Not Derby Pie

The seasons have turned, haven’t they? The pretty little pint of greenhouse cherry tomatoes on my counter notwithstanding, DC’s got a case of cold wind and short days that puts me in the mood for stew and hot cider.

But first, before I wind down on salads for weekday lunch, I want to share a good one that makes the most of fall produce and that I think you’ll enjoy serving all winter long.

Tell me you’re shocked that it comes from Yotam Ottolenghi; I don’t believe you. The new king of vegetables has struck again, and this time, there isn’t a drop of tahini or yogurt in sight. (That might surprise you.) The dressing is a simple concoction of sherry vinegar and maple syrup, which slicks a big pile of roasted cauliflower, celery, parsley, pomegranates, and toasted hazelnuts. Doesn’t it just sound like fall?

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It’s doughnut week here on NDP. First up were these sufganiyot filled with the best cranberry mousse of your life. Now? We’re going savory. Please welcome my friend and cook extraordinaire, Josh Resnick, who’s sharing his unforgettable cornmeal doughnuts stuffed with stuffing. Ever since we tried them, we haven’t been able to stop thinking about them. I tested them this past weekend, and while Josh’s came out better than mine, even my amateur version was quite delicious. These doughnuts are not to be missed.

From the looks of my kitchen this past week, you’d think I’d given up normal eating and opted instead for some wacko doughnut diet. I’ve fried three batches in the last 7 days and no, I’m not done yet. The weather report says we’re getting snow (!) on Tuesday, and I think we’ll need some cinnamon-sugar doughnut holes to go with the season’s first cocoa.

But before the snow and the cocoa and the doughnut holes, I had a wacky idea to make cranberries into pudding. It was back when tomatoes were still delicious and cranberries in the supermarket downright confused me. But there they were, announcing fall before I was quite ready. Still: summer couldn’t last forever. Instinctively, I grabbed a bag. Okay, two.

Scheming about what to make with them on the way home, it occurred to me how similar cranberries are to rhubarb, which became curd back in 2010. Bright red and oh-so-sour, both beg for sweetness and richness to soften the tart bite of the fruit. In both cases, sugar + egg yolks work wonders.

Not to gild the lily, but pump the sweet-tart bright-red curd into a nutmeg-scented yeast doughnut, and you’ve got yourself a treat.

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By now, surely you’ve heard the news: Thanksgiving and the first night of Hanukkah are one and the same. Once-in-a-lifetime doesn’t quite capture the specialness of this event: Thanksgivukkah happens only once every 79,000 years. To us cooks, that means one thing: better make that meal unforgettable.

I knew immediately that no matter what else graced our Thanksgivukkah table, there would be turkey-fat-fried latkes. In truth, I supplemented what little turkey fat I managed to render with some schmaltz from the freezer, but my taste testers were none the wiser. I also knew that these latkes would contain both potatoes and sweet potatoes, and I knew I’d be topping them with cranberry applesauce – the clear no-brainer of the menu. I briefly considered adding some toasted marshmallows overtop, but that seemed like overkill. (Instead, we’ll be topping our butternut squash soup with toasted marshmallows. They’ve got to go somewhere.)

I briefly dreamed of one monster dish, a sandwich of latkes, cranberry apple sauce, roasted turkey, and gravy piled high and eaten with plenty of napkins. But Thanksgiving is a time for refined fare; we’ll save the Thanksgivukkah sandwich for Black Friday. (Fortunately, Food52 took care of the details here.)

Most Thanksgiving meals feature a whole bird as the piece de resistance. I’m still debating whether or not to bother: breast and leg simply do not cook at the same rate, so why not cook the parts separately and make each as delicious as possible?

Beautiful as a whole bird is, the great appeal of cooking the turkey in pieces is that it allows us home cooks to make something previously relegated to those willing to cook Thanksgiving dinner in a flame-resistant body suit: deep-fried turkey.

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Let me tell you about the last two times I made crêpes. Most recently, D and I found ourselves home on a weekend morning with not much of anything to do. We slept in, stayed in our PJs, read the paper, and tried to let some of those tightly-wound DC coils relax a bit. She binge-watched Sopranos; I made crêpes with plums in cinnamon syrup.

The time before that was a winter weekend in February, with very similar circumstances. Cold weather outside, low fire in the fireplace inside, pjs, slippers, quiet time. Weddings, On the Market in New York City, and plain, powdered sugar-dusted crêpes.

Looking back on this sporadic and finicky history, I’ve come to two conclusions. One is that I need to make crêpes more often. The other is that I need a crêpe recipe I can whip up even when we have more than a Sopranos marathon on the agenda.

Consider the second one solved. (First one? We’re getting there.) See, here’s what I never knew about crêpes: you can make them months in advance. As in, you can prepare them on one of those Sopranos weekends in November, stow them away (carefully – see my notes below), and grab them from the freezer just in time to assemble a super-fancy brunch for company in February. When you present a plate full of crêpes folded fancily, dusted with powdered sugar, and topped with whipped cream about 20 minutes after inspiration strikes, I guarantee, you’ll surprise even yourself.

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Though my mother put the lion’s share of food on the dinner table growing up, my father stepped into the kitchen on a few choice occasions. Every Passover, he made his famous matzah brei, a savory, spicy one laced with garlic, onion, and ginger. One Mother’s Day, my dad darted back and forth through our small kitchen for the better part of an hour, finally emerging with a gorgeous split-egg omelet, in which the eggs had been separated, the whites whipped nearly stiff (by hand, no less), then the two parts recombined to make an omelet not unlike a good souffle.

But my strongest memory of when my dad wore the apron was on Hanukkah, when he filled our home with exactly as much smoke as 60 latkes tend to make. He made the straight-up potato latkes, while my mom made a batch with zucchini and a batch with sweet potato mixed in.

Though some would say my dad burned a fair number of the latkes he made, I never complained. The black-edged ones were always my favorite.

In honor of Thanksgivukkah, I’ve riffed on batch #3, using a mix of potatoes and sweet potatoes. I will admit that I momentarily considered incorporating toasted marshmallows into the latke recipe, but I think we can all agree that that was a terrible idea. Plus, I’ll be topping our soup with burnt marshmallows that evening: problem solved.

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The excitement started this summer, when our friends Mira and Josh alerted us to the fact that the first day of Hanukkah falls on Thanksgiving. By now, you probably know that Thanksgivvukah — Hanukksgiving? — comes along once every 79,000 years, and not that I’m betting against myself or anything, but guys, I think this may be our only crack at the apple.

And by apple, I mean cranberry applesauce. Hanukkah meets Thanksgiving: has a better gastronomic mash-up ever existed? (Answer: no.)

Why make jelly doughnuts when you can stuff them with cranberry curd and pumpkin pudding instead? Will regular latkes ever have a place at your table once you’ve told your guests how much you love and appreciate them by frying them in duck fat? And honestly, who needs skillet cornbread when you can turn that cornmeal into savory doughnuts stuffed with even more delicious things? I rest my case.

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