New Year’s Day
363 recipes found
Cacio e Pepe Cheese Puffs
Ina Garten’s 12th cookbook, “Modern Comfort Food,” was published in October 2020. As always, she seemed to have her finger on the culinary zeitgeist: Comfort was the order of the day. These puffs, which she adapted from the Brooklyn chef Missy Robbins, combine the richness of classic gougères with the bite of black pepper and Parmesan.
Uncle Glenn’s Onaga (Steamed Red Snapper With Somen)
In Hawaii, onaga is the most prized kind of snapper and the centerpiece of festive meals. Glenn Yamashita steams the whole fish, Chinese-style, with a sour-salty stuffing, a topping of preserved vegetables and a tumble of aromatics. Two of the ingredients are readily available in Hawaii but may require more of a search elsewhere: chung choi, salted turnip wrapped in its own leaves — pickled mustard greens are a fine substitute — and scallop powder, which can be approximated with fish sauce. Skeins of Japanese somen noodles are tucked beneath the fish and hot oil poured over at the end. Done right, it crackles.
Roasted Salmon With Miso Cream
A whole fillet of salmon cut from one side of a fish looks spectacular but takes only a little longer to cook than smaller portions. Crème fraîche spread all over the fish keeps it moist as it roasts and adds a savory richness when a dollop of miso is stirred into the mix. That same pair is gently warmed into a sauce that’s finished with tart citrus juice so that it tastes both creamy and light. This can be served simply with salad and bread or be offered with other vegetables, like potatoes, asparagus or brussels sprouts.
Paris-Brest
Named for a bicycle race that runs between Paris and Brest, France, this show-stopping dessert is an assemblage of praline-flavored mousseline piped inside a ring of pâte à choux designed to resemble a bike wheel. The recipe might appear daunting, but all of the components can be prepared separately and in advance, so assembly isn’t a monumental effort.
Brown Sugar Roulade With Burnt Honey Apples
If the flavors of winter could be rolled into one, then this meringue roulade would be the result: Warming cinnamon, burnt honey, sweet apples and tangy orange come together to make a dessert fit for the festive season. Make sure all your individual components have completely cooled before assembling, as you don’t want to create any excess moisture in the roulade. Get ahead by making the apples and cream the day before, then keeping them refrigerated until needed. Feel free to make this roulade your own by swapping out pears for apples, cardamom for cinnamon or more whipping cream for mascarpone. So long as you stick to the basic technique, the flavors are yours to play with.
Buttermilk-Brined Roast Turkey
With only two ingredients — buttermilk and salt — this might be the least complicated turkey brine recipe ever. The trickiest step will be pulling out your kitchen scale to weigh out the salt, but it's worth doing if you can to ensure a properly seasoned turkey. The acid in the buttermilk leads to moist, tender meat throughout, while the sugars result in a gorgeous golden-brown skin. This turkey is spatchcocked, which might sound like a lot, but it’s just another way to simplify the recipe: By removing the backbone before brining, you’ll be able to fit the turkey, placed in a 2-gallon plastic resealable bag, in the fridge more easily. And you’ll get a lot more of that beautiful lacquered skin in about half the cooking time. It’s a total win-win situation. Just make sure you don’t skimp on the brining time; 48 hours is essential to make sure the bird gets seasoned through and through. (Watch the video of Samin Nosrat preparing the turkey here.)
Buttermilk-Brined Turkey Breast
The proven alchemy of a salt-and-buttermilk brine does wonders for the often-dry roast turkey breast. The recipe is so easy, the trickiest step will be pulling out your kitchen scale to weigh out the salt. But it's worth doing if you can in order to ensure a properly balanced brine. Emerging from the oven with a beautiful lacquered skin and an incredibly moist and tender texture within, this roast is ideal for a scaled-down Thanksgiving meal, a cozy family dinner or to generate a stack of unbelievably tasty sandwiches.
Flourless Beet Brownies
Despite being flourless, these beet brownies bridge the gap between fudgy and cakey, offering the best of both worlds. Raw beets make the brownies dense and moist, helping them stay luscious and soft long after they’ve finished baking. Though the beets bring their own natural sweetness, pulsing the chopped raw beets in a food processor with some additional granulated sugar breaks down the hard root into a vibrant red base. In fact, the food processor does most of the work in this recipe. Baked until just cooked through, the resulting brownies are rich, subtly sweet and deeply chocolatey. If you prefer your brownies a little sweeter, sub the bittersweet chocolate baking chips for semi-sweet baking chips. You can top them with a little flaky sea salt out of the oven. Serve them warm with ice cream for dessert or at room temperature with a cup of coffee in the morning.
Lobster Mac and Cheese
This recipe for lobster mac and cheese, a variation on a classic plain recipe that Julia Moskin published in The Times, is a rich and shockingly flavorful addition to any feast, and requires only a single lobster to serve six or eight. Or try serving it as a main course for a weeknight dinner.
Earl Grey Tea Cake With Dark Chocolate and Orange Zest
Loose Earl Grey tea stirred into buttery cake batter adds a sweet, floral essence that’s subtle but lovely. A little dark chocolate and orange zest makes this cake extra special. While you could use chocolate chips, using chocolate chopped from a bar produces the best result: The varying sizes of chopped chocolate blend in nicely without overpowering the delicate tea flavor.
Cinnamon Toast Popcorn
This snackable pile of lightly sweetened popcorn is reminiscent of buttery cinnamon toast and the perfect treat for two or four (or one!). You can easily make another batch to serve a crowd. Popcorn is coated in syrup and toasted in a pot to create a shell of caramelized sugar that’s dusted with cinnamon. Five minutes out of the pot, the popcorn cools to a soft crispness, but if you bake it for just 10 minutes, the popped kernels dry all the way through and become crunchy to their core. This treat is delicious on its own or as part of a dessert board with gingerbread biscotti, iced oatmeal cookies or any other cookies of your choice.
Vegetarian Mushroom Wellington
Classic beef Wellington is a technical feat in which a tenderloin is topped with foie gras or mushroom duxelles, then wrapped in puff pastry and baked. This vegetarian version is less exacting yet just as impressive. Seared portobello mushrooms are layered with apple cider-caramelized onions and sautéed mushrooms, which are seasoned with soy sauce for flavor and bolstered with walnuts for texture. The rich mushroom filling is vegan, and the entire dish can easily be made vegan, too. Swap in vegan puff pastry, a butter substitute in the port reduction and caramelized onions, and an egg substitute for brushing the puff pastry. You can assemble and refrigerate the dish up to 1 day before baking it. Prepare the port reduction as the Wellington bakes, or skip it entirely and serve with cranberry sauce for a touch of tangy sweetness.
Mushroom-Butternut Squash Strata
This golden-topped strata has a savory mushroom and butternut squash filling, which gives it a complex, earthy flavor. Mozzarella adds mild richness, while the Parmesan gives everything a hit of salt and depth. You’ll need to let the strata sit in the fridge for at least eight hours (and preferably overnight) before baking. This allows the bread to soak up all the custard. Then, run it under the broiler after baking so the edges become crunchy and pleasingly singed. It’s a lovely main dish for a celebratory brunch or meatless supper, or a hearty side dish with roast chicken or fish for dinner.
Raisin Cinnamon Roll Wreath
Perfume the house and decorate the table with this whimsical wreath made of buttery, sweet cinnamon rolls. Arranging the rolls into a ring makes it easy to tear away individual servings. The extra protein in bread flour yields a sturdier dough that’s easier to shape, but all-purpose flour works too. If you assemble these a day ahead and refrigerate them overnight before baking them the next morning, be sure to let the rolls rise three-quarters of the way before placing them in the fridge. A few hours before baking, allow them to come to room temperature on the counter. Have fun, and complete the wreath decoration with dehydrated orange wheels, cinnamon sticks, sugar-dusted cranberries or even a red ribbon bow.
Roasted Halibut With Mussel Butter Sauce
This is a stunning seafood main course that needs only a side dish, such as braised fennel or orzo salad, and some crusty bread served alongside for a delicious dinner party. Halibut is a mild yet buttery and rich fish with firm, meaty flesh. Here, the fish is wrapped in seaweed, which imparts subtle sea flavor and keeps the fish tender and juicy while it roasts. Mussels are steamed open in a bath of clam juice and kelp broth, releasing their flavorful juices into the liquid, which becomes a silky sauce. Earthy saffron adds depth and beautiful color, and just enough butter and cream round out the sauce without making it too heavy. For a festive presentation, top the fish with vibrant salmon roe, which look like jewels and offer pops of brininess.
Glazed Ham
This is the ham that led directly to whatever childhood memory caused someone to combine ham and pineapple on a pizza. The sweet, slightly fiery and herbaceous crust on this salty haunch practically calls out for a garnish of caramelized pineapple, if not a spray of maraschino cherries. Others may reverse course and apply mustard. Either way, it is good to serve with a nutty wild rice or potatoes au grain, something with backbone.
Ginger Mango Cream Tart
Festive enough for a holiday party or a summer cookout, this bright and creamy mango tart has a crisp gingersnap crust and is topped with candied ginger, pistachios and toasted coconut. The no-bake crust, which is made from store bought gingersnaps, butter and light brown sugar, comes together in the food processor with the press of a button. For the filling, fresh or frozen mango is cooked with ginger and turmeric to deepen its flavor and brighten the color of the finished dessert.
Party Wreath
This party-size vegetarian version of a sausage roll takes a bit of inspiration from potato- and pea-filled samosas: The filling is a coarse mash of peas and potato mixed with fresh ginger and green chiles, along with cumin, fennel and sesame seeds. Seasoned with lemon juice and garam masala, it has a tangy, gently spicy flavor that’s even more sumptuous when it’s wrapped in buttery store-bought puff pastry. Be sure to cut the roll almost all the way to the inner edge before sliding it into the oven, so that the baked pieces are easy to tear away. Serve with green chutney, tamarind chutney, a squirt of Maggi ketchup, or just as is, with a few wedges of lemon or lime on the side.
Chestnut Risotto
Chestnuts fried in olive oil taste like soft, meaty nuggets of holiday cheer when stirred into creamy rice. A big pot of risotto is always a good time, especially when it’s the centerpiece of a D.I.Y. toppings bar. Roasted mushrooms and onions, quick-pickled celery, sour cream and dill can be offered as crispy, crunchy, salty and creamy toppings to go with the savory risotto. Risotto tastes best when made fresh, but you can — and should — prepare the toppings ahead of time, storing them in the refrigerator up to a day or two in advance, then cook the risotto just before your guests arrive.
Croque-Monsieur Breakfast Casserole
This French classic needs little introduction, but if you haven’t had it in baked form, you’re in for a treat. Think upscale ham sandwiches drenched in egg custard and cheese, melted to a deep golden-brown. There are no tricks here, save for the addition of two extra yolks for maximum French-toast tenderness. Serve it warm, or at room temperature — a fitting breakfast feast that's welcome any time of the day.
Crustless Egg and Cheese Quiche
If you love quiche, get to know this crustless version, dotted with cheese, mushrooms and herbs (and no fussy pastry to chill or roll). Once you master the perfect dairy-to-egg ratio, you’ll find this recipe to be as much of an ally to the Friday fridge clean-out as it is to a brunch for friends. Pay close attention to the baking time: The center should be a touch wiggly when you remove the quiche from the oven. The end result is a quivering, spoonable custard that melts in your mouth, to be served with a bracing salad. Crisp greens with mustardy vinaigrette, or a citrus laced endive and radicchio number — anything in that vein will do.
Coffee and Cream Coffee Cake
In most classic coffee cakes, cinnamon plays a starring role, but this recipe puts coffee flavor front and center thanks to the addition of brewed coffee and espresso powder (or instant espresso). Espresso powder adds strong flavor, and it’s fine enough to dissolve completely so you don’t get any crunchy bits. A ribbon of cream cheese runs through the center of the cake, complementing the coffee flavor like a splash of cream in a cup of coffee.
Cacio e Pepe Frico
A delicate cracker made by baking mounds of grated cheese into weblike crisps, frico could feature a number of cheeses, be it Montasio, cheddar, Asiago or, in this case, the kinds featured in cacio e pepe. Using both Parmesan and pecorino gives a good mix of richness and tang, though you could just use Parmesan. (Pecorino on its own may be too salty once it concentrates in the oven.) Snack on these with wine or spritzes, or crumble them over pasta, salad, soup or anything that likes a grating of cheese.
Hoppin' John
In her cookbook, “Jubilee: Recipes from Two Centuries of African American Cooking,” Toni Tipton-Martin writes about the Carolina lowcountry tradition of the dish Hoppin’ John, as recorded in the “Penn School & Sea Islands Heritage Cookbook.” The dish was described as brown field peas cooked with rice to be eaten for good luck throughout the year. In African American communities, the tradition of eating rice and cowpeas dates to a celebration on Dec. 31, 1862, Freedom’s Eve. On that day, enslaved Africans congregated in churches in the south, eager to hear the news that the Emancipation Proclamation had set them free. The tradition of eating peas and rice for the new year is now deeply held across cultures throughout the United States and ties to centuries-old folklore that might just lead to better health, prosperity and maybe, just maybe, a bit more luck.