This is a wonderful dinner party dish, because it takes so little work for such a dramatic effect. It is also delicious cold.
This has been one of our Christmas favorites. Garlic permeates the goose, especially if you stuff it a day ahead and refrigerate the bird until shortly before roasting. The garlic is discarded before serving.
Ingredients
Here winter carrots, cut into thick strips, are slow-cooked in their own moisture until swollen, succulent, and flavorful. The vivid taste of the carrots, the aroma of the olives, and the pungency of the thyme make this a great accompaniment to meat or poultry.
I gotta confess: I find this sprightly, tingly mixture ever so much more interesting than cranberry goop out of the can.
These tiny, soft, intensely chocolate cookies are packed with pine nuts, while a little grappa gives them a welcome bite. Called Fava of the Dead in Rome, they mark All Souls night. The dark, almost black color gives these innocent little coins a threatening edge. In the Rome of the Caesars, people believed fava beans held the souls of the dead.
As clarinet soloist with more than a hundred orchestras—and as recitalist, chamber musician and innovative jazz artist—Richard Stoltzman has earned an international reputation.
Moist, dark, spicy, but not too sweet, this is classic gingerbread. My addition of black pepper is because it was a constant ingredient in gingerbreads of the past. It sparks the other ingredients.
This red wine jelly emphasizes both color and flavor. A grown-up dessert, it is tart and sophisticated due to the inclusion of red wine, nicely rounded out by brandy. The whipped cream is a good counterpoint to the austerity of the jelly.
Adapted from A New Way to Cook by Sally Schneider (Artisan, 2001). Copyright 2001, Sally Schneider.