This piecrust is revolutionary. It's a press-in crust, with no rolling or chilling required. Plus, it's buttery and flaky, and so easy to prepare it just may give you the courage to go forth and make a pie on a whim. You can use either granulated sugar or light brown sugar. Both are equally delicious here.
Mashed potatoes are one of my favorite comfort foods, and it's not hard to make them taste amazing. The easy way, my friends, is fat. A lot of it. I used to work at a restaurant where the cooks dropped a brick of cream cheese, a long swig of cream, and unmentionable amounts of butter into the joint's famous smashed potatoes. So there's that approach.
Are you roasting a whole turkey for the first time this year? Or perhaps you've done this many times before, but you want a quick refresher to brush up on the basics? We'll help you make your mama proud with these step-by-step instructions for roasting a delicious turkey. Here's our super basic, super simple, super easy tutorial for roasting a super beautiful turkey this Thanksgiving.
In our opinion, a holiday table isn't complete without a big basket of fluffy dinner rolls. How else are you going to sop up the last bits of gravy? These soft and airy sweet potato rolls are perfect for the job. They're also very nearly fool-proof, making them one less thing to worry about when planning the meal.
Let me walk you through the experience of eating a fresh gougère. It's surprisingly light as you pick it up, almost insubstantial and still hot from the oven. The crispy shell crunches as you pull it open, releasing a puff of savory steam. Then you hit the middle: soft, eggy, and indecently cheesy. Two bites and it's gone. You're going to want to make a batch of these soon, trust me.
These are the same biscuits we make for the biscuit sandwiches served at Serious Biscuit, downstairs from our pizza joint, Serious Pie Westlake, but at Serious Biscuit, we cut the dough into bigger squares, about 3 1/2 inches, bake them, split them in half, and fill them with everything from fennel sausage with fried egg, melted fontina, and spicy-sweet pepper relish to crispy fried chicken with fried egg and savory black pepper gravy. If you want to make your own biscuit sandwiches, just cut the squares a little bigger than directed in this recipe, bake them, split them in half and fill them. This smaller, 2 1/2-inch biscuit is perfect for breakfast or brunch.
Psycho (1960)
The basic method of making risotto will never change: you cook the rice slowly and add broth gradually, so the starchy inside of the rice kernel expands as the outside layer dissolves into creaminess. Risotto feeds the soul and can take a whole range of flavors. I like the pumpkin risotto here, but try a shrimp risotto using shellfish broth, adding a pound of peeled shrimp at the last minute and letting them cook no more than 5 minutes. Or how about a green risotto, with a bunch of watercress or a few handfuls of spinach, chopped fine? Or a mushroom risotto with a pound of sliced fresh mushrooms added to the dried porcini mushrooms.
This butter fried chicken recipe is in my head more often than not. That's saying something. It's one of our monthly meals at the Zimmern house, and it's yet another brilliant way to do chicken for a crowd that includes kids. Paired with a bright citrus punch and salty capers, this fried chicken entrée makes everyone happy. My son starts screaming "butter chicken" and runs up and down the hallways when he comes home from school and learns what's for dinner. I first ate this dish 30 years ago, served for a family meal one night at a restaurant in Florence where I was a stagiaire. I hadn't seen butter during my first few weeks in Italy and almost fainted when I tasted this.
This rich, intensely chocolate cake is the perfect dinner party dessert because it is both so easy to make and seriously delicious. Like a little black dress, the recipe can be improvised on endlessly to create different effects. Add exotic flavorings such as freshly ground pink or black peppercorns, ancho chile, Mexican cinnamon, curry powder or garam masala (about 1/4 teaspoon); dried, unsprayed lavender flowers or herbes de Provence (1/2 teaspoon, crumbled), or ground Earl Gray tea (2 teaspoons). Or stir 3/4 cup coarsely chopped nuts such as roasted pistachios, hazelnuts or pecans into the finished batter. For chocolate almond cake, add the barest whisper of almond extract (a scant 1/8 teaspoon) and chopped toasted almonds (Spanish Marcona almonds are sensational).