Chanterelle Mushroom Cornbread Stuffing with Fennel and Parsnip

Chanterelle Mushroom Cornbread Stuffing with Fennel and Parsnip

Dressing is another one of things that everyone A) does differently and B) feels very strongly about when the holidays roll around. It’s a vehicle for ethnicity, for tradition, or for some, simply for gravy. For me, Thanksgiving / Christmas is about the turkey, and the dressing should serve to complement it by including all of the veggies and carbs you should need to round out the rest of the food groups as well as all of the flavors of the season that you can’t cram into a bird. While I’d love to regale you with tales of a grandmother’s secret recipe or something I stumbled upon on a vacation to some fantastic foreign land or domestic hole in the wall, I really just put together a bunch of flavors I like and borrowed the technique from a few different recipes.

I start with a great chicken stock – Ina Garten’s, to be exact. As you may have heard from advanced food snobs – the ones that sneer at the term ‘foodie’ and look down their nose at the Food Network – the Barefoot Contessa is probably the best purely cooking show on the ‘Network. She employs classic techniques and gives helpful shortcuts in plain language – someone you can actually learn from and be entertained by at the same time. However, as you can tell by her elaborately equipped kitchen and pricey ingredients, you sometimes have to make slight adjustments to make things affordable. Rather than whole chickens, I like to use chicken backs to make stock. Talk to a butcher / meat counter attendant and they’ll gladly give you a huge amount of them for very little money. I like to get them from the chicken purveyor at my local farmer’s market – the chickens are naturally raised and end up costing something like $20 for a pretty small bird. But, once the breasts and legs and other meaty parts are hacked away, the backs are left – and can be yours for $3 or so per pound. I make a huge pot full at a time – they’re called stock pots for a reason – and then freeze the end product. Big holiday meals are all about make-ahead shortcuts, and this is no exception. The basic flavors in this chicken stock are some of the foundational elements of French cooking. Onions, celery, and carrots comprise the French holy trinity – the mirepoix. Even if you don’t like one of those three vegetables, if you try chicken soup without one of them, you’ll feel like something is missing. The herbs in Ina’s stock are also classic – thyme, parsley, dill, bay leaf, and sage. Having made a batch of stock to use, I also use the same veggies and herbs in the stuffing.

Chanterelle mushrooms are one of my favorite fancy schmancy mushrooms. They’re the ones at Whole Foods that are yellowish in color right under the staggering $29.99 / lb price sticker. But, fear not – they’re pretty lightweight, so they’re not actually that expensive, especially relative to the ridiculous amount of flavor that they contain. You can roast them dry or sautee them in butter or olive oil, and the aroma that fills your kitchen will convince you of it. They’re in season in the Fall, generally between Labor Day and Thanksgiving. Sticking with seasonality for this dressing, parsnip adds a bit more earthy sweetness and fennel adds an oniony licorice flavor that really brings it all together

Ingredients

• 2 medium onions, diced
• 2 ribs of celery, diced
• 2 carrots, peeled and diced
• 1 parsnip, peeled and diced
• 1 fennel bulb, diced
• 1/2 lb of chanterelle mushrooms, cleaned and diced
• 1 1/2 lbs cornbread, cubed and dried (I buy a bag full at the grocery store as a shortcut)
• 1 quart chicken stock (I make it in advance as a shortcut)
• 1 stick of butter
• 1 tablespoon of minced garlic
• 2 tablespoons of fresh sage
• 1 tablespoon of fresh thyme
• 1 tablespoon of fresh parsley
• 1 tablespoon of fresh dill
• 1 bay leaf
• 5 eggs

Method

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. If you’re making this at the same time as you’re roasting a turkey, just keep it at the temperature that you need the oven at for the turkey
• Sautee the onions in a big frying pan or wok using a tablespoon or so of butter and a half cup of chicken stock. Once the onions are translucent, add in the celery and another tablespoon of butter and half cup of stock. Repeat with the fennel, celery, carrots, parsnip, fennel, and mushrooms.  Once everything is in the pan, add the garlic and herbs, reduce heat to low and let simmer while you prepare the pan
• Line a large baking pan with foil – it’ll make cleanup a lot easier. Spray the foil with cooking spray – this will keep the bottom from sticking and burning. Add in the cornbread cubes – they should almost fill the pan, leaving ½ inch or so of space at the top
• Remove the bay leaf from the simmering veggie/mushroom/butter/stock mixture and pour the mixture over the cornbread cubes. Use a wooden spoon to stir and mix it all together. You’ll probably need to add in more stock or water at this point – you want all of the bread to be moist. So, add in a cup of stock and a cup of water and repeat until it’s covered. Use your wooden spoon to press down on the mixture to help with this. Once you’re at this point, cover the pan with foil and stick it in the oven.
• After almost an hour has passed, beat the 5 eggs. You can add in a little milk if that’s how you like your scrambled eggs, which I certainly do. Take the pan of dressing out of the oven and remove the foil. Pour the eggs over the dressing and use a wooden spoon to quickly fold it into the mixture – if you go too slowly, the eggs will cook before having a chance to mix in with the dressing. (I like my dressing to be moist, but if you like yours on the drier side you can add the eggs in when you’re putting everything together before going into the oven.) Put the dressing back into the oven, uncovered, and crank the heat up to 400 degrees. If you’re making this at the same time as the turkey, time it such that you’re taking the turkey out to rest at this point. After half an hour, take the dressing out of the oven and you’re done. The smell alone will make everyone in your house go weak in the knees. It should be perfectly moist and flavorful – make sure everyone tries it WITHOUT gravy first – most of them will probably never let any gravy touch it after that

Roasted Bacon-Wrapped Turkey and Honey-Bourbon-Giblet Gravy

Bacon-Wrapped Turkey

Ah, the turkey. As much as it is a labor of love, it can be very nerve-wracking roasting a turkey. As is well documented in family cooking lore, magazine articles, and every morning talk show in November, the white meat cooks much more quickly than the dark meat. People try all sorts of tricks to get around this, from the traditional (tenting, frequent basting, brining), to the trendy quick fix (frying), to the complicated / desperate (splatching, separating the parts (and putting them back together with meat glue if you’re Wylie Dufresne)). My personal solution is a solution that a lot of people use for a lot of different problems: bacon.

Bacon serves 4 purposes here:

• It protects the outer layer of breast meat from drying out
• The fat renders and ‘bastes’ the turkey as it cooks
• The drippings mix with the turkey drippings and make for an amazing gravy
• It’s tasty

It also seems to act as an anti-depressant / inspiration to some people, but I’ll consider that an off-label benefit.

The act of producing this beast can be divided into 7 steps. Timing here is for a beast of a 20-lb turkey. The rule of thumb is 15 minutes per pound of meat, so that’s 5 hours in the oven for this bird. The basic steps are:

1. Brine the bird (24 hours pre-service)
2. Prep the bird (6 hours pre-service)
3. Get the bird in the oven (5 hours pre-service)
4. Baste every 30-45 minutes (from 4.5 hours pre-service up until 30 min pre-service)
5. Remove from the oven and let it rest (20 min pre-service)
6. Use the pan drippings to make gravy (right after you take the turkey out)
7. Carve (5 min pre-service) and serve!

So, here we go…

1. Brine the bird (24 hours pre-service)

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of sea salt
• 1 cup of light brown sugar
• 1 apple, diced (don’t peel it or seed it or anything)
• 1 orange, diced (same idea)
• 1 T. peppercorns, whole
• 1 t. juniper berries, whole
• 1 dash of worcestershire sauce
• 1 dash of aged balsamic vinegar
• 1 sprig each of fresh thyme, sage, dill, and parsley
• 1 brining bag (large plastic zip lock bag that the turkey can fit in)

Method:

• Combine all ingredients with 6 cups of water in a medium saucepan and bring to a  boil
• Reduce heat to low and simmer for half an hour and then remove from heat
• Refrigerate mixture (the brine) until it’s cool (doesn’t have to be ice cold)
• Rinse and dry off the turkey. Take the giblets out of the cavity and put them in the fridge – you’ll need them for the gravy
• Place turkey in the brining bag and then pour in the brine on top of it, and then zip it up tightly while trying to get as much air out of the bag as possible
• Set the turkey in the fridge breast-side down so that the breast is soaking in the brine
• Early the next morning, flip the whole thing breast-side up
• An hour before getting the bird in the oven, remove the bird from the brine. Thoroughly rinse off all of the brine (including inside the cavity) and pat the bird dry with paper towels

2. Prep the bird (6 hours pre-service)

Ingredients:

• Handful of fresh thyme, sage, dill, and parsley – all washed, rubbed, picked, and minced
• 3 T. crushed black pepper
• 1 package of hickory smoked, uncured bacon (as natural as possible)
• 2 lemons, quartered
• 1 head of garlic, cut in half cross-wise (so that all cloves are cut in half)
• 1/2 stick of softened/melted butter

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 425 degrees
• Prepare the fresh herbs. Rinse them all and dry them off  - they’re pretty dirty if you get them from the farmers’ market. The rub them between your fingers or hands – this releases more of the oils (flavors) that are in the leaves. Now remove the leaves from the stems – you only want the leaves, not the woody stems. Finally, mince all of them and combine them in a small bowl with 2 T. or so of crushed black pepper
• Find where the skin separates from the breast meat on the turkey. Stick your fingers in between the skin and the meat, and then plunge them into the space to lift the skin away from the breast meat all over. Make sure your hands are clean first! Then, take handfuls of the herb and pepper mixture and distribute it underneath the skin. This flavors the white meat and presents a much tastier option for those choosing to eat healthy/boring and skip the skin
• Quarter the lemons and halve the garlic. Roll the lemon slices in the rest of the crushed black pepper and then put the lemons and garlic in the cavity of the turkey. Then, close the legs and truss/tie them
• Now, the bacon. Lay it down in strips on top of the breast so that they cover it. Then, pin the strips in place with toothpicks – otherwise they’ll fall off when they crisp up
• Use the butter to pain the legs, thighs, wings, and any other part of the turkey not covered in bacon
• Proceed to the next step…

3. Get the bird in the oven (5 hours pre-service)

Ingredients:

• Giblets without the liver

Method:

• Wait until the oven is pre-heated to 425 degrees
• Place the triumphantly bacon-wrapped, butter-basted turkey on a roasting pan with a wire rack and put the whole thing in the oven
• After 30 min, lower the temperature to 325 degrees
• Put the giblets in a small sauce pan with enough water to barely cover them. Turn the heat on and set it to low – the giblets will simmer the whole time the turkey is roasting so that you get the maximum amount of flavor possible from the giblets

4. Baste the bird (from 4.5 hours pre-service up until 30 min pre-service)

Method:

• Wait until the oven is pre-heated to 425 degrees
• Place the triumphantly bacon-wrapped, butter-basted turkey on a roasting pan with a wire rack and put the whole thing in the oven
• After 30 min, lower the temperature to 325 degrees
• Baste the turkey every 30-45 min with the drippings in the pan (tilt the pan to make this easier). And yes, basting the turkey means basting the bacon. With its own fat + turkey fat. You can taste the America already
• Check the simmering giblets (which is pretty good name for a band) to make sure there is enough water such that they’re just barely submerged. If not, add hot water until they are

5. Remove the bird from the oven and let it rest (20 min pre-service)

Method:

• Take the bird out of the oven and set on a table
• Transfer the bird and the wire rack to a separate area

6. Use the pan drippings to make gravy (20 min pre-service)

Ingredients:

• 1/2 c. Maker’s Mark bourbon
• 1/4 c. honey
• Liver from the giblet pouch that you saved
• 1 c. Unflavored bread crumbs

Method:

• Pour the pan drippings into a fat separator, and pour the drippings (minus the fat) into a medium-size sauce pan. If you don’t have a fat separator, pour the drippings directly into the saucepan and use a big spoon to skim the fat off the top (save the fat if you want to use it to confit some leftover turkey dark meat, or use it to make sweet potato french fries, or anything else that would be great with turkey and bacon fat). Turn the heat up to medium low so that the drippings simmer
• Pour the bourbon into the roasting pan to deglaze it. This means taking a wooden spoon and scraping around to loosen up the burnt black bits from the bottom of the pan. Pour the remaining bourbon-and-black-bits mixture into the drippings
• Add in the honey and stir to combine
• Add in the liver and simmer for 5 minutes
• Use an immersion blender to puree the liver
• Gradually add in bread crumbs a tablespoon at a time and puree using the immersion blender until you have your desired thickness. You can thicken a gravy with a lot of things – a roux, corn starch, flour, potato – but breadcrumbs are the easiest. They don’t clump up, they require no prep, and they add a little flavor of their own. Anyway, remember that as the gravy cools, it will thicken slightly, so don’t add in too much bread crumbs or you’ll need a spoon to serve the gravy

7. Carve and serve ! (5 min pre-service)




Method:

• Start by first removing the legs and wings from the turkey and place on a large serving platter
• Then, use a carving knife to remove both breasts from the turkey – they’re much easier to carve once separated from the rest of the body. Then, use the carving knife to slice the breast and place on the serving platter
• Use a paring knife and a fork to pull the thigh meat, back, and shoulder meat from the turkey and place on a serving platter
• Enjoy!!!!

Shrimp & Grits

Shrimp and Grits with heirloom tomatoes and pimento peppers

My Dad grew up in Augusta, GA and I grew up in Maryland, which is technically (and definitively) below the Mason-Dixon line. So, I like to consider myself half-southern. My annual visits to Grandma’s house have built in me a deep-seated love for pulled pork barbecue (Georgia- / Carolina-style, of course), fried chicken, baked macaroni & cheese, and all the other things fried, slow-cooked, and/or loaded with butter/cream. Shrimp & Grits, however, can be miraculously healthy in comparison to the indulgences listed above. You can flavor it any way you want, using hot peppers or fruit or meat or even just extra butter.

The flavor in this version comes from hot peppers and Old Bay, a spice that you swear by if you’re from the DC area (or at least the mid-Atlantic), or, one you’ve never heard of if you’re not. For those not on the Acela route, it’s a spice you’d probably recognize as the main flavoring in crab cakes. In Maryland we throw it on all kinds of seafood as well as chicken, french fries, popcorn, potato chips, etc. Good stuff.

For those not familiar with grits, you may recognize them by their other name: polenta. Whatever you call it, it’s a thick, corn-based porridge that’s usually served with some kind of meat or egg or flavoring. Every culture in the world has some kind of starchy porridge that the poorer people (often the best, most creative cooks by necessity) eat with a scant amount of meat in order to make that meat go further – fufu in Africa, poi in Hawaii, etc. In the American south, it’s grits. You can buy the instant version, which are ready quicker, but they’re bleached and don’t turn out as creamy as the version that takes a little while longer (which I used here).

Cherry-Ginger Roasted Beets with Fresh Ricotta, Aged Balsamic, Thyme

Until recently, my only experiences with beets up until now were of the salad bar variety and the Doug variety. I saw these Italian heirloom beets at the farmers’ market though and decided to give them a shot. Beets are pretty sweet, but you have to coax it out of them by roasting them a bit – it concentrates the sugars. It also helps to cook them in something that has some sweetness to it to help it along.

Ricotta is one of my favorite cheeses. It’s healthy, inexpensive, and quite tasty. Yes, cheese can be healthy! Ricotta is made from whey, which is a byproduct from the production of other cheeses, which means it’s generally pretty cheap. It also means it’s almost all protein – whey, after all, is the stuff most commonly used in protein powders. I use the hard version, ricotta salata, as my go-to cheese to shred and add to anything. It doesn’t melt very well since it doesn’t have much oil in it, but the health benefits are worth it for me. I use the soft version of ricotta in dishes like these – you might have used it in a lasagna or stuffed shells recipe before. It’s light, creamy, a little salty, and a little sweet – great for adding texture to something when you don’t want to dominate all the flavors around it – like this one…

Pineapple-Ginger-Serrano Pork Chops

Pork chops, grilled pineapple, fresh avocado, quinoa

I first made this dish after a 4-month business trip to South Africa – it was an amazing trip, but I missed my kitchen! It incorporates one of my favorite spice blends of all time – Jerk Spice. You can find it in most supermarkets, but you may have to ask for it. If not, you can always make your own.

Give this one a shot the next time you need to taste summer again, e.g., when you would have taken that Caribbean vacation back when people could afford Caribbean vacations. The difficult part of this one is the timing – you may want to have someone else handle the quinoa, grilled pineapple, avocado, and sauce for you the first time you try it so you can focus on the chops. But, even if you mess things up somehow, even a mistake made with these ingredients will be tasty!

Kim Chee Breakfast Burrito with Wasabi-Ginger Aioli

When I have Kim Chee in my fridge, it tends to find its way into a lot of meals – including breakfast. It’s a Korean creation that is basically spicy pickled cabbage. So, it’s like a healthier version of dumping hot sauce on your plate – you’re getting some veggies! Thanks to the Koji truck, hungry, inebriated people stumbling out of bars all over LA have discovered the joys of Korean-Mexican fusion in a big way. If that sounds weird, please give it a try. It’s amazing – it’s like deciding between two kinds of take-out and then just getting both.

The wasabe-ginger aioli here is optional on this breakfast burrito, but in the same way that enchilada sauce is on a real burrito: once you’ve had it, it’s an option you want every time. Aioli is basically just a fancy mayonnaise – so, if you don’t have olive oil and an egg, feel free to mix the wasabe and ginger with some mayo. You can use whatever kind of sausage you like – I prefer chicken chorizo for this one.

Carrot-Ginger Soup with Pimento-Harissa Drizzle

Carrot-Ginger Soup with Greek Yogurt Dollop and Pimento-Harissa Drizzle and Grilled Shrimp

I have always loved carrots. The crunch, the sweetness, the color – definitely one of the best vegetables out there. Like most suburban kids, I grew up with a handful of the ‘baby’ version in my X-Men lunch box every weekday, but it wasn’t until I tried the farmer’s market variety that I really appreciated them – misshapen, dirty, and topped with an unnecessary amount of greens. Once you get them trimmed and cleaned up though, they’re much sweeter and earthier than the lunch box variety. I’ve been on a big ginger kick lately, which is a great counter to carrots. Voila, soup!

I like making soups creamy without using cream. To pull off this oxymoronic feat, I use leeks (but you could also use potatoes). It’s healthier, the flavors are clearer, and you don’t have to remember to buy cream at the store (or, really, you don’t have to judge just how spoiled the half-finished carton in your fridge happens to be). I do like having some element of clean, refreshing, cool dairy so I like to add a dollop to veggie puree soups. Creme fraiche is the classic one to use, but sour cream will do. I like using fat-free Greek yogurt – I buy it in large quantities for eating with granola and dried fruit, so I always seem to have some around.

Once I have the soup and the dollop, I like to take things one step further and add a drizzle. Yes – soups can have sauces, too! I like using them to balance the flavors in the soup – if it’s a sweet soup, I add a spicy drizzle. If it’s a tart soup, I add a sweet drizzle. It’s also a good way to let people customize how a soup tastes. We all have that one friend that can eat a dozen jalapeños without blinking, and we all have that one friend that can’t look at a picture of a jalapeño without cringing. Instead of making one soup that tries to please everyone, let people add the right amount of spice for themselves!

In this case, carrot soup tends to be pretty sweet, so I wanted to add some heat to it. I had a pimento left over from something else I had made earlier in the week, so that was definitely going to be part of this drizzle. I’ve also been itching to find some good uses for harissa, which is a North African chili paste. It has a deep, spicy, almost mysterious taste that adds a lot of depth (and heat) to anything it touches. Pimento and harissa would be too hot on their own, so I added a red bell pepper to round out the pepper taste with a little bit of sweetness, and adding some char by throwing the peppers on the grill would add to the smokiness of the harissa. All of this added up to a great sauce – also perfect for glazing shrimp to throw on the grill!