My Thanksgiving 2023 menu
Plus your TG questions, answered
Hello and welcome to Thanksgiving Week!
Last week, I co-hosted Thanksgiving Hotline, a Substack live Q&A, along with
, , , , and and it was so. much. fun. We answered all your very smart questions about everything from TK to TK. You can check out the full chat here—I’ll share some of my favorite questions from our conversation later this week.Meanwhile, I’ve decided that as of this Monday morning, I need to record my Thanksgiving menu in a public forum to prevent myself from indulging any more decision paralysis and changing my mind every 5 minutes. While I typically cook the vast majority of the Thanksgiving meal every year at my parents’ house, this is the first year Hunzi and I are hosting Thanksgiving in our apartment, so it feels extra special. It’s also the first time…maybe ever? that I’m straying from pure classics to include dishes and flavors we don’t typically have at our Thanksgiving dinner.
So, for those of you who are interested in what’s going to be on my table this year, here is the full list with descriptions and recipe sources:
Rebecca Firkser’s Dry-Buttermilk-Brined Turkey
A brilliant solution for those of us who don’t want to bother with/don’t have space for a wet-brined bird. I’ll admit I’ve never made a buttermilk-brined turkey, though I've always wanted to and I know Samin swears by it for tender, juicy meat. Rebecca’s elegant solution is to coat the turkey in a mix of dried buttermilk powder, salt, and pepper the way you would a dry brine. I might jazz up the buttermilk mix with some smoked paprika and brown sugar.
Make-Ahead Gravy With Rich Chicken Stock
In my last newsletter, I wrote about the magic of Rich Chicken Stock, the luscious fortified stock I use to make gravy because I refuse to try to defat boiling-hot turkey drippings for a last-minute gravy while everything else is getting cold. No thanks. I’ve already made and frozen some Rich Chicken Stock, so today I’ll defrost in the fridge so I can make gravy tomorrow. Andy Baraghani’s Make-Ahead Gravy is a real winner.
Mashed potatoes
Requisite. Hunzi’s job. I have no further details at this time, other than that I will make him use a mix of Yukon Gold potatoes and Row 7 Seeds Upstate Abundance potatoes.
Sweet and sour cranberry sauce with pickled chiles
I haven’t given this a shot yet, but I have a vision: a sweet, hot, and sour cranberry relish punctuated with bits of crisp pickled Fresno chiles and seasoned with pickling liquid. I’m going for a looser and glossy sauce akin to Thai sweet chili sauce, not the gloopy, thick stuff. I’ll make the pickled chiles today, let them hang out in the fridge to develop their flavor, then make the cranberry sauce on Wednesday.
Victoria Granof’s Simple-Is-Best Dressing
The name says it all—legendary food stylist Victoria Granof’s stuffing (technically a dressing, since it’s cooked in a casserole dish and not inside the turkey) really is the best. I will likely never make another stuffing recipe in my life—it’s that good. My one amendment is the addition of a pound of sweet and hot Italian sausage. I like to start by cooking the sausage, then using the sausage fat to cook the onions and celery. Since the only liquids in this stuffing are stock and eggs, it really does make a difference to use homemade stock here; I’ll be using my Rich Chicken Stock (see above) for this.
Ben Lippett’s Shaved Brussels Sprout Salad With Brown Butter Apple Vinaigrette
Arguably the most “cheffy” recipe on this year’s roster. I just came across this recipe by chef Ben Lippett of How I Cook on Nicola Lamb’s wonderful Kitchen Projects newsletter, and I’m simply too intrigued; I must know what this tastes like. I’ve had my fair share of raw shaved Brussels sprouts salads and I like them all, but it was the warm brown butter apple vinaigrette that caught my eye: fresh apple juice reduced until syrupy, then whisked with brown butter and rendered pancetta fat, two kinds of mustard, and apple cider vinegar. This recipe is worthy of the last of my precious Katz’s Gravenstein Apple Cider Vinegar. May top with a flurry of chopped toasted hazelnuts because I love hazelnuts/apples/Brussels.
Yewande Komolafe’s Roasted Carrots With Yaji Spice Relish (gift link)
This recipe is this year’s wildcard—I can’t remember the last time I made roasted carrots for Thanksgiving, mostly because they so often tend to be kind of blah. Not so with Yewande’s recipe, in which roasted carrots get tossed with a piquant scallion-ginger relish flavored with homemade yaji, a ubiquitous spice mix across Northern Nigeria and West Africa. Yewande’s yaji calls for toasted peanuts, ground ginger, smoked paprika, onion and garlic powder, and salt and makes more than you need for the carrots—I’m excited to experiment with the leftover spice mix.
Garlic sautéed green beans
Nothing revolutionary, yet nothing short of transcendent. I follow my mom’s method: Blanch trimmed green beans in well-salted boiling water just until crisp (30 seconds or less), drain, then briefly sauté with lots of minced garlic sizzled in olive oil. Season with salt. Done. My favorite Thanksgiving leftover to sneak cold from the fridge at midnight.
Melissa Weller’s Parker House rolls with molded butter
I recently read Melissa Weller’s cookbook A Good Bake from cover to cover and was absolutely enthralled by her unique mix of clear instruction, passion for the scientific method (she’s a former chemical engineer-turned-pastry chef), and obvious talent for creatively flavored baked goods. The Pull-Apart Parker House Rolls from the book (also available at the link above) are based on the dinner roll recipe she developed while working at Per Se, and which are still on the menu more than ten years later. They’re leavened with a mix of instant yeast and sourdough starter, which means they’ll have that irresistible sourdough tang I love so much. I’ll slide these in the oven the moment the turkey comes out to rest so they’re as fresh as possible when they hit the table. On the side: some beurre de baratte I’m going to pack into a charming little mold I have that features embossed cherries and leaves on the top. I love whimsy, damnit!
Chloe-Rose Crabtree’s Apple Pie with vanilla bean ice cream and salty caramel sauce
Another Kitchen Projects recipe, wahoo! I just love Nicola’s work so much for the degree of thoroughness she puts into every recipe. It makes you feel confident that everything’s going to work out, which is a very important feeling when making pie. This most appliest of apple pies is a guest recipe from LA-born/London-based pastry chef Chloe-Rose Crabtree, and I have a feeling I’m going to learn a few things about pie that I didn’t already know. This year Hunzi and I decided Van Leeuwen’s vanilla bean ice cream is the best there is, so that’s what I’ll serve on the side, with a drizzle of warmed-up Jacobsen Salt Co.’s Salty Caramel Sauce, which is SO GOOD.
Roasted kabocha pie
A more delicious pumpkin pie, made with velvety roasted kabocha squash. I was hoping to be able to share the official recipe in time for this Thanksgiving, but alas, it’s not quite ready for sharing status just yet. For now you’ll just get pics—recipe next year!
Next-Day Turkey Chowder
When we do Thanksgiving at my parents’ house, the order of operations is as follows: Carve turkey. Plate turkey. Throw turkey carcass and a shitload of aromatics into largest pot in house and bring to a boil. Eat dinner while turkey stock simmers. We simmer it for the whole night, then strain it once the pie’s been eaten and the dishes have been washed. The next morning, my dad makes turkey noodle soup for breakfast and we all have multiple bowlfuls of hot good broth with leftover shredded turkey meat, tiny pasta, diced celery/carrots/onions, canned corn, and as much sambal oelek as you desire. The corn is surprisingly important. I love next-day turkey chowder almost as much as Thanksgiving dinner itself.
I’ll be posting more than usual this week, and everything this week will be free for all to enjoy (though comments will still only be for paid subscribers)—see you back here tomorrow for some PIE CRUST troubleshooting!
–Chaey
so you're saying I should buy a butter mold??