Thanksgiving
2220 recipes found
Rotkraut
This recipe for rotkraut, a tart dish of pickled red cabbage simmered with warm spices in a dry red wine, came to The Times from Debbie Himmler of Cincinnati. The dish, a nod to her grandparents’ German heritage, makes regular appearances on her family’s Thanksgiving table, but can be served year round. It’s best prepared a day or two ahead, and also freezes well — a real boon if you’re planning a big meal. Just reheat it in a covered saucepan on the stove the day you plan to serve it.
Turkey Silog (Garlic Fried Rice With Eggs)
Silog, rice bathed in lots of garlic and crowned with a runny egg, is a hearty and essential part of any Filipino breakfast, and it comes together very quickly. For Chad and Chase Valencia, brothers and owners of the Filipino restaurant Lasa, in Los Angeles, the best time to make silog is the morning after Thanksgiving, when they top it with seared leftover turkey (or ham), and gravy to moisten the bits of rice. You're going to have to plan ahead for this recipe, as it’s best made with day-old rice; freshly made rice won't get as crisp in the pan. And don't be intimidated by the amount of garlic here — it all mellows out, while still providing a potent punch. Chad notes that this dish will work in almost any nonstick pan, except for a steel or aluminum-bottomed pan; you could even use a well-seasoned cast-iron pan or wok.
Bread-and-Butter Pickles
For these pickles, I spiced up classic, sweet bread-and-butter slices with allspice and coriander. Generally, the smaller the cucumbers, the more crisp the pickles will be. I used very small Kirby cucumbers, and a month later mine still crunch with each bite.
Curried Goat
Hazel Craig, the mother of the pastry chef Jessica Craig, prepares this hearty, spicy dish from her native Jamaica with her homemade curry powder blend. It’s worth making to maximize the dish’s depth and complexity, and the recipe here makes extra (which can be used in any kind of stew or braise). Hazel insists that the best way to prepare goat is not to brown the meat first, but to cook everything all at once in the same pot. “When you heat everything up together,” she said, all the flavor “gets locked in there.”
Puritan Pudding
A mass of cornmeal, milk and molasses, baked for hours, this dessert was born of the Puritans’ nostalgia for British hasty pudding and their adaptation to the ground-corn porridges of their Native American neighbors. (Early settlers called it Indian pudding.) Originally served as a first course, it grew sweeter (but not too sweet; Puritanism runs deep) and migrated to the end of supper. For a proper historical re-enactment of the dish, you need meal stone-ground from Rhode Island whitecap flint corn, a hard, tough-to-crack corn, less sweet but more buttery than hybrid strains. One of the oldest incarnations of the plant, it was cultivated by the local Narragansett and saved from extinction by a few equally flinty Rhode Island farmers. This recipe comes from George Crowther, owner and chef of the Yankee diner Commons Lunch, which has stood on the town square of Little Compton, R.I., since 1966.
Filipino-Style Breakfast Sandwiches
Breakfast is hugely important in Filipino culture, a legacy of the country’s rich agricultural past, when farmworkers ate large morning meals to get through the day. Accordingly, the morning after Thanksgiving, the brothers Chad and Chase Valencia — who own the Filipino restaurant Lasa in Los Angeles's Chinatown — make breakfast sandwiches for their family out of leftover asado (a salty-sour pork dish), ham or turkey. The sandwiches are endlessly customizable: Chase mixes the asado and its accompanying sauce into the eggs, like a scramble, to become the base of the sandwich, while Chad crowns his with a fried egg. But the constants are the queso de bola, a nutty Filipino cheese (similar to Edam cheese) served during the holidays that melts elegantly atop the meat, and pan de sal, a slightly squishy, yeasted roll whose sweetness stands up to all the savory components of the sandwich. Both the cheese and the pan de sal are readily available at many Asian grocery stores, and well worth getting to make superior sandwiches.
Marinated Venison Steaks
“Thanksgiving here is about hunting rather than football,” said Errol Rice of the Montana Stockgrowers Association. The season for hunting big game comes to a close in the last, best place on the Thanksgiving weekend, and those who have not yet bagged a buck are known, said Dennis Konopatzke, the proprietor of Great Northern Brewing Company in Whitefish, to rush their holiday dinners in order to get out to the woods to hunt. You’ll find huckleberries on Thanksgiving tables in Montana, Mr. Konopatzke added, or the Norwegian cured fish known as lutefisk, or pork pies and stuffed pasties, all nods to the state’s history of settlers from afar. But game is the game. What follows is a recipe honed over the years by the members of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation for a marinade that works on wild venison perfectly and most other proteins as well. Broil some steaks and pair the result with traditional Thanksgiving side dishes.
Saffron Pistachio Blondies
Saffron and pistachio, a combination known to many on the Indian subcontinent as kesar pista, is a classic flavoring in South Asian, Iranian and other desserts — and for good reason. The buttery richness of pistachios brings out the floral flavor in saffron. Kesar pista shines in other sweets like this nutty twist on a blondie. Seth Byrum, my partner and an avid home baker, suggested enriching the base with white chocolate, which feels reminiscent of khoya, the richly flavored milk solids in several South Asian confections. The radiantly golden frosting lets the saffron do the talking. Garnish the top with pistachios to mimic the top of more traditional South Asian sweets, like shrikhand.
Indian-ish Baked Potatoes
Of all the places my mom, who lives in Dallas, has traveled for work, her favorite will always be London — the cobblestone streets, the limitless sights, the walkability and, most important, the pubs. She spent a lot of time in pubs on early '90s London business trips, and the only vegetarian dish was very often a baked potato. This is where she discovered the ingenuity of filling a soft, steamy potato with all kinds of tasty toppings that absorb nicely into the starchy flesh. In this recipe, she subs out the big potato for smaller, thin-skinned ones (for a prettier presentation), and the bacon bits, chives and packaged cheese for spicier, brighter toppings: chiles, chaat masala, onions and ginger. This dish takes almost no time to put together once the potatoes are baked, but looks very impressive as an appetizer or a small side. Tip: Cut the ginger, onion and chiles while the potatoes bake, so everything is ready for assembly.
Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie
This spin on an icebox pie, with its chocolaty press-in graham cracker crust and airy no-bake peanut butter filling, comes with a sheen of fudgy glaze. A splash of coffee accentuates the dark side of the bittersweet chocolate, and salted peanuts scattered on top add crunch. As fun as a candy bar and as creamy as a cheesecake, this layered dessert looks and feels special but is simple enough for anyone to pull together. And it’s even easier to serve: The whole thing can be refrigerated for up to 3 days.
Grilled Oysters With Harissa-Parmesan Butter
At Cristiano Ristorante in Houma, La., the chef Lindsay Mason ladles a buttery mixture of roasted red peppers, garlic and Parmesan into grilled oysters. This version replaces the roasted peppers with North African harissa, offering the same sweet-savory combination, but with a bit more kick. For more grilled oyster flavor combinations, try this recipe for Grilled Oysters With Lemony Garlic-Herb Butter or this recipe for Grilled Oysters With Buttery Soy-Sake Glaze. The flavored butter can be stored in the refrigerator for several weeks or in the freezer for several months.
Grapefruit-Herb Salad With Coconut and Crispy Shallots
This grapefruit and herb salad puts citrus front and center. It’s based on yum som-o, a pomelo salad from Thailand, where the fruit is abundant. Grapefruits are used here, but if you happen on pomelos, grab a few: They are much easier to peel and loosen from the protective piths. Fragrant toasted coconut, salty peanuts and crunchy shallots all create layers of texture. The dried shrimp adds a saltiness that greets your tongue in little bursts, and the fresh chile a lingering spice. This is a refreshing, vibrant side to accompany any rich meal.
Grilled Oysters With Lemony Garlic-Herb Butter
Garlic, lemon, herbs and butter form a classic European pairing that is perfectly at home spooned into a hot grilled oyster, but if that’s not your style, try out these recipes for Buttery Soy-Sake Glaze or Harissa-Parmesan Butter — or, better yet, make all three. Any leftover flavored butter and sauces are excellent melted over grilled vegetables, such as asparagus or zucchini, or over grilled chicken, fish or even steak, and they can be stored in the refrigerator for several weeks or in the freezer for several months. When shopping for oysters, look for specimens with deeply cupped bottom shells in order to help retain their natural liquor and provide ample space for the flavored butter.
Best Thanksgiving Leftovers Sandwich
The sandwich you make with all the prized leftovers the day after Thanksgiving might be even better than the main event. Assembling this leftover Thanksgiving sandwich is easy, but the details matter. The white and dark turkey meat each get special love and attention: The breast is warmed in butter, while the dark meat is shredded, then warmed in gravy. This club ditches the usual third slice of bread for a slab of crisp, fried stuffing instead. When heating the stuffing, make sure your pan is good and hot so the stuffing fries up fast without falling apart in the skillet. A generous swipe of cranberry mayo brings the whole thing together.
Smoky Stir-Fried Greens
Wok hei, or the “breath of a wok,” is the elusive smokiness found in restaurant-style dishes that rely on high-powered burners and a skilled hand to achieve it. To create a similar flavor at home, I rely on a hand-held blowtorch, which I use here for simple stir-fried greens. I recommend using either a butane canister with a high-output torch head or a propane canister with a trigger-start head. If you do not have a wok, a heavy cast-iron or stainless-steel skillet can be used instead.
Duchess-Style Twice-Baked Potatoes
Unlike American-style twice-baked potatoes, which are laden with cheese and sour cream, these potatoes, inspired by the French dish pommes duchesse, get their richness primarily from egg yolks. While you can scoop the filling back into the skins with a spoon, piping it with a star-tipped pastry bag makes the potatoes especially fancy.
Hot and Numbing Stir-Fried New Potatoes
These stir-fried potatoes are inspired by a modern street snack served in Xi’an, China. They can be parboiled in advance, require only a few minutes of stir-frying in a wok before serving, and can be flavored with a wide range of spices and aromatics, making them an ideal side dish for any menu, simple or complex. In addition to the Xi’an-style original with hot and numbing spices, you can also make a curry-spiced version with crunchy, fried cumin and mustard seeds, or a rosemary and garlic version that would be at home on a traditional Thanksgiving table (see Tips).
Sponge Cake
The streamlined mixing technique for this versatile cake, which is leavened with only eggs, borrows from génoise, chiffon cake and a style of roll cakes popular in Asian bakeries. The result is an airy, light-as-a-feather texture that’s also moist, thanks to the addition of oil. Bake it in a jelly roll pan to create a roulade, or in a 9-inch springform pan for a layer cake, but don’t use a nonstick pan, as the cake will collapse. The 9-inch cake needs nothing more than a little whipped cream on top. Any kind of macerated fruit would be perfect, but ultimately a bonus. (Watch Claire make this cake and two others on YouTube.)
Grilled Oysters With Buttery Soy-Sake Glaze
J. Kenji López-Alt first saw the pairing of oysters with sweet soy and sake sauce as a cook at Uni in Boston. It’s based on kabayaki, Japanese-style grilled freshwater eel. Eel is much richer than oysters, so adding a touch of butter to the sauce before spooning it over the grilled oysters helps balance the flavors. The sauce can be stored in the refrigerator for several weeks. If you’re interested in alternative flavor profiles for your grilled oysters, check out these Grilled Oysters With Lemony Garlic-Herb Butter or Grilled Oysters With Harissa-Parmesan Butter.
Roasted Squash With Spiced Onion Gravy
Make a meal out of this smothered squash by having it with rice and salted yogurt, or serve it as a side for roast chicken or a seared pork chop. The mild winter squash gets a punch from a spicy and tart onion gravy that comes together while the squash roasts in the oven. Be sure to season the gravy aggressively with salt so the vinegar, chile and spices pop.
Mayo-Roasted Thanksgiving Turkey With Gravy
Some recipes for mayo-roasted turkey promise extra-juicy results with minimal effort. This one does no such thing. The mayonnaise won’t help the turkey stay juicy: Only salting and resting (a light curing process known colloquially as dry-brining) and carefully monitoring its internal temperature as it roasts will. The mayonnaise will, however, produce a turkey with glistening, burnished, golden-brown skin evenly flavored with herbs, no basting required. The mayo’s viscosity helps it stay in place as it roasts, while the extra protein from egg aids in browning. This recipe will make a little more mayonnaise than you’ll need. Use the excess for leftovers sandwiches, or toss it with roughly chopped vegetables (carrots, broccoli, brussels sprouts, zucchini or squash) before roasting at high heat for 10 to 15 minutes.
Pommes Boulangère
Like a creamless gratin, this potato casserole gets its flavor and richness from caramelized onions and chicken (or turkey) stock. For a sliceable texture, bake the casserole ahead of time and let it cool completely (during which time the gelatin in the stock and the starch in the potatoes will set), then reheat before serving.
Callaloo (Leafy Greens With Tomato and Onion)
Callaloo is a simple stewed dish of greens, tomatoes, onions and Lawry’s Seasoned Salt. The dish is eaten across the Caribbean, but this version comes from Hazel Craig, the mother of the pastry chef Jessica Craig of L’Artusi in Manhattan. Hazel makes the dish every Christmas exactly as she ate it in Jamaica: with saltfish, which adds heft and a pleasant funk. If you’re not able to get callaloo (which can be found in fresh or canned form at Caribbean markets and some international grocery stores), any sturdy green will do, like kale or Swiss chard.
Butternut Squash, Leek and Za’atar Pie
This comforting pie makes a great vegetarian centerpiece, ideal for a celebration. It benefits from being assembled the day before, receiving a good amount of time to set in the fridge and thus involving a lot less work on the day you plan to enjoy it. You can also bake the whole thing a few hours in advance, then just reheat it in the oven for 20 minutes, if you like. Use any extra pastry trim to cut out fun, festive shapes like holly leaves or stars to personalize your pie. Serve this alongside roasted veggies or a big leafy salad.