The main event of holiday dinners is often a turkey. These birds are classic holiday fare and can seem monotonous year after year. An option for adding a bit more flavor to your turkey is a compound butter. I like to mix chopped fresh herbs like sage, parsley, rosemary, and thyme with a bit of fresh cracked pepper, paprika, fresh garlic, and a pinch of lemon zest into softened unsalted butter. I put this flavorful butter between the meat and skin of the whole bird, including the legs. A little bit can go inside with the stuffing and whatever you have left can be rubbed on the outside of the turkey. This helps to incorporate the flavor into both the skin and meat of the turkey as well as helping to keep it moist. Some of that butter and flavor will drip into the bottom of the pan and end up in the gravy as well adding a touch more excitement to traditional gravy- try adding a splash of Marsala to the gravy for more pizazz!
Another staple of holiday parties is the cheese tray. This year at our Thanksgiving feast I tried a few new flavor combinations with cheese; they looked nice too! My first cheese experiment was a mascarpone and cranberry ball. I started with fresh cranberries and cooked them with brown sugar, some orange zest and fresh orange juice until it sort of looked like cranberry jam. Once that cooled, I mixed some chevre, the mascarpone, and some of the cranberry mixture to form a ball and let it cool in the fridge for an hour or so on wax paper.
To add a nice crunch to the softness of the cheeses, I candied some toasted pecans and chopped them into smallish pieces to coat the cheese ball. For a slightly salty coating, add some nice Fleur de Sel or maybe pink Himalayan salt to the candied nuts.
Starting at the top, press the pecan pieces into the cheese ball to cover the whole thing. If you leave it on the wax paper for this process, it makes transporting easier. You can also roll the ball into your hand with out getting sticky to stick nuts to the bottom of the ball. If you havn't already eaten the remaining candied nuts, use them as a garnish for your cheese plate or instead of croutons on your festive holiday salad! (recipe to follow)
For the rest of our cheesey appetizers I used a nice piece of brie at room temperature and paired it with a delicious sweet and spicy Blackberry Serrano jam. Wensleydale with cranberries is in the middle, and I made an orange brandy caramel to pour over a mini camembert round (this particular cheese is made locally in Fort Collins by a company called MouCo) that I served with some of the left over cranberry orange 'jam' from the cheese ball. I added a few slices of pepperjack for my picky eater brother just in case; they weren't eaten.
One final fun holiday recipe I have to share, as promised, is a roasted beet and fresh orange salad with a cranberry dressing. I roasted red and gold beets in the same way I have roasted beets previously and peeled them by rubbing the skin off with my hands-I was pink for days! Then sliced them in thin rounds for the salad.
For the cranberry salad dressing I used some of the cranberry orange jam from the cheese ball, a little red wine vinegar, a splash of raspberry infused balsamic vinegar, a touch of fresh orange juice, some honey, and olive oil. I put all the ingredients into a glass measuring cup and blended everything with an immersion blender until it was all emulsified. The salad consisted of mixed spring greens, thinly sliced red onion, supremes of fresh orange, the roasted beets, some candied pecans, and goat cheese.
I hope everyone reading this is enjoying their holiday season and using this time to do some fun cooking! Maybe some of these recipes will give you ideas of your own to try. Let me know if you try any of your own ideas or these recipes and how they turn out for you! Be sure to make something especially tasty for someone special in your life this season-and Chop On!
No comments:
Post a Comment