Thanksgiving Recipes

By MELODY BOLDEN

Thanksgiving is coming! What a great holiday it is - who doesn't like great food? Celebrating each other and food. Why not get involved this year with a couple of these recipes? This article is about some of the non-traditional food that can be served at the family table. This is a wonderful recipe from the wonderful Tyler Florence of Food Network. A Simple but Delicious Chicken Parmesan.

Your ingredients include:

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus 3 tablespoons

1 medium onion, chopped

2 garlic cloves, minced

2 bay leaves

1/2 cup kalamata olives, pitted

1/2 bunch fresh basil leaves

2 (28-ounce) cans whole peeled tomatoes, drained and hand-crushed

Pinch sugar

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

4 skinless, boneless, chicken breasts (about 1 1/2 pounds)

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

1 tablespoon water

1 cup dried bread crumbs

1 (8-ounce) ball fresh buffalo mozzarella, water drained

Freshly grated Parmesan

1 pound spaghetti pasta, cooked al dente

The Recipe:

1. Coat a saute pan with olive oil and place over a medium heat. When the oil gets hazy, add the onions, garlic, and bay leaves; cook and stir for 5 minutes until fragrant and soft. Add the olives and some hand-torn basil. Carefully add the tomatoes (nothing splashes like tomatoes), cook and stir until the liquid is cooked down and the sauce is thick, about 15 minutes; season with sugar, salt and pepper. Lower the heat, cover, and keep warm.

2. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit.

3. Get the ingredients together for the chicken so you have a little assembly line. Put the chicken breasts side by side on a cutting board and lay a piece of plastic wrap over them. Pound the chicken breasts with a flat meat mallet, until they are about 1/2-inch thick. Put the flour in a shallow platter and season with a fair amount of salt and pepper; mix with a fork to distribute evenly. In a wide bowl, combine the eggs and water, beat until frothy. Put the bread crumbs on a plate, season with salt and pepper.

4. Heat 3 tablespoons of olive oil over medium-high flame in a large oven-proof skillet. Lightly dredge both sides of the chicken cutlets in the seasoned flour, and then dip them in the egg wash to coat completely, letting the excess drip off, then dredge in the bread crumbs. When the oil is nice and hot, add the cutlets and fry for 4 minutes on each side until golden and crusty, turning once. Heat 3 tablespoons of olive oil over medium-high flame in a large oven-proof skillet. Lightly dredge both sides of the chicken cutlets in the seasoned flour, and then dip them in the egg wash to coat completely, letting the excess drip off, then dredge in the bread crumbs. When the oil is nice and hot, add the cutlets and fry for 4 minutes on each side until golden and crusty, turning once.

5. Ladle the tomato-olive sauce over the chicken and sprinkle with mozzarella, Parmesan, and basil. Bake the Chicken Parmesan for 15 minutes or until the cheese is bubbly. Serve hot with spaghetti.

Are you more of a beef person? Don’t worry, I have a recipe from an old YouTube video that was in my recommendations a couple weeks ago! From the popular YouTube channel, Feast Of Fiction, comes a recipe called Curry Buns. This YouTube channel takes food from all sorts of fictional shows and recreates them in real life. Curry Buns are from the anime, Black Butler, also known as Kuroshitsuji.

Ingredients needed:

Curry:

1 whole Russet potato, peeled

2 Carrots, peeled

10 mushrooms

1 large white onion

Cut up Beef chunks.

Garlic

Ginger

1 tablespoon of Curry Powder

1 tablespoon of Garam Masala

½ teaspoon of Cayenne Pepper (or to taste)

2 cubes of Curry Roux

1 tablespoon of Tomato Paste

1 cup of Red Cooking Wine

1 cup of Room Temperature Water

1 cup of Beef Broth

Cooking Chocolate

Dough:

2 cups of Bread Flour

¼ cup of Cake Flour

1 teaspoon of yeast

½ cup of Warm Water

¼ cup of Room Temperature Water (yes the difference matters)

3 teaspoons of white granulated sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1 beaten egg

Panko Bread Crumbs

Recipe:

Let's begin by preparing the dough. Activate your yeast in your 1/2 cup of warm water and combine your dry ingredients in a mixer. Afterwards, keep mixing and add in your activated yeast, eggs, and remaining water. Once the dough has been kneaded, set it to rest in a container with a damp towel above to let the dough rise.

Let's start on our curry! Slice up your onions, carrots, mushrooms, and mince your ginger and garlic. We are using beef chunks as well for the meat - however many curries are totally vegetarian so the meat here is optional.

Oil your pan then brown and soften your onions on a medium high heat before adding in your ginger, garlic, curry powder, and tomato paste. Continue to saute and mix the entire mixture. Then add in your beef with a cup of red wine. Allow this to cook through on a lower temperature.

When they beef is about half cooked, add in your beef broth and water and bring the entire mixture to a boil. Skim off the scum off the top, then add in your potatoes, carrots, and mushrooms. Cook until your potatoes are soft. Since we'll be putting this curry inside a bun, use a large wooden spoon to mash the ingredients together so the mixture as a whole becomes more smooth.

To get that final curry flavor, add in your Japanese curry roux, cooking chocolate, garam masala, and cayenne pepper. Set your curry aside to cool.

Now that our dough has risen, let's prepare our curry buns for deep frying. Bring a pot of oil to 325 degrees. Take out your dough and punch it down. Then knead several times before separating it into smaller chunks. Take a small chunk in your bottom hand and cup it with your free hand. Pushing the dough together from bottom and top, move in a circular motion until you have a spherical ball.

Roll out your dough, working around the dough bit by bit, until you have a flat circle shape. Hold the dough in your free hand and load a small amount of curry in the middle. Pulling the edge up towards the middle and top of the bun, grab the next edge of the bun and fold it over behind your current fold. Press these edges together so that it is airtight.

When you've worked your way around the whole bun and have sealed it. Press it carefully against the cutting board to flatten both sides out and fully encapsulate the curry inside.

Dip your loaded buns in an egg wash and then coat it your bread crumbs. Carefully put these into the hot oil and allow them to cook until it becomes a golden brown all around. Once done, remove the curry buns from the fryer and onto a paper towel to remove any extra oil.

Now that we have our two main dishes, why don’t we prepare two side dishes. The first of the two will be a Transforming Furikake Rice Bowl from the same YouTube channel, Feast of Fiction.

Ingredients:

2 tbsp. sesame oil.

8 Unbreaded chicken wings, uncooked

2 tsp. Bonito soup stock

5 cups of water

2 teaspoon of minced ginger

1 Tbsp. sugar

3 Tbsp. of soy sauce

1/4 cup sake

2 Tbsp. gelatin

1 cup white rice

2 green onions

4 eggs

Salt and pepper to taste

Recipe:

1. Add sesame oil to a pan and heat to medium. Fry the chicken wings for 10-15 minutes, or until golden brown. Save the chicken residue in the pan.

2. Add water and soup stock to a pot and heat to a boil. Add the chicken and turn the broth down to medium low.

3. Add the ginger, soy sauce, sake, and sugar to the chicken pan. Stir all of these ingredients with a wooden spoon.

4. Pour everything from the pan into the Broth. Simmer on medium-low for 20 minutes.

5. Take the broth off the heat and let it sit for a few minutes. If there is a layer of fat on the top, take it off. Take the chicken wings out and set aside.

6. Add the gelatin to 1/2 of water and let bloom for 5 minutes. Mix the gelatin into the water until fully dissolved. Add the gelatine mix to the broth mix.

7. Grease a tray with butter. Add the broth. Cover with cling wrap, put in the fridge and and let solidify for 2 hours.

8. Separate the chicken from the bone and skin. Add the chicken to the rice

9. Take the gelatin broth out of the fridge and Cut small cubes of broth gelatin.

10. Scramble eggs. Add eggs and chopped green onions to rice. Add the aspic (meat broth jelly). Watch the cubes melt and enjoy.

Now we need one more side dish before we head onto desserts. A very popular cooking YouTuber by the name of, Binging with Babish has found a recipe for Onigiri.

Ingredients:

• Kelp

• 2 cups water, divided

• 3 Tbsp rice wine vinegar, separated

• 3 Tbsp soy sauce

• 1 Tbsp mirin

• 1 Tbsp sake

• Sesame seeds

• Sour pickled Japanese plums, pitted (umeboshi)

• 1 cup rice

• 2 Tbsp sugar, separated

• 1 tsp salt

• Seaweed

Recipe:

1. Start by adding the kelp to a bowl of water for 15 minutes. Remove and thinly slice into strips. Add to a saute pan along with ½ a cup of water, 1 Tbsp rice wine vinegar, 3 Tbsp of soy sauce, 1 Tbsp mirin, and 1 Tbsp sake. Cook over medium heat and bring to a simmer for about 10 minutes before adding 1 Tbsp of sugar. Sprinkle with sesame seeds, and then add kelp to a bowl and set aside.

3. Take your sour pickled Japanese plums (also known as umeboshi) and remove the pits. Give them a little chop or mash them with a fork and set aside.

4. For the rice, start by rinsing the rice multiple times to remove the stach. The first couple times you wash it, it’ll be very cloudy. Continue to wash until it almost runs clear.

5. Add rice to a rice cooker or pressure cooker along with 1½ cups of water. Cook for 7 minutes on high pressure and then release the pressure using the pressure valve.

6. Spread the rice onto a sheet pan and drizzle with a mixture of 2 Tbsp of rice wine vinegar, 1 Tbsp sugar, and 1 tsp of salt. Give it a little mix to combine.

7. To form the Onigiri, have a small bowl of water ready because you want your hands to be wet or the rice will stick to them.

8. For the umeboshi nigiri, form the rice into a disc, add your umeboshi, and then cover the other side with another disc of rice. Form into a disc the size of a hockey puck.

9. For the kelp, form the rice into a disc, add the kelp along with another disc of rice and then form that into a triangle. Add a strip of seaweed to each of your onigiri.

And now we have the perfect side dishes for this non traditional Thanksgiving Feast. Now it’s finally time for dessert. This recipe is from one of my favorite 2D Disney Animated Movie, Princess and The Frog, Beignets.

Ingredients:

• 1 ½ cups buttermilk

• ½ cup boiling milk

• 4 tsp dry yeast

• 2 ½ Tbsp sugar

• 22 ounces of bread flour

• ½ tsp baking soda

• ½ tsp kosher salt

• Flour

• 2 quarts of vegetable oil

• Honey (optional)

Recipe:

1. Start by combining 1 ½ cups of buttermilk with ½ a cup of boiling milk to which we are going to add 4 tsp of dry yeast and 2 ½ Tbsp of sugar. Stir to combine and set aside for 10 minutes.

2. In a stand mixer bowl, combine 22 ounces of bread flour with ½ tsp of baking soda and ½ a tsp of kosher salt. Mix to combine before adding our milk and yeast mixture. Make sure your dough hook is attached and mix for about 3-4 minutes. You want the dough to be sticky.

3. Transfer dough to a separate bowl. Cover and let sit for 1 hour.

4. Liberally flour your work surface and turn out your dough onto the flour. Coat the dough with a nice thick layer of flour before rolling out to about ¼ inch thick. Trim off the edges to make a nice big rectangle and then cut into smaller rectangles.

5. Preheat your oil to 370°F and then add 3-5 pieces of dough to the oil. Be sure to baste the skyward facing side of the beignets constantly for about 2 minutes before flipping and letting cook for about 30 more seconds.

6. Remove from oil and place on a plate that is lined with paper towels.

7. Dust them down with liberally with powdered sugar. Serve and enjoy!

8. If you want to make them like the beignets from The Princess and the Frog, add honey to them before you add your powdered sugar!

And that’s it! The perfect Untraditional Thanksgiving Dinner! May everyone have a great Thanksgiving and lets be grateful for the amazing time you’ll have making these wonderful dishes.