I Need Thanksgiving Recipe Inspiration: Part Two
Photo by Joseph De Leo, Prop Styling by Megan Hedgpeth, Food Styling by Rebecca Jurkevich
ON THIS WEEK’S episode of Dinner SOS, test kitchen director and host Chris Morocco is back with test kitchen editors Kendra Vaculin and Shilpa Uskokovic to help callers get creative with their Thanksgiving menus.
Corey-Jan’s family loves to cook, and this year they decided to change up their menu– they will use cheese as a through-line ingredient in every course. She needs recipes that include cheese in a meaningful, unexpected way. Sneha is traveling to spend Thanksgiving with her boyfriend’s family. She has only met them briefly, and after her boyfriend mentioned what a skilled baker she is, she has now been tasked with baking for the big day. She wants to make a good impression, and will need a recipe that does just that, while requiring minimal tools since she’s not in her own kitchen. Suzanne’s mom finishes her last chemo treatment the week of Thanksgiving, and her family is looking forward to celebrating together. She’s looking for recipes that still celebrate the day, while incorporating her mom’s dietary restrictions. Alexis will be in Mexico for Thanksgiving, and would love tips on how to make a simple menu that incorporates Mexican ingredients and flavors.
Chris brings in experts Kendra and Shilpa to tackle these exciting Thanksgiving challenges. Kenda recommends Corey-Jan make her Green Beans and Mushrooms with Crispy Shallots for a twist on a Thanksgiving staple, while highlighting parmesan for all Corey-Jan’s cheese needs. Shilpa shares her Garlic Bread Biscuits recipe with Sneha to guarantee the “oohs and ahs”, while being easy to assemble. For Suzanne’s moment to celebrate her mom, Kendra recommends Jesse Szewczyk’s Cranberry-Maple Mule, subbing ginger beer for ginger ale. It’s festive, aligns with her mom’s dietary needs, and perfect for toasting a special moment. Lastly, Chris recommends Alexis make his Confit Turkey with Chiles and Garlic for a recipe that does exactly what she’s looking for– a classic and simple Thanksgiving moment with a salsa macha flourish.
Listen now to hear part two of Chris, Kendra and Shilpa coming to the callers’ Thanksgiving-rescue with these creative and exciting tips!
Chris Morocco: Hey there, listeners, future callers, and cooking enthusiasts. This is Dinner SOS, the show where we help you save dinner or whatever you're cooking. I'm Chris Morocco, Food Director of Bon, Appétit and Epicurious. And once again, I'm joined by my expert panel of co-hosts, Shilpa Uskokovic. Hi, Shilpa.
Shilpa Uskokovic: Hey.
CM: And Kendra Vaculin. Hi, Kendra.
Kendra Vaculin: Hello.
CM: And you guessed it. We are once again gathered to answer your Thanksgiving questions. This is round two. How are we feeling?
KM: I am ready to get back into it.
SU: Yep, I'm just as excited as the first time.
CM: Yep. Well, fantastic. So, let's take our next caller.
Hi, Corey-Jan, how you doing?
Corey-Jan: Hi, I'm okay. I'm so excited to talk to all three of you, my faves.
CM: Yeah.
KM: We're so excited.
CM: Thank you. Where are you calling from?
CJ: So I'm calling from Roswell, Georgia, which is like a suburb of Atlanta.
CM: Oh, awesome.
KM: Nice.
CM: And I'm dying to know, what is your Thanksgiving SOS?
CJ: Okay, so Thanksgiving is typically my husband Joel, me, and our two adult children, Cameron and Max, and Cameron's girlfriend, Ruby, and Max's boyfriend, Will. All of us love cooking and we share a kitchen really well. And so for the past several years we have really had terrific Thanksgivings together. And last year Ruby had the idea, she said, "You know what would be really fun, is next year we should have this overarching single ingredient through-line on the meal, kind of like Iron Chef but not a competition. And I think the ingredient should be cheese." And at the time, because we thought it was delightful and it was fun and we laughed and we said, "Sure, let's do it, let's do it," and now we're really thinking about it and first of all, this could be a really short call because you could just say, "You're insane. That's nuts, don't do it." But not knowing that we were going to be talking to you, we've already made some progress. There are a few non-negotiables in our meal. Those are, there will always be lobster paella. That is a Thanksgiving tradition in our house.
SU: Oh my God, did not expect that one.
CJ: Well, but think about it, the chances that the original Thanksgiving participants ate turkey-
KM: Low.
SU: You're right.
CJ: …which is a notoriously difficult to hunt and kind of stringy bird in the wild, pretty low. In coastal New England, the chances that they ate lobster, pretty good. So, lobster paella is a non-negotiable. So is turkey, because people grow up with it and we don't want to deprive anybody of an expectation. Also, sweet potato pie. The progress we've made includes Max, our daughter, has been experimenting with a Chevre cheesecake and she said it's coming along really well. Likewise, I made a test sweet potato pie, also with Chevre, and it added a brightness and a tartness that I didn't expect, and I liked it. There's a house salad that we do that has a really great local blue cheese that I can put in, but during that main course, what should we do?
KM: It's a great question.
CM: Wow, this is honestly, I don't think any of us looked askance when you said the through line would be cheese. I mean, cheese giving is practically a thing as far as I'm concerned.
CJ: That is Thanksgiving.
CM: That is Thanksgiving. However, these specific dishes that you mentioned such as lobster paella, let me clarify, you're not necessarily looking for a way to include cheese in your lobster paella?
CJ: Correct.
CM: Or in your turkey, necessarily?
CJ: Correct. So it doesn't have to be in every dish.
CM: Got it.
CJ: But it does have to be in every course.
CM: Every course, not every dish.
KM: Understood.
SU: Gosh, that's an easy one for us.
KM: Understood.
CM: We're very reasonable people.
SU: I want to clarify, does a cream cheese or a mascarpone, does that also count?
CJ: It does if it's included in a meaningful way.
SU: Yes, makes sense. Okay, cool.
CM: Because I think the Chevre cheesecake is very interesting. I'm assuming it's not all Chevre, that you're using some amount of cream cheese, but with some proportion of Chevre, almost as though like in place of something like a ricotta? The sweet potato pie is where I would sort of tend to question whether repeating Chevre is the way to go there. That's where I might introduce a new cheese format.
CJ: Yes, yes, please.
CM: What are you thinking, Shilpa?
SU: That's why I was asking about the mascarpone cheese, or yeah.
CM: Yeah, mascarpone something mild but that's going to kind of maintain the richness, but if you want to bring some tanginess in there, by all means bring tanginess, but I don't think it necessarily needs to come from Chevre.
SU: A goat cheese, yeah.
CM: From a goat cheese specifically.
SU: I think the advantage of using something like a mascarpone is it'll really stabilize your whipped cream and your sweet potato pie will hold well for an extended period of time.
CJ: Yeah, I think that's a great idea.
CM: But Shilpa, the Caesar of cheese herself. Tell us about your fully loaded scalloped potato.
SU: Oh, the scalloped potato? Yes, I can can certainly talk about that one, which I think would be a great side. It's regular scalloped potato, so thinly sliced potatoes and a mixture of seasoned heavy cream, garlic, salt. And the interesting thing here is I use bacon for the topping, so then I save some of that rendered bacon fat and stir it into the heavy cream mixture that I use to build the scallop potatoes. You bake it just like you would normally, and once it comes out you top it with cheddar cheese and then return it to the oven and it melts. And then when you're ready to serve, dollops of sour cream, lots of the crispy bacon and scallions.
CJ: So, Max and I are pescatarian. I should have mentioned that.
SU: Okay.
CJ: So that being the case, is there anything that we can do that will provide some of what bacon and bacon fat provide that we can use instead?
SU: Sure. I would simply skip the bacon entirely.
CM: Oh, yeah.
SU: You don't really need it. There's so much going on in that dish anyway. I would simply skip the bacon. The heavy cream mixture would be rich enough, and use whatever you would on your baked potato.
CJ: Let me ask you this though, because sweet potato pie, we don't serve it as a dessert.
KM: A side.
CJ: Yeah. So if we're serving sweet potato pie, potato, potato?
KM: I understand your concern and I come to you with two vegetarian cheese laden side dish options that don't include potatoes.
The first one is if you want to go light on cheese, I have a recipe from a couple of years ago called green beans with mushrooms and crispy shallots. It's a play on green bean casserole but done entirely on the stovetop. So brown butter and your green beans and crispy mushrooms, and then you could use store-bought fried, like French's onions, or make your own crispy shallots, and then there's a lot of parm in there. So you get a, sort of that funky tang from parm imbued throughout your whole side dish. That's a really good option if you wanted to do one cheese that's kind of acting as a amp up moment for this vegetarian side.
If you wanted to mostly eat cheese as your side dish, there is also a really great mac and cheese that came out this year and is in our Thanksgiving issue. It is called on the website the gooiest baked mac and cheese, and we wouldn't call it that if we didn't mean it, it's so oozy. It has a couple of cheeses in it, including American cheese, which melts so well and creates a really luscious cheese sauce. In addition to that, there is yellow cheddar and fontina. No roux, that American cheese, because it has thickeners in it, it creates a really luscious sauce by itself. And you just kind of throw all your cheeses in there, they melt into this beautiful sauce right on your pasta, and you can bake it off or you don't have to if you want it to serve it straight from the pot, it makes a really good side dish. So if you were looking for a way to really hammer home the cheese aspect, I think mac and cheese might be your move.
CJ: Yeah, although that green bean sounds really good.
KM: Yeah.
CM: Those are great too. Yeah, Parmesan with those creamy sauces flavors is just so great. Another idea, and this is obviously not for the pescatarians among you, but we have a recipe for, it's a turkey slider. It came from the sort of warped mind of a chef who basically made this cheese sauce that they put their leftover shredded turkey in. As a next day play, you can carry the theme forward. Okay, and it is really, really, really good.
So Corey-Jan, listen, I wish you the best of luck. It sounds like it's going to be amazing.
CJ: Thank you, thank you. Well, if you want we can take some pictures and I'll send them over if you want to see.
CM: Send them on over. No, seriously, we would love that. Okay?
CJ:: Yeah. Well, thank you all so much, this has been really fun and also instructive. And I go forth to Thanksgiving with confidence and excitement.
CM: We believe in you. Go get them.
KM: Great to meet you.
CJ: Thanks. All right, bye.
SU: I kind of wish I was having Thanksgiving at hers.
KM: I know. Lobster paella?
SU: I feel like it would be, yeah.
KM: Sign me up.
CM: What a fun family.
KM: I'm obsessed. Picking a through-line ingredient a year in advance.
CM: It's just wild.
SU: Also, the sweet potato pie as a side.
CM: As a side.
SU: That threw me off. I like, oh.
KM: Beautiful.
SU: Wait, you should have led with that.
CM: That's, what a look.
SU: I mean, I guess it's not unlike the sweet potato with marshmallows and whatever, so.
KM: Marshmallows on top.
CM: I guess.
SU: It's the same concept. Fun, actually, yeah.
KM: I'm into it.
SU: Definitely want to go to their place.
Sneha: Hi, everyone.
SU: Hi.
CM: Hi, Sneha. Nice to have you here.
S: Thank you, I'm really excited.
CM: Yeah. Well, let's get into, what is your Thanksgiving SOS?
S: So I'm going to be traveling for Thanksgiving. I'm currently in a long distance relationship. My boyfriend lives in Atlanta, Georgia with his family's all based down there. And so I'm going to be spending nine days in Georgia with him and his family around Thanksgiving.
KM: Wow.
S: Which I'm super excited about, but through the grapevine they've heard that I am a baking aficionado and have asked me to bake for Thanksgiving, and my brain is short-circuiting from the nerves. I haven't really, I've met his family briefly, but this is like in their house, full introduction to everyone. I want to make a good impression, but it's also baking in a kitchen I have never been in before. I have been told from his stepmom that it's a normal kitchen and she has everything a normal kitchen would have, but she's not-
CM: Normal to whom?
S: Right. She's not a baker, I can't put my KitchenAid stand mixer in my suitcase. I will be flying with a carry-on, so anything I bring with me has to be small, under four liquid ounces. This has to be transportable. I've never seen his parents' house before, I have no clue what I'm walking into, but I also feel like they've hyped me up at this point.
KM: Sure, yeah.
CM: Shoot, ah. What do you like to bake?
S: I do a little bit of everything. Savory, sweet, I like the precision of it all, and for me it's a good way to calm down. Some of my favorite recipes recently have been a chai-spiced brownie recipe that actually came out of Epicurious. And then I'm a big fan of Bon Appétit's, no-knead focaccia.
KM: Sure.
S: I'm good with basic yeast. I also do some fermented cooking just as part of, I'm Indian and I do a lot of Indian cooking. So I will ferment Dosa batter, for example. So I'm not afraid to experiment, but I am afraid to experiment with people I don't really know.
KM: Yeah.
CM: Do they have a stand mixer?
S: I've been told no.
CM: Okay. Where does pie come into the conversation for you? Is that around Thanksgiving? Is that like a must bake or are you thinking other things entirely?
S: I'm pretty flexible and they seem really nice and flexible and were generally sort of like, "Just let us know what you think and we'll be fine." I do know my boyfriend's father is diabetic, so I'm trying just out of respect to not do a crazy sugar bomb. Typically, in my household I'll do a pumpkin pie around Thanksgiving. Trying-
CM: Does that feel like too much, sort of sugar wise?
S: I don't know if I could possibly bake two things, but I don't want to bake a really rich dessert as my one thing that I'm contributing and then not have his dad be able to try it.
SU: Totally.
S: He really looks up to his father and that's I think the person whose opinion matters the most at this dinner for me.
KM: For sure.
S: So either I do two things or I do something that's just not very rich in sugar, heavy.
KM: So you're thinking more like a bread for the table type of energy?
S: That might be the move, I think.
CM: Got it.
KM: Okay. What I was thinking was, you could go like savory scone or biscuit direction. I think something where you're mixing the dough by hand. The technique can really come into building in those flaky layers by flattening out your dough and cutting in pieces and stacking to make sure you're building those layers. And then you could really fill them with fun Thanksgiving flavors if you wanted. You could go cheddar, jalapenos, scallion if you wanted. You could go like woodsy herbs like sage and thyme and rosemary. There's a lot of directions you could go with that sort of baseline of a buttermilk based, cut the butter in by hand kind of recipe.
SU: Oh, it reminds me of your stuffing biscuits, Kendra.
KM: For sure, yeah. A couple of years ago I developed a stuffing biscuit where the flavors of the stuffing appear in your bread product for the table. So there's fennel seed and some herbs that really bring out the flavors of the other aspects of your plate, but all encapsulated in that one little flaky biscuit.
CM: That is a great one. I mean, we have many biscuit recipes. Shilpa just did garlic bread biscuits for this year, which is a little bit over the top, but certainly not in a sweet way. Do you want to describe them just super briefly?
SU: Oh, the premise of the biscuits was biscuits but they taste like garlic knots that you might get in a pizza place.
KM: Oh, stop.
SU: So they have parsley, they have Parmesan and garlic powder in the dough, and then they get baked off and when they come out they get brushed with more garlic butter and finished with herbs and Parmesan, so it looks beautiful.
S: Oh, that sounds delicious.
SU: Yeah.
CM: And it's not that I'm looking to sign you up for multiple kind of tours of duty at the oven during this trip, but nine days is a lot of days and why not make Dosa or something for them, in addition perhaps to some other bread experience at Thanksgiving proper?
S: True.
CM: Breakfast Dosas for all Saturday after?
SU: Chris has not made those Dosas for multiple and it shows.
S: That is a commitment.
SU: Yes.
S: That is a couple hours there.
CM: All right, fair.
S: But no, I think I'm still just trying to suss out the situation-
KM: Totally.
CM:Fair.
S: ... and get to know them, and so I'm thinking Thanksgiving dinner will be a nice opportunity to contribute something.
CM: Totally.
S: But not overstep my bounds.
CM: Yeah, I mean, you can see what the vibe is, but I think a biscuit framework is such a great play because it's hand-assembled, it's fast. You can go from bowl to oven to table in very little time. You know?
KM: And that you can still express your technique. You can still show off that you know what you're doing, that this is a space where you feel comfortable. And when you bring those super flaky biscuits to the table, you will get your ohs and ahs for sure.
CM: I don't think it's crazy for you to bring your own baking scale with you, and I don't think it's crazy for you to bring a bench scraper, a plastic one, maybe not a metal one, and a few tools that will make you feel like, okay, as long as they have a medium to large bowl, as long as they have a baking sheet, I'm good. Those few tools as the things that are going to help you just feel like, okay, these are the things that are game changers. You know?
S: I definitely think the baking scale is a fantastic idea, I'm emotionally attached to mine.
KM: And easy for a carry-on.
S: True.
CM: Totally.
S: I appreciate that a lot.
SU: Perhaps nothing more impressive than pulling a scale out of your suitcase and being like, “I've come prepared.”
KM: Your normal kitchen was lacking this one very crucial tool.
S: For sure.
CM: Cool.
S: I appreciate that.
CM: How's it sounding?
S: Great. No, I definitely love the idea of biscuits. I'll definitely look up the stuffing recipe, but I also kind of like the jalapeño cheddar idea you threw out too. I feel like a little bit of a spicy kick matches my personality and the kind of food I normally like to make.
KM: Love it.
S: Yeah, and so that's definitely something I could lean into, but also I feel like jalapeno cheddar is a classic combo that hopefully will appeal to a lot of people.
KM: Definitely, and has a home on the thanksgiving table for sure. Yeah.
CM: Cool.
KM: Great suggestions.
CM: All right, thank you so much.
S: Thank you.
CM: We're going to take a short break. When we get back, how to adapt Thanksgiving for a family member's new restrictions or a new location.
Hi Suzanne, how are you?
Suzanne: Hey, I'm good. How are y'all doing?
CM: We're good. How can we help you today?
S: Yeah, so I'm calling in because this Thanksgiving is going to be a little bit different for my family. My spouse and I are traveling to South Carolina, along with my sister and her fiance, to be with our mom. She was diagnosed this past summer with stage one breast cancer and is going through chemotherapy and it's going really well, and she will be wrapping up her final treatment the week of Thanksgiving.
KM: Oh, wow.
S: Yeah. So right now I'm just kind of looking for some support and any advice on how we can still celebrate the day with some of her dietary restrictions and still make it feel special and yeah, just really celebratory for our family.
CM: Wow, thank you for that. What are some of the foods that are kind of absolutely like a no-go, in terms of what she just can't eat right now?
S: Yeah, yeah. So the no-gos are kimchi, anything that's spicy is a no-go for sure. No raw fish, oysters, the same types of things that you would tell someone who is pregnant to stay away from, because the chemotherapy is impacting her immune system.
CM: Got it.
S: Tomato is usually too acidic, so anything tomato based really doesn't work, and then no alcohol. And we're definitely that parade, Bloody Mary Thanksgiving morning kind of family. So yeah, just trying to think of some other options and things where I can sort of pivot quickly. And then I should add, she just also generally doesn't eat red meat.
CM: Okay.
KM: Okay.
CM: And I know chemotherapy can have an impact on how people sort of experience taste. Are there any things beyond the list that you mentioned that are kind of on a no-go list? And on the flip side, is there anything that she's still really enjoying?
S:Yeah, yeah. So she, I don't know how easy it is to sort of anticipate some of these things. Texture has been kind of a thing where some things have tasted mushy, so we're a cornbread dressing family. I'm a little bit nervous that that's going to be mushy tasting. I know she said that an apple tasted like dirt.
CN: Wow.
S: And cottage cheese tasted chemically, so you can't anticipate all of those things but I would like suggestions where I can kind of pivot kind of quickly if something ends up not working. And throughout her treatment, it's so funny, turkey sandwiches have been the thing that she's been wanting post-surgery, post-chemo, and then she's been having a lot of soups. That's just been really warm and cozy right now.
SU: Yeah.
KM: Okay, I have a thought right off the bat when you said Bloody Mary, watch the Parade family, which is a great family to be, IMO. This year, Jesse Szewczyk developed a cranberry maple mule for the magazine that is a really festive sort of punch. The base of which is cranberry juice and ginger beer, but for a non-alcoholic version, you could definitely sub ginger ale. And it includes a lot of warming spices like cinnamon sticks and star anise and maple syrup for sweetness, and a little bit of lime juice also to help brighten and lift everything. And to me that is a really fun stand-in, especially the way that he recommends you garnish the big pitcher kind of gives Bloody Mary, it has big pieces of cranberries floating in it and slices of lime and big sprigs of rosemary, so you can kind of have that same vibe and celebratory feel, but with a drink that is alcohol-free.
S: Yum, okay.
CM: Yeah, you can go big on garnishes, like theatrical sprigs of rosemary. You can get those two foot long things that you'd probably never actually want to cook with.
S: Oh, wow.
CM: Those are going right in every glass.
S: Okay.
CM: One thing that I want to plug, and I don't know, this is like whatever, I'm just going to say it. Okay, a herd on the cornbread dressing. If texture is a question mark in terms of something being a little too soft and indistinct for her, one recipe that I'd love to plug is our simple is best dressing.
S: Okay.
CM: This is using hand-torn pieces of country loaf or even sourdough if you want more of an assertive flavor, and the one thing that nobody has ever said about this dressing is that it's mushy. This is all about texture and when you start with your own bread, as opposed to boxes or bags of stuffing mix or something like that, you toast it just to dry it out for the utmost and kind of cragginess, but you prime it to absorb a mixture of broth and eggs layered into aromatic, kind of sweated down base of butter with celery, onion, etc. I mean, it's so, so good and it really gives you the utmost kind of tactile experience of a dressing possible. And I love cornbread dressing from the standpoint of flavor, but texturally, it does often veer more into sort of like the bread pudding end of the dressing spectrum.
S: Right, mm-hmm.
SU: I was thinking of Zainab's turkey pie with the puff pastry crust, and I feel like this might be a good suggestion because it might solve a lot of other things, like this uses just a single turkey breast and I feel like it's way less intimidating than cooking a whole turkey. And the filling is creamy and rich and I think the puff pastry top gives you this crisp texture so there's no danger of anything feeling soft or mushy. And also, I think this is a time, maybe this year you want to spend more time together and rather than doing the whole shebang of making a bird and making sides, I feel like this turkey pie is a way to have all of the flavors of Thanksgiving but in a much more low effort, high reward weight.
S: Yum, okay, yeah. [inaudible 00:24:25]
CM: It's a different path, yeah.
KM: I love that idea.
SU: Yeah, it's-
CM: There's a stealthy inclusion of American cheese, just between us.
S: What?
CM: I know, I know. I don't really want to say it because it sounds like it's like cheapening it somehow, but actually, it makes perfect sense. It just diffuses into sort of the creamy saucy matrix of the pot pie.
KM: Doesn't taste cheesy.
CM: Doesn't taste cheesy.
SU: It's just cream.
CM: It's just body. It's just creamy and it's richness and it's like, oh, I wish I'd come up with that one.
KM: Yeah, it's really good.
CM: Real good.
S: Yeah, I love that suggestion.
CM: Is there anything else that you think we might be able to help you with?
S: Yeah, I'm wondering is there a veggie that comes to mind? We usually do green beans with the creamy horseradish sauce, and horseradish is really a no-go. So I'm wondering if you have suggestions for a veggie.
SU: This year I developed these green beans with hazelnuts and prosciutto. I like that one because I start off by toasting the hazelnuts in a bunch of oil and then I remove the hazelnuts and keep them aside and that oil then becomes the base for the dressing
CM: And you could take the prosciutto out.
S: Right.
SU: And you could totally take the prosciutto out.
CM: Absolutely.
SU: Yeah, that's not essential. What does feel essential really is more of the crispy hazelnuts and the dressing, and this is also nice because you can blanch the beans ahead of time and hold them separately. You can make the dressing ahead of time, hold them separately, and just kind of bring it all together. And I just feel like it's an easy dish to love. It's simple, but lots of texture.
S: Yum, that sounds really great.
CM: Any other thoughts, in terms of veg?
KM: Well, I was also thinking about your Brussels sprouts.
S: Oh, she loves a Brussels sprout.
KM: Shilpa developed this great Brussels sprouts salad, kind of. It's not like a thin-
SU: A lazy chiffonade is what we call it.
KM: Yeah, you're chopping up your Brussels sprouts.
SU: You're roughly chopping it up.
KM: And there's all sorts of fun mix-ins in there that keep it really textural and fun, big pieces of cheese. And to me that's the ideal side dish because you're getting not dissimilarly to the hazelnut green beans. You're getting a lot of different crunchy bits and added bits on top of the vegetable, which to me makes it worth it as a side, as opposed to just a roasted off vegetable maybe with a glaze or something.
SU: That's a great suggestion. And it comes together fast, you don't need to use your oven and I feel like it's a lighter treatment on Brussels sprouts. It doesn't feel as heavy and brown, I would say, for lack of a better word.
CM: Yeah, they're so fresh.
SU: That's a good suggestion.
CM: And alive.
KM: Yeah, and they're not mushy, which sometimes-
CM: They're not mushy.
KM: ... roast Brussels sprouts can get.
SU: They can, right?
KM: Can tip over into the mush territory, even if they're super crispy on the edge that was against the surface, the inside is still mushy somehow. How does this happen? Physics. So I think this is maybe a good place to go.
SU: Thanks, Kendra. That was a good suggestion.
S: That sounds great, and I feel like I can delegate some chopping.
KM: Yes.
S: So that's excellent, yeah.
KM: Always delegate.
S: Love that I can delegate.
CM: Oh, yeah. You're delegating most of this stuff, let's be clear.
S: That's great, yeah.
CM: All right, well, listen.
S: Thank you.
CM:Wishing you well, wishing your mom well in her recovery. Best of luck and I hope it's just a wonderful celebration, above all.
S: Thank you so much, I appreciate y'all.
CM: All right, thanks Suzanne.
Hi, Alexis. How are you?
Alexis: Him Chris. I'm doing great. How are you?
CM: We're all right here. We're kind of on a bit of a roll and I'm hoping that roll will continue to roll. Where are you calling from?
A: I'll do my best. I right now am in Santa Fe, New Mexico, but we're heading back to our home in Todos Santos Baja, in Mexico in a few days.
CM: Wow, okay. All right, I'm just processing. It's great, that sounds lovely.
A: Thank you.
CM: But I'm curious to know, what is your Thanksgiving SOS?
A: So that's the reason I'm calling about Thanksgiving, is because we will be in Mexico for Thanksgiving and we don't have a big grocery store, there's not a lot of the Thanksgiving staples that you would have access to in the US. So I'm kind of wondering how to make a simplified Thanksgiving in Mexico, maybe with some Mexican flair to it.
KM: Such a fun prompt.
SU: Yeah.
KM: What kinds of proteins and main "style" things do you have ready access to?
A: So I can definitely get a large organic chicken, like a nice fresh chicken. I can't get a turkey. I mean, there's a lot of fresh fish, we're right on the ocean, but I'd prefer not to make fish for Thanksgiving. I want it to kind of still feel like an American Thanksgiving.
KM: Sure.
CM: I mean, for what it's worth, I often just do chickens for Thanksgiving. Two chickens are easier to sort of set up and season a day or more in advance. I think all the principles that we would probably recommend that you follow in executing a roast turkey, I think can be applied equally successfully to chickens. Just scaling down your ingredients accordingly. So dry brining a chicken in advance and letting it sit uncovered in your refrigerator so the skin can kind of dry out and the chicken can kind of season from the inside out, incorporating some sugar into that dry brine. I think all of that is fair game here.
KM: Yeah, I was thinking about a couple of years ago for Epicurious, I wrote a story called The Case for Chicken for Thanksgiving, and the recipe that I developed with it, it ended up being this dish that has this all-in-one, it's like a recipe that encapsulates all of your bits and bobs for Thanksgiving in it. There's a roast chicken and a squash panzanella with apples, and then you make a gravy out of the drippings from your chicken. So it's like you have this stuffing kind of vibe in the panzanella where you have your crispy bread, and you have some fall flavors in there with your apples and your squash, but it really could be any root vegetable. Some red onion and some herbs in there too. And then you get the gravy that is obviously ladled all over your carved chicken and also readily sopped up by the bread in your panzanella.
I think there's a lot of places where you can add in what you have available to you and the kinds of flavors that you want to tap in a recipe like this. Like I said, any root vegetable, carrots, any kind of squash would go really nicely in that panzanella. There's some miso in the glaze for the roast chicken, but you could add in a lot of other different sort of flavor pastes to take the miso's placed there and still add like a savoriness to the outside of your meat.
A: Okay, yeah, that sounds amazing.
CM: Shilpa, thoughts?
SU: I actually had thoughts for dessert, and I was thinking Alexis should make your lemon meringue pie, but with tamarind instead of lemon.
CM: Wow.
A: Okay, I can definitely get tamarind.
SU: Yeah, there we go, that's what I thought.
CM: What form of tamarind? What form does tamarind come in most often in Mexico? Is it like the paste? Is it like the block?
A: I mean, where we live, there's tamarind trees, so we can literally just get the pods from the tree, but we can also get the paste so I can get a block or I can just get the tamarind paste for sure.
CM: That is so fun.
SU: Yeah, that would be great. Like reconstituting.
CM: Tamarind cream pie.
SU: Yeah, that would be good.
A: Yum.
CM:Shoot me dead. Oh, that's amazing.
A: Okay.
CM: Honestly, and for what it's worth, one of my favorite recipes I did for Epicurious was like confit turkey with chilies and garlic.
KM: Oh, I love that recipe.
CM: And the reason why I want to talk about it is because basically, so think of turkey legs just slowly braised in tons of olive oil, but then finished with basically a salsa macha that uses sesame seeds and dried chilies, tons of garlic in there. All that to say, I think the kind of flavors you are going to be surrounded by in Mexico are so readily adaptable to Thanksgiving-ish dishes.
KM: Absolutely.
CM: More so than you might think. I'm curious, where does all this kind of stack up, in terms of what you're feeling like is now might be possible for you in Mexico?
A: I really like the idea of incorporating those Mexican flavors. I can get salsa macha really easily. In the past when we've done Thanksgivings in the US, I've bought pre-made stuffings, I bought pre-made gravy. So I'm really excited to tackle this as a from scratch project with more fresh, local ingredients. And so yeah, I love that idea of the... I mean, I can't get turkey, but I could do the chicken confit with the salsa macha and the tamarind meringue pie. Yeah.
CM: Also like tamarind as a stand-in for cranberry, potentially? Do like a tamarind chutney kind of thing.
A: Oh, okay.
KM: Oh my god, yum. Can I come? And your Thanksgiving sounds really good.
A: We just built a casita, so you're invited.
KM: Oh, thanks, showing up.
CM: She'll go, careful. Let us know what you end up doing, okay? And best of luck, Alexis.
A: Okay, great. I'll will.
CM: Cool.
A: Thank you.
CM: We're going to take another break. When we get back, a twist on Thanksgiving that honestly left us speechless.
Hey, Brad, how are you?
Brad: I am so excited to be talking to you guys.
CM: Oh, thank you. Thanks for calling in. So, tell us more about your Thanksgiving SOS.
B: Okay. I have a potentially hot take here. I think that we need to rethink the way that we do Thanksgiving. I love Thanksgiving, it's my favorite holiday, but as the cook, it can be deflating sometimes because you spend the whole day, maybe all week, sometimes even I'm shedding recipes for a month. And then it's like bam, everyone eats the food in seconds, there's pie, and then it's over. Wow. Everyone's on the couch, they're taking a nap and it's like, okay, I guess we'll clean up now.
So I've been creatively reimagining what Thanksgiving could be and what if Thanksgiving dishes come out like a tasting menu instead? So then your full attention is given to each dish one bite at a time. Every dish has a chance to be a star, and also drink pairings too. So this is my second year doing a Thanksgiving tasting menu. First year was a huge success but since it's a Thanksgiving tasting menu, it has to be different every time, I think.
CM: Whoa.
B: So I have an outline of courses. I feel great about my first five, but I could use some help filling out the middle.
CM: Walk us through what you've got so far in-
SU: Oh, so are we just going to skip over the whole tasting menu part?
CM: Well, no. Okay-
SU: We're just not going to address that?
CM: When you were saying rethink Thanksgiving, I mean, I don't know, it's like Kendra's thinking-
KM: I was like, where are we going? I was ready for you to say something so psycho.
CM: Yeah, I was thinking like, oh, I'm going to see it as a multi day affair, but with chill meals. But it's like we do a sort of breakfast-y thing, a lunch-y thing, a dinner thing.
KM: I thought he was going to say, what if we did Thanksgiving every single Thursday for the whole month?
CM: And Shilpa's thinking?
SU: I'm thinking, doing a tasting menu is crazy.
CM: Yeah, right, because what you're actually talking about, doing a Thanksgiving tasting menus, that's leaning in, in the sense of leaning over the railing of the cruise ship and just falling into the water.
SU: I mean-
KM: I need to hear the menu, before I... okay. [inaudible 00:36:01].
CM: But we, okay, yeah, yeah. Menu, menu.
SU: Yeah, let's hear the menu. [inaudible 00:36:03].
KM: I just need to hear the menu.
SU: Yeah.
CM: Hit us.
B: Okay. Are you ready?
KM: Yes.
CM: Yes.
SU: Okay.
B: Okay. 10 courses, so buckle up. Course one, it's caviar, a trio of deviled eggs, lobster deviled egg, pickled deviled egg, and a caviar deviled egg. This is served with Cremant, which is champagne from burgundy, and chips, and a light airy dip. So sour cream and onion kind of [inaudible 00:36:26].
CM: That is course number one?
B: That is course number one.
SU: Oh my God.
B: I was like, pop the champagne and let's go.
CM: Dead. Okay, yep, go.
B: Course two is a crudo course. So orange chili scalloped, crudo, and soy, ginger, tuna crudo. It's got a little sake in it, so why not serve a little sake with it too?
KM: Wow.
B: Course three is charcuterie course. It's pretty easy, I have the friends bring the meats, the cheeses, the baguettes, the accoutrement, but I come hard with my pickles. So half sour pickle, pickled bread onion, pickled tomato, and I make a tomato jam.
And then I'm closing it out, getting close to closing out my sort of first half here. So then I'm coming with meatloaf. I've been shedding my meatloaf for like a month, feel great about it. Going to serve it sliced, little American cheese on top, and with, I make a Japanese collard that's cooked down in Hondashi for a really long time. Soy, miso, rice vinegar, it's totally awesome. Could do a chill-able red with it maybe, or a cocktail. And then closing out the first half palate cleanser, like a watermelon granita, and coffee and tea.
Then we take a break, everyone recovers. We go for a walk, watch some football, get our appetites back. And then now I'm at six and seven, this is where you guys come in. Not sure what to do here. It could be a soup maybe, a salad, or like a re-imagining of a Thanksgiving vegetable to be a star. And then towards the end here, we have course eight is lobster mac served in little ramekins with a mineral-y Sicilian white wine from Mount Edna. And then course nine is duck, I'm going to roast the whole duck. Never done that before, but I feel pretty good about it, served with Bordeaux. And then course 10, desserts, Banana pudding in individual jars. And then I noticed a bourbon tate pecan pie in the magazine, so I'm going to have a friend make that. And serve with Amaro, and then that's it.
KM: Wow.
CM: Speechless.
KM: Literally.
SU: We have no words.
KM: Literally was flailing my arms about as you spoke, like, wow, maximalism. I mean, if I got this menu at a restaurant, I would be so delighted. I can't believe you were like, it's such a thankless task doing all this work for Thanksgiving. Instead, I'm going to do so much more work and create this entire thing.
B: Can I defend myself for one second?
KM: Yes, please do.
CM: Absolutely.
B: Well, to me, I think it's kind of easier in a way because only one thing at a time and much of the stuff I can make in advance. So I'm just composing things that are already made, warming them up, grilling a little meatloaf here and there. So in a way, it keeps me out of the kitchen the whole day as I might be. And then I don't have to worry about timing things. That's always a thing with Thanksgiving, is getting all the dishes to come out perfectly at the same time. I don't have to do that now.
CM: Well, I think the fact of coursing out and drawing out the eating experience, I think is a really valiant goal here. Right? I think that's really smart. The way you're doing it is borderline psychotic, but I think that's really cool. And I've never heard anybody do this before, so kudos to you. Seriously, it's really, these are really considered dishes and approaches, and I like that you're bringing in so many different foods, textures, influences, raw things, pickled things, intense salty things. That's a really fun approach.
KM: I also really love that you're so considered about the pairings. I think that is really nice. Please, please make people drink water.
CM: Water.
B: We serve very small amounts of a alcohol. We have the smallest coupes you've ever seen in your life.
CM: Nice. Thing on balance that I'm not seeing what I would feel like enough of is vegetables.
B: Right, yeah.
CM: I think if you can get some cute little curry turnips in there, something that's a little squash experience, maybe something really small and delicate that you don't necessarily need a lot of. That's kind of where I'm going.
KM: Yeah, I was thinking similarly. We were just making some honey nut squash in the kitchen, and I think if you did, this is about as fine dining as I get, so you may have to gussy it up with your instincts here. But having your honey nuts, the little babies, and roasting them and then stuffing them with something. And then everybody just gets a half, a little sauce on the bottom of the plate type of vibe. That might be a way to get a veg-centric dish in and keep, everybody gets what feels like a whole thing. You don't have to do a lot, in terms of presentation when the honey nut squash is already so cutely portioned.
B: Okay.
SU: I want to suggest, Kendra, your festive red cabbage and radicchio salad as right after the palate cleanser or instead of the palate cleanser. And why I think it's fun is because there's so many vegetables, it's actually the perfect palate cleanser. And I think there's something nice about having this big platter of vegetables out in the center, and I almost want you to ask your guests to go at it with their hands. And be as a break from all of the structured sort of meal that you have planned for them.
B: I like that.
SU: And just let them go wild.
B: That's fun.
CM: We're talking radicchio, we're talking red cabbage.
SU: Radicchio.
CM: We're talking blood orange.
SU: Red onion, grapefruit.
CM: Pomegranate arils, grapefruit.
B: Yeah. I love that.
KM: It's very tonal, so it still feels like maybe a little bit chic enough to be falling amidst all of your things.
SU: It's a very chic salad.
KM: But I do like the idea of it being after everybody gets their individual plated thing, dropping just large platters of the salad on the table as a really big break from the norm.
B: That's great.
CM: Hannah has a wonderful recipe for duck with pomegranate and honey.
B: Oh, yeah. You're speaking my language.
CM: That's like a whole roast duck experience that could be great. Me personally, I would probably lean more towards just do a nice super seared, deeply rendered breast of duck. A seared little nubbin of duck breast is going to be so much easier for you to pull off, versus you're going to have a lot of bits and bobs with a whole duck and you're going to have to do some really smart editing to figure out what exactly to serve. So just anyway, I mean, this is wild. We're invested now. We are stakeholders.
KM: If you don't send pictures, I'm going to be so mad.
CM: You need to send us photos.
B: We will document.
CM: We're not joking.
B: We will document for sure.
CM: I think it's so cool that you're... It's not so much even like a maximalist approach. I mean, I think you're being a bit of an iconoclast with this Thanksgiving holiday and it's cool. Yeah.
B: Thank you.
CM: Just don't fall in the deep end. Right?
B: All right, I won't. I'm just looking over the edge. My feet are firmly on the back, so.
CM: All right.
KM: Great.
CM: Thank you for that, Brad. All right, best of luck.
B: Thank you so much.
CM: Shilpa, Kendra, we have been on a journey together. All right, thank you both so much for joining me to answer these questions today. I know it was a bit of a marathon, but honestly, if you can get through to even one reader and influence what they put in their 10 course tasting menu format Thanksgiving spectacular, it is all worth it. Is it not?
KM: We will have done our jobs.
CM: Absolutely. Any final thoughts about Thanksgiving or words of comfort for people who are hosting and gathering this week?
KM: My main words of comfort and assuredness are, you can do it. I know it might seem like a lot, especially if you're hosting a bigger group than you usually do or for the first time, but you really can. I promise. The thing that people want the most is to hang out with each other and as long as you're creating a space for that to happen, the food is kind of secondary.
SU: I agree, that's a good tip. I think mine would be, take a moment for yourself in the middle or the beginning of the day. Take five minutes to yourself and just calm down. And the second tip would be, have at least two times more bottled water for guests.
KM: Oh, interesting.
SU: Have two kinds of water, like still and sparkling water because nothing floors-
KM: Okay, restaurant.
SU: Nothing floors guests more than when you offer them still are sparkling water and then you present that and they're like, wow. And then it doesn't matter what you do with the rest of the food, it just feels fancy.
KM: Wow, thanksgiving at Shilpa's.
CM: Wow.
KM: The menu is water.
SU: The menu is water, fancy waters.
CM: So I love a walk.
SU: Wow.
CM: There's something like on Thanksgiving, go for a walk, get out, circle the block. It doesn't matter if you've got seven things on the stove. Turn everything off, walk out, clear your head, go around the block, head up the hill, head down the road. There's just something about that feeling, whether you're doing something for yourself or you're just taking everyone out of this element, I believe in the power of a walk.
KM: Wow. That's really lovely.
SU: Yeah, I love that.
CM: Thank you for tuning in for another edition of Thanksgiving SOS. We can't wait to hear how it all goes in your kitchens this year.
If you have a dinner emergency on your hands, write to us at dinnersos@bonappetit.com, or leave us a voice message at (212) 286-SOS1. That's (212) 286-7071. We'd love to feature your question on the show. You can find the recipes mentioned on today's episode linked in our show notes and on the Epicurious app, brought to you by Conde Nast, just search Epicurious in the app store and download today. And if you're not yet a subscriber, you can sign up today for a 30-day free trial in the app or at bonappetit.com. If you enjoyed this episode, please give us a rating and a review on your podcast app of choice, and hit that follow button so you never miss an episode. Thanks for listening to Dinner SOS. I'm your host, Chris Morocco.
My co-hosts this week are Shilpa Uskokovic and Kendra Vaculin. Our Senior Producer is Michele O'Brien. Peyton Hayes is our Associate Producer. Cameron Foos is our Assistant Producer. Jake Lummus is our Studio Engineer. This episode was mixed by Amar Lal at Macro Sound. Jordan Bell is our Executive Producer. Chris Bannon is Conde Nast's Head of Global Audio.
Next week, it's the first ever episode of BA Bake Club. Shilpa and Jesse Szewczyk will be behind the mic answering questions and talking all about the first Bake Club recipe, caramel apple monkey bread. Get out your kitchen scale and get ready to level up as a baker.
Originally Appeared on Bon Appétit
