A salad, side, picky bit and dessert

The Thanksgiving Menu

Welcome back to the Thanksgiving menu! Today, I've got a salad, a side, a sweet and bitter bite, and a classic English dessert.

More on the sweets later, but as for the savory options, It will come as no surprise that any recipe involving copious amounts of melted French cheese, gargantuan quantities of butter, garlic-infused sage sausage, and the west country’s best cyder, is bound for culinary magic. Keep reading.

Oh, and this is a rather long post, so feel free to view via the website or app if the email cuts out.

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I’ve listed a few ingredients you might need to pick up from the store for these recipes.

Sugared cranberries

Fresh cranberries

Oranges

Cinnamon stick  

Caramelized spiced butter apples with a herb pork stuffing

Sausage meat / beef mince 

Bacon

6 apples ( I recommend Braeburn or honey crisp)

Cider (the alcoholic kind)

Bitter Leaf Salad

Bacon lardons 

Endive, radicchio, rainbow chard - or any bitter winter leaves you can find

Pomegranate molasses 

Camembert

Steamed orange pudding with a spiced creme anglaise 

Oranges

Marmalade 

Golden syrup

Cornflour

The following can be prepped 2-3 days in advance.

1. Pork stuffing (for caramelized cider apples)

2. Bacon lardons, garlic croutons & pomegranate vinaigrette (for bitter leaf salad)

3. Sliced oranges and marmalade syrup sauce (for steamed puddings) 

Bitter leaf salad with a warm camembert dressing, crispy bacon lardons and garlic croutons 

Worthy of your Thanksgiving table, I promise

I’ll start by saying this, If you love a negroni you’ll adore this salad. However, If you don’t favor bitter leaves such as endive and radicchio, I doubt that anything I say will change your mind. Although, if there’s one recipe, or rather one method, that might just tempt you, it’s drowning the leaves in a warm, unctuous crème fraîche and melted Camembert dressing. Let’s be honest, even the fussiest eater would abandon their reservations when faced with anything drenched in melted cheese.    

I know salad might not be the first thing that comes to mind for the Thanksgiving table, but with the richness of everything else, the balance created by a slight tangy sharpness feels much needed. For our bitter leaf salad, endive and rainbow chard are tossed in a tangy pomegranate molasses vinaigrette, then topped with crisp bacon lardons, garlic croutons, and that luxurious Camembert dressing. (Thank you, Delia Smith, for the inspiration—this is, currently my most favored combination in the world.

The real drama — which feels entirely appropriate for the occasion — happens tableside. Just before serving, the crème fraîche is gently warmed on the stove with the Camembert, then poured decadently over the salad. The theatre, darling!

Apples, butter, pork -  oh my!

Apples - resplendent in their sugary decay

When you fill an apple with sage sausage, garlic, and shallots, then coat it in butter and spiced sugar, before surrounding it with the best West Country cider you can find, is there any wonder something very special occurs?

It’s quite the talent, really, dreaming up a myriad of ways to house stuffing: in the carcass of a turkey…tucked into the hollow of a pumpkin (that recipe is on its way)... encased in pastry… but this method? By far my favorite.

It’s a simple dish, rustic in nature, fuss-free. The sausage stuffing can be prepared ahead of time, and depending on the size of your gathering, you can cook and serve the apples in a cast iron pan. They may collapse as they are gently softened by the melting butter and the aromatic moisture of the cider—no matter—it only adds to their romantic charm.

For the method (covering the apples in butter and sugar) I was inspired by the legendary Delia Smith and

Clare de Boer

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Steamed pudding - it ain't pumpkin pie but it’s bloody gorgeous

A traditional English pud for Thanksgiving

For the past few years, each Thanksgiving has been spent in England, where we honor my husband’s heritage with a traditional spread: turkey, cranberry sauce, brioche dinner rolls with honey butter, sausage stuffing, green beans with crispy shallots, chorizo gravy (his absolute favorite and a completely secret recipe-sorry) candied yams, sweet potato casserole, mac and cheese, jalapeño cornbread, and all the trimmings - all made from scratch. It’s a feast that feels familiar, yet slightly out of place, in the English countryside.  

But this year, it struck me, why not blend traditions? American Thanksgiving staples paired with old-fashioned British fare. For dessert, the usual pies came to mind: pumpkin, pecan and sweet potato. But what I really craved wasn’t a pie at all. I wanted something warm, nostalgic, and quintessentially British. A traditional pudding—sweet, tart, and deeply comforting.  So I settled on an orange steamed pudding with a spiced creme anglaise. Before we get into the recipe, and although I’m no food historian, I thought you’d appreciate a brief history of the great British pud. 

Explaining pudding to someone outside the UK can feel like trying to unravel a culinary riddle. In America, it’s straightforward — pudding is a creamy dessert, usually custard-like. But in Britain, the term is far more confusing nuanced.

A little history

Although "pudding” is sometimes used to mean dessert in general, true puddings are something else entirely, and for many people, they are more specifically associated with boiled or steamed creations. Think Christmas pudding, suet pudding, or a delicate sponge pudding steamed in a basin (see my orange steamed pudding recipe below).  

To make matters more confusing, the definition broadens further: anything boiled or steamed in a basin, cloth, or even an old-fashioned intestinal casing also earns the name pudding. Charming! Black pudding, white pudding, pease pudding, and even haggis technically fits the bill. Then, just to complicate things, there are sometimes exceptions. Yorkshire pudding, for instance, isn’t boiled at all; it’s baked in searing hot oil either in individual tins or one roasting pan and served with a traditional Sunday roast. So, as you can see, the term ‘pudding’ has a variety of applications which can refer to either savory or sweet dishes, which could, nevertheless, be interchangeably utilized for starters, mains or desserts. Phew!

Still with me? Good. For our Thanksgiving menu, to keep things straightforward, I’ve included a simple yet delicious recipe for a steamed pudding to consider for your Thanksgiving table.

Orange & cinnamon sugared cranberries

Bitter, sweet, nuanced, and utterly delicious — a perfect nibble or topping for a cake or dessert.

Bitter and sweet - my perfect flavor combination