground pork and warm spices with chunks of braised pork shoulder and shreds of chicken or turkey. But you could make it with leftover brisket, with venison, with smoked goose or ham. Traditionally it is served with relish or tart, fruity ketchup — I like this recipe for cranberry ketchup best, though I use a splash of fresh orange juice instead of the concentrate it calls for. “I’ve never had a slice of tourtière and spoonful of ketchup and not liked it,” David McMillan, the bearish chef and an owner of Joe Beef in the Little Burgundy section of Montreal, told me. “I especially love a tourtière made by someone who can’t really cook.”
Pralines
This deeply Southern and unapologetically sweet candy recipe came to the Times by way of Julia Reed in an article about making edible holiday gifts. Her friend, Mary Cooper “can do anything: she canes chairs, she's an excellent gardener, she even makes her own cheese. And at Christmas she always makes me the best pecan pralines I have ever tasted.” Ms. Cooper was kind enough to share her recipe with Ms. Reed who, in turn, shared it with us. As you spoon the warm praline mixture onto the parchment paper, work quickly. It dries in a snap. Some have been known to sprinkle the tops of the wet pralines with flaky sea salt before they harden.
Piquant Sauce For Smoked Fish
Spinach Lasagna With Fennel Sausage
Making lasagna from scratch, including the pasta, is a time-consuming project that is absolutely worth the effort, especially for a holiday dinner. If you have a friend to help you in the kitchen, so much the better; or, spread the work over a couple of days. Of course, you may use store-bought fresh or dried lasagna noodles instead of making the pasta yourself, or use a favorite tomato sauce recipe of your own. This lasagna is delicate and rich, best served in small portions.
Cauliflower With Oyster Mushrooms and Sherry
This dish of cauliflower and oyster mushrooms in sherry and cream is pan-simmered, though the cauliflower is blanched beforehand in highly salted water to keep it crisp. The addition of sherry to the cream sauce keeps it from being bland, and the mushrooms are seared for a bit of chew.
Ricotta and Tomato Spread
Poached Dried Apricots In White Wine
Morning Bread Pudding
This special occasion breakfast dish is like a cross between a tarte Tatin and a moist, delicate bread pudding. You have to plan ahead – it needs to sit in the refrigerator overnight – and it requires the preparation of a simple caramel sauce, but it's absolutely, 100% worth the effort. Once the sauce is done, swirl it around the bottom of a pie pan, fill it with slices of challah, then saturate it with a slurry of eggs, sugar, mascarpone cheese, milk and a dash of almond extract. Let it rest overnight, bake and invert on a platter. Serve with a dollop of mascarpone or fromage blanc to cut the sweetness.
Chicken Liver on Toast
Back in 2012, Sam Sifton and Mark Bittman put together a feast for 15. The trick? Get it done in eight hours. Lobster and chopped salad, soubise and root vegetables, and a roasted chicken were all on the menu. And so was this recipe for chicken liver on toast. It may not have been the star of the show that night, but it served a critical purpose: keeping appetites satisfied in the lead-up to the meal. It can be an appetizer, or, paired with a salad, an exemplary light lunch or dinner.
Kumquat and Chocolate Yule Log
This festive dessert is an absolute showstopper — and its striking results outweigh the effort. We've updated the traditional bûche de Noël with more adventurous flavors, taking a coffee-scented chocolate cake base, layering it with a date-studded mascarpone cream and a bright kumquat marmalade, and crowning it with dramatic caramel shards, meringue spikes and candied citrus. If you can’t find kumquats, you can use tangerines — and if you're short on time, you can even use a good quality store-bought marmalade instead. The cake can be assembled up to 8 hours ahead, but hold off on trimming it with the toppings until you're ready to serve. You’ll also have extra meringue mixture because that is what is needed in the bowl to be able to whip to stiff peaks. Don’t waste the remaining mixture: Pipe it into small kisses and bake at 200 degrees Fahrenheit/95 degrees Celsius until dry on the outside and slightly chewy inside, about 1 hour.
Rosemary Pine-Nut Biscotti
Warm Hummus
In this comforting Turkish version of hummus the chickpea purée is warmed in the oven and topped with pine nuts. In the authentic version, a generous amount of melted butter would be drizzled over the top before baking. I have substituted a moderate amount of olive oil for the butter.
Seeded Molasses Whole-Wheat Dinner Rolls
Dinner rolls don’t have to be white and fluffy. These flavorful brown-bread rolls are chock full of a variety of tasty seeds and are sweetened with a touch of molasses. The dough resembles a whole-wheat challah, with a crisp crust and a light texture.
Boiled Merry
Sea Scallop Salad with Meyer Lemon and Pomegranate
Venison and Trotter Pie
This lavish, British-style meat pie is a delicious, time-consuming project. It comes together over many hours, layering the flavors and textures of many different meats, and seals it all in a buttery homemade dough. The recipe belongs to the chef Angie Mar of the Beatrice Inn in New York, who makes the pie at her restaurant in smaller ramekins, so that each person gets her own marrow bone. This family-style version serves several people, but a single bone works beautifully: As the pie bakes in the oven, most of the marrow melts out, bubbling into the sauce, making it even richer. The pie filling, made from potatoes and venison braised in trotter stock, is thickened with a little flour, but it should be slightly loose when you're putting the pie together. The crust requires suet, and though you could make it all-butter if you wanted to, it seems that if you've come this far, and located the marrow bone, the trotters and the venison meat, you may as well go all the way. The finished pie is certainly worth it.
Wassail
Here is the the beauty of wassail: more than just another nice-tasting drink, it’s part of a long (if largely forgotten) tradition of celebrating the life that winter can seem determined to snuff out. It’s a fragrant, warming concoction mixed in bulk (this recipe makes 12 servings) and set out for sharing, all but demanding that you call in a crowd. There’s really no such thing as wassail for one. A punch bowl is good for this, although you can also ladle it into individual cups. (The New York Times)
Gâteau Breton
With its soft, buttery crumb, this classic French cake is similar to a giant shortbread, though moister and more tender. Its hidden prune filling is traditional, although you can use other dried fruit, such as apricot, instead. In France you sometimes even see bakers sandwiching melted chocolate or caramel between the layers. This keeps well if you want to bake it 1 or 2 days ahead. Store it well wrapped at room temperature.
Tabard Cocktail
A tequila, sherry and Drambuie concoction with orange bitters and a garnish of orange peel and thyme.
Arancini With Brandy-Soaked Raisins
These Italian fried rice balls have a surprise filling of brandy-soaked raisins, which gives them a gentle sweetness that contrasts with the savory fontina and mozzarella cheeses. You can make the rice mixture up to a day ahead, and form the balls up to four hours ahead. Then fry just before serving so the cheese is warm enough to gush when you bite in.
Microwave Saffron Turkish Delight
Vanilla Bean Spritz Cookies
Delicate, buttery and festooned with colored sugar or sprinkles, spritz cookies are a holiday staple. You can make excellent ones without any special items like the vanilla bean paste and cultured butter called for here. But those ingredients will make your cookies even more delicious. You can leave them tasting purely of vanilla, or add another optional flavoring, such as citrus zest, cinnamon or cardamom, or almond extract. These fragile cookies don’t ship well on their own, but you can increase their stability by turning them into sandwich cookies, filled with chocolate, Nutella, or thick jam.