There’s a 30-minute or so grace period while the turkey takes its necessary rest after coming out of the oven (this is what makes for juicy eating, believe it or not). Use this grace period to heat up the sides and to simmer the gravy.
These beautiful and simple cheese crisps hail from the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region of Italy.
My father uses the microwave. Working with about 5 chestnuts at a time, he slits each chestnut almost all the way around its circumference, leaving the shell connected in one spot (there is a black dot on the chestnut that he uses as the hinge). Then he lays the nuts on a plate and microwaves them on high power for 40 seconds. The shells pop open like clams. He wets his fingers in cold water and pulls off the shells before the chestnuts cool. Repeat until all the chestnuts are peeled. The fresh ones really are better than the jarred, and he says it takes him only 15 minutes to do a pound.
Eaten blindfolded, the mushrooms taste like chicken.
Ingredients
These potatoes will be the brightest taste on the plate.
Toss in a serving bowl with the lemon juice, top with the zest.
Fresh and bright tasting these beans contrast with the deeper, richer tastes of the mushrooms and timbale.
This new recipe includes a technique I've been using for years: roasting the turkey in two stages. I do this because of the Big Turkey Problem: while you're waiting for the turkey's dark meat to cook (which takes longer), the white breast meat dries out. My solution: cook the bird until the breast is still juicy, remove the bird from the oven, and carve off the two sides of the breast. Put the bird back in the oven -and while the dark meat's finishing, serve a white-meat first course. Twenty minutes later, you can serve a dark-meat second course. And you get to drink two wines with this main course: I always like to serve a white wine with the white-meat course and a red wine with the dark-meat course. By the way: the honey-pepper rub burnishes the big bird beautifully.
Ingredients