As a festive main dish, chicken thighs may sound like a stretch. As opposed to, say, a glistening, bronze-skinned whole roasted bird, a panful of thighs can feel a little basic — not so much “Happy holidays!” as “Welp, it’s Tuesday.”
Leave it to Carolina Gelen to flip the script. With a sweet and sour pan sauce made from orange juice, cranberries and a cinnamon stick, her ruby-hued cranberry-orange chicken would be reason enough to have people over. The best part is, as festive as the dish is, it’s also easy. It’s the kind of thing to simmer up when you’re “just” having a few friends over after work but still plan to break out the bubbly or, as Carolina sagely suggests, a bottle of crisp white wine.
Featured Recipe
Cranberry-Orange Chicken
(Chicken breast fans, we see you too! Here’s a roundup of our best chicken breast recipes for you to enjoy.)
You’ll find more cranberries down to party in Genevieve Ko’s shrimp cocktail with a tangy cranberry cocktail sauce, a double pink delight that employs tart cranberries in place of the usual sweet ketchup. A little horseradish lends its pungent bite, while maple syrup sneaks in a sweet yet sophisticated touch.
Another excellent holiday banger, this time easily made in your pressure cooker, is my herby, garlicky Cuban pork. Marinated in cumin, grapefruit juice, lime and fresh oregano, a chunk of boneless pork shoulder emerges on the verge of falling to tender shreds at the touch of a fork. Tuck it into tortillas for tacos, or spoon the silky, saucy meat over rice and dot with salsa and avocado.
Have you crossed paths with Korean sweet potatoes yet? I encountered my first one recently, and now we’re BFFs. How could anyone fail to be mesmerized by this purple-skinned tuber, with its honeyed, pearly flesh? Kay Chun showcases these charms in her recipe for baked Korean sweet potatoes with miso-scallion butter. As the potatoes roast, she stirs together a simple compound butter with salty, umami flavors that contrast with the sweet, fluffy potato flesh. Kay’s recipe works equally well with any sweet potatoes if you can’t find the Korean variety. And the miso-scallion butter will glam up all sorts of roasted vegetables, like carrots, broccoli or cauliflower, so double that batch, Chef!
Now that we have the miso out, we might as well smear it on some extra-firm tofu and then broil it until its edges are nice and charred. Ali Slagle’s miso-broiled tofu gets its inspiration from Nobu Matsuhisa’s miso-broiled black cod, and has the same sweet-pungent glaze that turns it glossy as it singes. Ali’s trick for the craggiest, crispiest tofu? Instead of cutting it into neat cubes, she tears it into jagged chunks, creating more surface area for a crunchy texture. It’s forehead-slapping brilliant.
I know it’s only Monday, but with the holidays rolling up fast, make sure to plan for a little you time in the busy weekend to come. I certainly am, which will hopefully mean a long, leisurely brunch before tackling all the wrapping and 11th-hour cookie baking I have to do. I’ll be relying on Jerrelle Guy’s sheet-pan chocolate chip pancakes for fortification. With crisp edges and a buttery heart, these babies are what to make when you’ve got a crowd for breakfast but no time to hover at the stove with a spatula (and honestly, shouldn’t you be on the couch with a nice cup of tea?). They’re adaptable, too, and you can top them with chopped fresh fruit or berries instead of the chocolate, or leave them plain, golden and thirsty for loads of syrup — the only thirst trap I want right now.
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That’s all for now. See you on Wednesday.
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