Alison Roman's Thanksgiving

Turkeys are notoriously lean, which is why they really love to be slow cooked in abundant fat - here, equal parts olive oil and chicken fat. Use 100% olive oil if you can't find chicken fat, use duck or goose fat if you can find either. To tell if the turkey is done, the meat should fall apart with the suggestion of a poke (I like to check the top of the thigh, under the skin), with the skin shrinking off the drumstick exposing a very Franco-inspired turkey leg (this is close-ish to a true confit, afterall!)

Squash is almost always my choice for "orange vegetable." While it seems very unlike me, I really love how soft and sweet they are, especially when "forever" roasted (2 ½ - 3 hours). Does squash need to be roasted that long? Absolutely not, but isn't it nice to cook something for the exact same time and temperature as your turkey? I think so. I know the squash, sage and browned butter combination is giving "the ravioli special at the bad-but-good Italian restaurant" but these three ingredients are a true gift on your Thanksgiving table, especially for anyone looking for a casserole with marshmallows ("this is kind of like that!" you'll say).

These chopped pecans toasted in oil with fennel seed and honey are the best thing to ever happen to a leaf or slice of apple. They're sticky and also crunchy, savory but also sweet. They are, in short, a miracle, and perhaps (though you don¿t want to hear this): the best thing on this whole menu. But since a just bowl of nuts and honey isn't quite right for this holiday, I'm sharing them with a bowl of bitter greens, sliced fennel and a bit of apple. If you can't locate nice chicories, that's okay - use something like arugula, or skip the greens altogether and go for a very VERY crunchy salad and use only the fennel and apple (kind of Waldorf-esque, my original inspiration here).

Inspired by a gratin but with no motivation to use a mandolin, these potatoes are boiled whole in salted water, crushed by hand, layered in a baking dish of your choosing along with some sliced scallion, covered with heavy cream and baked at a high temperature until the cream has both been absorbed by the potatoes and reduced around the edges, giving you creaminess in the center and crispiness at the edges. These potatoes have TEXTURE. They have a shower of herbs. These are MY potatoes, and soon, they might be yours.

Any bread or rolls that show up on your Thanksgiving table are to be considered extra credit. To me, the stuffing is the bread, and it's the only bread I need. These Dilly Rolls get a pass because I have emotional familial attachment to them (they're based on my Grandpa Bob's recipe, my first Thanksgiving memory) and also I love dill. Effectively a no-knead bread with a weak-ish crumb, these Dilly Rolls land somewhere between a fluffy roll and a fluffy biscuit, with a crunchy exterior and pillowy interior. Their texture defies logic and tastes amazing (dill), what else can I say.

If I were roasting a whole turkey I'd use those drippings instead of browned butter, but I'm not. The browned butter and dark roux contribute to the flavor, so both steps are important in building a "complex" flavor, despite the short ingredient list and lack of sticky meat bits. Same goes for the soy sauce and sherry vinegar - they're there to fortify saltiness and provide a smack of tanginess. Oh, and "lumpy gravy" has never been an issue for me (brag) but the "trick" is to add the broth or stock slowly, then bring the whole thing to a strong simmer, letting any stubborn flour-y bits melt away.

I have barely changed my stuffing recipe in years, but each time I make it is an opportunity for me (personally) to make The Best Stuffing I Have Ever Had. I am very competitive with myself and I take this self vs. self contest very seriously. The biggest variable seems to be the bread itself -- I used to think the darker and crustier the loaf the better, but I have since realized that I prefer it with something slightly softer (that still has texture). Ideally, the bread has good flavor (from nice flour, long ferment, dark crust) but isn't so dense or crusty that it becomes impossible to rip by hand!

I'm not here to convince you fresh cranberry sauce is better than canned, because I believe in both. But this version of fresh, barely sweetened only with honey, is a nice way to celebrate the simplicity of cranberries and remind yourself why you included them in the first place. Some of you may actually want more sweetness (which can be added in the form of more honey or sugar), or another ingredient to "pep it up" (some freshly grated ginger, orange juice, black pepper, etc.), but I enjoy the elegance and purity of two ingredients helping each other out to make something better than the sum of their parts.

Asking you to boil maple syrup in a pot until it reduces so far that it starts to caramelize might feel like a wild ask, but I know you're going to appreciate the concentrated flavor without the tooth-aching sweetness (reducing the syrup concentrates the flavor and sugar content, so you need less of it in the filling). While it might be a challenge to tell when, exactly, it's caramelized (it starts off as an amber color, so), you will be able to smell it (it'll smell like caramel), and see it (the bubbles going from fast and furious to thick and luxuriously slow).

Ask me for "the best mashed potato recipe," and well, it might be this one. While I apply the method of: "boil potatoes in salty water till very very tender, drain, place back in pot, crush with spoon, add hot dairy, season with salt and pepper" many people will try and over complicate this by telling you you need a ricer or food mill to get the potatoes TOTALLY LUMP FREE, SMOOTH AND CREAMY. I will say, no amount of lump reduction is worth me buying, using, cleaning a food mill or ricer, because regardless, the potatoes will always have residual lumps (I've tried). These are mashed potatoes. Let them be mashed!

If you're going to skip a salad, at least you have these green beans. They're long-ish cooked till tender, but never lose their vibrant punchiness thanks to a not-insignificant amount of lemon and garlic (both cooked/softened to cook with the beans and finely chopped/raw added at the end). Green beans (especially the larger, more "adult" ones) have a rather thick exterior and since we aren't flash-frying or roasting at a high temperature, they really benefit from a longer cook on the stovetop to make sure everything they're cooking with has a chance to make a difference.

Wings, on any bird, are important. They are especially important to me on the bird I'm eating, be it chicken or turkey. Since I'm already buying some to roast for stock, I get extra to roast for serving at the table because a turkey wing, seasoned simply with salt and pepper and tossed with a bit of olive oil, roasted at 425° for 35-40 minutes is transcendent. It gives the kind of evenly crisped, impossibly browned results that would leave someone assuming a deep-fryer was involved (not at my Thanksgiving there isn't). If you also appreciate crispy skin, crunchy, edible bone and tender white meat, you'll love a simply roasted wing on your table, too.

Making turkey stock is a truly "extra credit" thing that I genuinely enjoy doing. But you don't have to! That said, as even a warm-up to cooking, making the stock the night or two before "the big day" feels like a self-imposed ritual I'm happy to oblige because it keeps me organized, gives me a sense of purpose and gets me very excited to spend the next 24-48 hours cooking and thinking about cooking. Plus, of course, yes it does taste better than anything you can get from a tetra pack box. Do it for the ritual. At the very least, do it for the gravy.