... a spirited celebration of regional food and culinary craft, season by season, with original recipes by Susan S. Bradley
This Thanksgiving, I give thanks to Zuni Café culinary goddess, Judy Rodgers, for turning me on to dry salt curing. had wet brined poultry and pork for years before trying the salt curing process Chef Rodgers describes in The Zuni Café Cookbook. To compare the two methods, I conducted several tests, and to my palate, salt-curing wins. Although both methods have advantages, you just can’t beat salt-curing for ease and juiciness of the cooked meat.
I’ve been making roux since I began to cook our weekday meals in the second grade. In my family, a light golden roux was the base for pan gravy, which was the mandated accompaniment to mashed potatoes. Many years later, I learned about a darker version, which is the base for French brown sauces and traditional Creole dishes, such as Gumbo.
In my estimation, the ultimate Thanksgiving gravy depends on a properly made roux. It’s not difficult to produce and lends the gravy a roasted flavor dimension that can’t be obtained with a simple flour and water or cornstarch and water slurry.
The most important element of Thanksgiving preparation in the OtherWorldly Kitchen is Brown Poultry Stock. I say this unequivocally, because it is essential to my Thanksgiving 24-Hour Gravy. Without this luscious, silky gravy, it’s just not Thanksgiving.
I was walking through the Portland Farmers Market a couple of weeks ago and did a double take on a stack of orange cauliflower. I adore cauliflower (the earthy flavor, the crunchy or creamy texture), and the only nit I can pick with this lovely vegetable is its color. It gets lost on a white plate and looks pallid and unimaginative next to other basic ingredients I love, such as potatoes, rice, pasta, and poultry.
This concept should have been a cinch. After all, I developed White Chocolate, Cardamom & Coconut Beignet and they’re wonderful—ethereally light, tender, moist, and beautifully flavored.
But I made a classic mistake at the onset. I tried to pattern the new beignets after the earlier success. And that, my friends, was a disaster. I threw batch after batch of beignets in the trash after just one taste.
Something different went wrong with each batch: too dry, too wet, not sweet enough, not pumpkin enough, not spicy enough, and finally, just okay but nothing special. I almost gave up. Where was I going wrong?
I was at Trader Joe’s a few weeks ago and spied a perky little jar of Pumpkin Butter. I must be years behind on this, but that was my first encounter with this luscious spread.
Northwest pumpkin season is in full swing, and I have new recipes ready to roll out in the weeks ahead. Get ready for Spiced Pumpkin Butter, Pumpkin Butter Gingerbread Beignet, Pumpkin Chocolate Torte, and Caribbean Shrimp & Pumpkin Chowder. And while I get those ready for you, here are my pumpkin FAVORITES from past seasons.
There is something magically transforming about this particular combination of flavors. Wow is the only word I can think of to describe it. The buttery richness of flaky pastry, sweet tartness of apple, mellow bite of onion, deep savoriness of cheddar, and intense sharpness of blue cheese create a wondrous effect on the palate.
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