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Alabama

Lucy Buffett’s Oyster Dressing

Lucy Buffett and her famous brother, Jimmy, grew up in Mobile, Ala., where seafood from the Gulf of Mexico is a key player in the culinary canon. Mr. Buffett went on to a giant career in music. His sister Lucy opened the freewheeling LuLu’s restaurant in Gulf Shores, Ala. When they were children, oyster stuffing was always on the Thanksgiving table. And it still is. “Usually, it’s all gone by the end of the day because the kids go back for thirds and fourths, just digging directly into the pan,” she said.

Ms. Buffett likes to use cornbread with a little sugar in it, often relying on a box mix. But any cornbread recipe will do. The best bread is an inexpensive white loaf from the grocery store that will break down into a smooth texture. The oysters don’t have to be from the Gulf of Mexico, but fat Gulf oysters are best for conjuring the brackish low tides and sunsets of the Buffett family youth.  

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Lucy Buffett’s Oyster Dressing

Lucy Buffett’s Oyster Dressing

1 hour 15 minutes 8 to 10 servings

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/AL.html)

Ingredients

  • 12 tablespoons/1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, divided, plus more for baking dish
  • 1 (8-inch-square) baked and cooled cornbread, preferably on the sweet side
  • 15 slices white or wheat bread, toasted and cooled
  • ½ large white onion, finely chopped
  • 2 celery ribs, finely chopped
  • ½ large green bell pepper, finely chopped
  • ½ cup chicken broth, plus more as needed
  • 2 dozen freshly shucked or jarred oysters, preferably Gulf oysters, drained and coarsely chopped (reserve the oyster liquor)
  • ¼ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
  • 1 tablespoon hot sauce, preferably Crystal
  • ¼ cup fresh flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
  • 1 tablespoon fresh sage, finely chopped, or 1 teaspoon ground sage
  • 1 ½ teaspoons truffle salt or sea salt
  • ½ teaspoon ground white pepper

Preparation

  1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9-by 13-inch baking dish.
  2. Crumble cornbread into a large bowl. Tear toasted white or wheat bread into very small pieces, add to cornbread, and toss to combine
  3. Melt 8 tablespoons butter in a large sauté pan over medium heat. Add onion, celery and bell pepper; sauté, stirring occasionally, for 3 minutes. Cover pan and cook, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are almost translucent, 5 to 6 minutes. Remove cover, add broth, and cook, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan, for 2 to 3 minutes. Continue to cook mixture for 1 more minute, then remove from heat, add to bread mixture, and stir to combine.
  4. In a medium bowl, stir together oysters, lemon juice, hot sauce, parsley, sage, salt and white pepper. Add to bread mixture and stir well to combine. If dressing seems too dry, add a little oyster liquor and up to 1/2 cup more chicken broth; mixture should be very moist.
  5. Pour dressing into greased baking dish. Cut remaining 4 tablespoons butter into small pieces and scatter over top of dressing. Bake until top and sides are browned, 40 to 45 minutes.
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Alaska

Russian Salmon Pie

The Russians call it kulebyaka, but in Alaska it is pirok, perok or peroche — all amendments of pirog, the more general Russian word for pie. Inside the flaky crust, wild salmon from Alaskan waters is layered with rice and cabbage, crops introduced to the 18th-century natives of Kodiak Island by fur traders from across the strait. Long after the Russians gave up the hunt for sea otter pelts and sold their claim to the territory to the United States, the frontier fish-camp dish remained a staple of the Alaskan table.

Kirsten Dixon, the chef and an owner of Winterlake Lodge, along the Iditarod Trail, and Tutka Bay Lodge, near Homer, likes to make salmon pie at Thanksgiving, when the Alaskan back country is already muffled in snow and guests arrive by ski plane, landing on a frozen lake.  

Russian Salmon Pie

Karsten Moran for The New York Times

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Russian Salmon Pie

Russian Salmon Pie

1 hour 20 minutes 8 servings

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/AK.html)

Ingredients

  • 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
  • 1 red onion, diced
  • ½ pound mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
  • ½ head green cabbage, cored and shredded
  • 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
  • Salt and black pepper, to taste
  • 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
  • 1 1-pound skinless salmon fillet (preferably Alaskan)
  • 2 sheets homemade or store-bought puff pastry
  • 2 cups cooked short grain brown rice
  • 2 eggs, one hard-boiled, the other beaten
  • ½ cup shredded sharp Cheddar
  • ½ cup fine bread crumbs
  • 2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
  • ¼ cup heavy cream

Preparation

  1. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Melt butter in a large nonstick skillet over medium-low heat. Add onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until tender, about 7 minutes. Stir in mushrooms, cabbage and vinegar; increase heat to medium. Cover pan and cook 4 minutes; uncover, toss and cook 2 more minutes. Remove vegetables from pan, season with salt and pepper to taste, and set aside.
  2. Wipe out skillet, add olive oil and set over medium-high heat. Add salmon and season lightly with salt and pepper. Cook salmon 5 minutes per side; remove to a plate and let cool. Flake salmon into large chunks and set aside.
  3. Set a sheet of puff pastry on a lightly floured surface. Gently roll out until it is large enough to fit a 9-inch deep-dish pie plate. Transfer pastry to pie plate, allowing extra dough to drape over edge.
  4. Spread brown rice over bottom of pastry. Peel and chop the hard-boiled egg, then add to pie, followed by flaked salmon. Sprinkle with cheese, then bread crumbs. Mound vegetable mixture on top. Sprinkle with parsley and drizzle cream over top.
  5. Roll out remaining sheet of puff pastry on a lightly floured surface until it is large enough to cover pie. Brush rim of bottom pastry with water and place second sheet of pastry directly on top. Using kitchen scissors or a paring knife, trim off excess dough. Use a fork to crimp the edges of the pie together and help the sheets of pastry adhere.
  6. Cut a few small slits in the top of the pie to allow steam to escape. Brush top of pie with beaten egg. Bake until pastry is puffed and golden brown, 35 to 40 minutes.
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Arizona

Cranberry Sauce With Chiles

Heat is an integral aspect of Arizona cooking, so it’s no surprise that local chiles of all kinds accent the flavor of Thanksgiving. Cooks use them in everything from Hatch turkey rubs to chipotle mashed potatoes to jalapeño jelly.

This cranberry sauce, adapted from the Phoenix-based chef Gina Buskirk, is spiced with chiltepin chiles, small, round, fiery hot chiles that are native to Arizona and northern Mexico. Though Ms. Buskirk is known locally for her Italian Gina’s Homemade products, this year she and her husband and business partner, Chris, have put together an Arizona Thanksgiving menu for their YouTube channel. Their turkey is hand-rubbed with local Hatch chiles, their bread stuffing incorporates chorizo and queso blanco, and a prickly-pear pie stands in for pumpkin.  

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Cranberry Sauce With Chiles

Cranberry Sauce With Chiles

40 minutes 2 1/2 cups

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/AZ.html)

Ingredients

  • Zest of 2 limes (2 teaspoons), divided
  • 1 to 2 dried chiltepin, chile pequin or bird chiles, to taste, crushed in a spice mill or a mortar and pestle, or 1/2 teaspoon crushed chile pequin
  • 1 ¼ pounds cranberries (4 1/2 cups)
  • Zest of 1/2 orange
  • ¾ cup sugar, more to taste
  • 2 cloves, crushed in a mortar and pestle or ground in a spice mill
  • ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg

Preparation

  1. Set aside the zest of 1 lime (about 1 teaspoon) for garnish. In a large saucepan, combine all the remaining ingredients with 1/4 cup water. Bring to a simmer over medium heat, then reduce heat to low and simmer, stirring often, until thick, 10 to 15 minutes. Remove from heat.
  2. Transfer to a serving dish and allow to cool. (Sauce will continue to thicken.) Garnish with the reserved lime zest.
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On Facebook, readers said:Tamales.” “Green chiles.”

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Arkansas

Roast Heritage Turkey and Gravy

Arkansas is the land of turkey and gravy. The state is one of the top turkey producers in the country, and its cooks are well versed in everything from red-eye gravy from a cast-iron pan to the chocolate gravy of the Ozarks, eaten with biscuits for breakfast.

P. Allen Smith is sort of like Martha Stewart’s Southern cousin. He has a cooking and lifestyle empire, but his true love is heritage poultry. He founded a conservancy to protect and improve the genetics of old breeds of birds, and raises several on his Moss Mountain farm near Little Rock.

Heritage birds can be tricky to roast; the flesh is firmer than a supermarket bird. He suggests a day in a brine sweetened with apple cider and then roasting the bird on a bed of rosemary. Roasted giblets and a chopped hard-boiled egg add texture and depth to his country-style gravy.

“That’s from my mother’s side of the family,” he said. “The eggs and giblets make it a little more rustic and a little more interesting. It’s the gravy that saves that dry turkey.”  

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Roast Heritage Turkey and Gravy

Roast Heritage Turkey and Gravy

About 4 hours, plus 24 hours' brining 10 to 16 servings

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/AR.html)

Ingredients

  • 1 16- to 20-pound heritage-breed turkey
  • 1 quart apple cider
  • 1 cup kosher salt
  • 2 lemons, quartered
  • 5 bay leaves
  • 1 medium apple, quartered but not peeled
  • 1 medium yellow onion, peeled and quartered
  • 6 garlic cloves
  • 1 bunch thyme
  • 8 tablespoons/1 stick unsalted butter, softened
  • 6 sprigs rosemary
  • 1 tablespoon salt
  • 1 tablespoon pepper
  • 1 cup red wine
  • 3 cups turkey or chicken stock, plus more if needed
  • 4 tablespoons cornstarch
  • 1 hard-boiled egg, chopped (optional)

Preparation

  1. A day ahead of roasting, remove neck and giblets from turkey. Mix cider, salt, lemons, bay leaves and 3 quarts water together in a large bowl or stockpot; stir to dissolve salt. Submerge turkey in the bowl or pot, cover and refrigerate overnight or up to 24 hours. Alternatively, put turkey and brine in two clean, unscented plastic garbage bags (one bag inside the other), tie well and place in a cooler with ice or ice packs.
  2. When you are ready to roast, heat oven to 350 degrees. Rinse turkey and pat dry. Stuff apple, onion, garlic and most of the thyme into turkey. Lift skin at neck and gently use your hand to separate skin from breast meat. Rub half the butter under skin and slip in remaining thyme and two rosemary sprigs. Use remaining butter to rub outside of bird, then sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper.
  3. Set a rack into a roasting pan and place four rosemary sprigs on top of the rack. Place bird on top of rosemary. Add turkey neck and giblets to bottom of pan. Take two pieces of heavy foil cut to the length of the pan. Fold the two together to create a single sheet to tent the bird.
  4. Transfer to oven and roast. Roasting time will be 3 to 3 1/2 hours for an 18-pound bird. Add 10 minutes per pound for larger birds. Subtract 10 minutes per pound for smaller birds. Midway through cooking time, remove giblets and neck and add wine and 1 cup water. Twenty minutes before roasting time is complete, begin to test for doneness with a digital probe thermometer inserted at the deepest part of the thigh. It is done when thigh registers 160 degrees. Remove bird from oven and transfer to a serving platter.
  5. Place roasting pan over low heat on the stovetop and add 21/2 cups stock. Scrape all the browned turkey bits from bottom of pan. Skim 2/3 of the fat from top of drippings and discard. Bring drippings to a boil; reduce to a simmer. You may wish to strain at this point to remove stray bits, but they add character to the finished gravy.
  6. Finely chop giblets and neck meat. Dissolve cornstarch in 1/2 cup stock. Add slurry to drippings, stirring constantly, until thickened. If gravy seems too thick, whisk in a bit more stock. Add chopped egg and giblets and neck meat. Taste and season with salt and pepper.
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California

Sourdough Stuffing With Kale, Dates and Turkey Sausage

Sit down with a California chef, and it usually takes only a minute or so before the word “produce” pops up. The state remains extravagantly proud of the bounty of its land, and all of the best West Coast cooks (both in restaurants and in homes) integrate local agricultural blessings into their handiwork.

We can think of no one who does a finer job of that than Suzanne Goin, a Los Angeles native who has adapted Mediterranean cuisine to the Pacific Coast at spots like Lucques, The Hungry Cat and A.O.C. Her stuffing recipe here pays tribute to the whole length of the state, with nods to the sourdough that you associate with fog-strewn San Francisco and to the almonds and dates of the Central Valley. As Ms. Goin explained in an email, “There is no egg and no real attempt to emulsify it like your mom’s stuffing — it’s loose, laid-back and doing its own thing, California-style.”  

Sourdough Stuffing With Kale, Dates and Turkey Sausage

Emily Berl for The New York Times

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Sourdough Stuffing With Kale, Dates and Turkey Sausage

Sourdough Stuffing With Kale, Dates and Turkey Sausage

1 hour 15 minutes 8 servings

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/CA.html)

Ingredients

  • 1 (1-pound) loaf sourdough bread
  • 10 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
  • 1 pound turkey sausage, casing removed
  • 2 cups diced onions
  • ½ sprig rosemary
  • 2 teaspoons thyme leaves
  • 2 sliced chile de árbol
  • 1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
  • Black pepper, to taste
  • 1 pound lacinato kale (also known as Tuscan kale or cavolo nero), about 2 large or 3 small bunches, tough rib stems removed and roughly chopped
  • 3 ounces deglet noor dates (about 16), cut in half lengthwise
  • 1 cup dry sherry
  • 2 cups chicken or turkey stock
  • 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
  • ¾ cup roughly chopped toasted almonds

Preparation

  1. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Cut the crust off the bread and tear remaining loaf into 1-inch croutons. Place torn bread on a rimmed baking sheet and drizzle with 4 tablespoons olive oil, squeezing and tossing bread with your hands to help it absorb the oil. Transfer to oven and toast, tossing once or twice, until croutons are golden brown and crispy on the outside but still a little soft and tender inside, 12 to 15 minutes. When croutons have cooled, place them in a large bowl.
  2. Heat a large pot or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add 2 tablespoons olive oil and crumble sausage into pan. Sauté, breaking up sausage with a wooden spoon, until browned and just cooked through, 5 to 7 minutes. Transfer sausage to the bowl with the croutons using a slotted spoon.
  3. Return the pot to medium heat and add 2 more tablespoons olive oil, the onions, the rosemary sprig, the thyme and the chile. Season with 1/2 teaspoon salt and a few grinds of black pepper. Continue cooking another 3 to 4 minutes, stirring often, until onion is soft and starting to color slightly.
  4. Add half the kale and the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil to the pan. Use tongs to turn the greens to coat them in oil and help them wilt and cook down. When there is room in the pan (from the greens wilting), add the rest of the kale and season with another 1/2 teaspoon salt and a few grinds of pepper. As soon as all the kale has wilted, transfer mixture to the bowl with the croutons and sausage. Remove rosemary. Add dates and stir well to combine.
  5. Return pot to stove over high heat and carefully pour in sherry. Boil until sherry is reduced by three-quarters, then add stock. Boil until mixture is reduced by half, then swirl in butter until melted.
  6. Pour hot liquid over crouton-kale mixture. Add almonds and toss well to combine; using tongs or your hands, squeeze and massage the stuffing to integrate the flavors and make sure bread has really soaked in all the liquid.
  7. Transfer stuffing to a ceramic baking dish or casserole. Cover and bake 15 minutes in the 400-degree oven. Uncover and bake 10 to 15 more minutes, or until top is golden and crisp.
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Colorado

Pecan Pie Bites With Gravy

It’s difficult to assess exactly how much the legalization of marijuana in Colorado may have changed the Thanksgiving menu. But it has indubitably increased the snacking that goes on afterward, said Alexander Figura, the chef of Lower48 Kitchen in Denver. That post-meal, late-night snacking has taken on a different kind of intensity now that the munchies are involved. “Stoned people gravitate to more extreme flavors,” he said. “They want something very savory or very sweet, or both at the same time.”

His recipe for sticky pecan pie bites dunked into leftover turkey gravy — an after-hours snack among chefs he knows — hits those notes perfectly. The bite-size, bourbon-spiked pecan bars work on their own, too: no gravy or cannabis required. You can bake them up to 5 days in advance.  

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Pecan Pie Bites With Gravy

Pecan Pie Bites With Gravy

1 1/2 hours, plus at least 30 minutes’ chilling 2 dozen bars

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/CO.html)

Ingredients

  • 12 tablespoons/170 grams/1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter
  • cup/35 grams confectioners’ sugar
  • Pinch salt
  • 1 ½ cups/185 grams all-purpose flour
  • 1 cup/235 milliliters light corn syrup
  • ½ cup/100 grams light brown sugar
  • cup/80 milliliters heavy cream
  • 2 tablespoons/30 grams unsalted butter
  • 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
  • 1 tablespoon/15 milliliters bourbon
  • 1 teaspoon/5 milliliters vanilla extract
  • Pinch salt
  • 2 cups/200 grams pecan halves
  • Leftover turkey gravy, for dipping

Preparation

  1. Make the crust: In the bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter, confectioners’ sugar and salt. Beat in flour. Form crust into a disk, wrap in plastic and chill for at least 30 minutes (or up to 3 days).
  2. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9-inch-square pan and line with parchment paper. Press dough evenly into bottom of pan. Bake until crust is golden brown all over, about 30 minutes.
  3. Make the filling: Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, heat corn syrup, sugar, cream and butter until the butter melts. Let cool, then stir in eggs, bourbon, vanilla and salt until smooth. Stir in pecans.
  4. Pour filling over crust. Bake until set, 40 to 45 minutes. Cool completely before cutting into bars. Drizzle gravy on top or serve alongside as a dip.
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Connecticut

Quince With Cipollini Onions and Bacon

English settlers most likely brought quince seeds to Connecticut, where orchards now fill with them every fall. This year, the chef Eric Gorman’s White Silo Farm and Winery in Sherman, which specializes in fruit wines, held its first weekend quince festival, with a number of quince dishes to taste. He plans to serve this one, combining quinces with bacon and onions, for Thanksgiving at the farm. A pinch of nutmeg (we are speaking of the so-called Nutmeg State, after all) adds spice.  

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Quince With Cipollini Onions and Bacon

Quince With Cipollini Onions and Bacon

45 minutes 6 servings

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/CT.html)

Ingredients

  • 1 pound cipollini onions
  • 2 ½ to 3 pounds quinces (about 5), peeled, cored and cut into 1-inch chunks
  • 6 tablespoons pure syrup
  • ½ pound thick-cut bacon
  • 4 tablespoons good quality balsamic vinegar
  • ¾ teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • Salt and ground black pepper
  • 1 tablespoon chopped flat-leaf parsley leaves
  • Leaves from 5 sprigs fresh thyme

Preparation

  1. Bring 2 quarts water to a boil, add the onions, turn off the heat and let sit 5 minutes. Drain and allow to cool.
  2. Heat oven to 425 degrees. Toss quinces with half the maple syrup and spread in a single layer in a large baking pan. Bake 25 minutes, until tender.
  3. Peel and trim the onions. Quarter large ones; cut small ones in half. Fry bacon in a large sauté pan over medium heat until browned. Remove and drain on paper towels. Pour off all but 2 tablespoons of the bacon fat. Add onions to the pan and sauté on medium until lightly browned, about 6 minutes.
  4. Cut bacon strips in 3/4-inch pieces. Add to pan with onions. Reduce heat to low. Add remaining maple syrup and the vinegar. Fold in quince. Add nutmeg and season with salt and pepper. Add parsley and thyme. Gently fold ingredients together. Cook a few minutes, then serve warm.
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Delaware

Du Pont Turkey With Truffled Zucchini Stuffing

Turkey was served often at Winterthur, an ancestral home of the du Pont family, in Delaware. The birds were raised on the estate, in great enough numbers for the family to give them to employees at Thanksgiving and Christmas. The land was purchased in 1810 by Eleuthère Irénée du Pont; the house was built in 1839 and opened to the public as a museum of American decorative arts in 1951. Many of its recipes survive, among them one for truffled turkey and stuffing, which Pauline Foster du Pont, who was married to Eleuthère Irénée's grandson, included in her personal handwritten cookbook.

First, three pounds of zucchini were boiled, then peeled, mashed and seasoned with salt, pepper and butter. This was the stuffing. Then the contents of an entire can of black truffles were sliced and slipped under the turkey’s skin. To serve, the meat was carved and then put back in its skin so that the turkey appeared to be whole. In this adaptation, the bird is rubbed with truffle butter, and the zucchini (finely chopped, not mashed) is bolstered with bread crumbs and more truffle butter. But it does not suggest replicating the reassembled turkey. The du Ponts had staff for that. You will have enough to do at Thanksgiving without attempting it.  

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Du Pont Turkey With Truffled Zucchini Stuffing

Du Pont Turkey With Truffled Zucchini Stuffing

4 hours, plus overnight chilling 10 to 12 servings

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/DE.html)

Ingredients

  • 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
  • 3 medium onions, chopped fairly fine
  • 6 cloves garlic, minced
  • Salt
  • 1 teaspoon ground ginger
  • 6 tablespoons black truffle butter
  • 3 pounds zucchini, trimmed and chopped fairly fine
  • 1 ½ cups dry whole-wheat bread crumbs
  • ¼ cup finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
  • 2 tablespoons finely chopped mint leaves
  • Ground black pepper
  • 1 10- to 12-pound turkey, preferably heritage breed, at room temperature
  • Juice of 1 lemon
  • ¼ cup flour (for gravy, optional)
  • ½ cup stock or white wine (for gravy, optional)

Preparation

  1. Heat oil in a large sauté pan. Add onion and garlic and cook on low about 10 minutes, until soft. Add 1 teaspoon salt and the ginger. Stir in 4 tablespoons of the truffle butter. Fold in the zucchini. Cook on medium-low, stirring, until zucchini softens and most of the liquid it gives off has evaporated, about 7 minutes. Remove from heat. Stir in bread crumbs, parsley and mint. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Store in refrigerator if not using immediately.
  2. About 3 hours before serving time, heat oven to 400 degrees. Rub the outside of the turkey with remaining truffle butter. Brush the inside with lemon juice. Loosely stuff the turkey with the zucchini mixture. Truss or skewer the cavity.
  3. Place turkey on a roasting rack in a roasting pan. Roast 45 minutes. Baste with pan drippings. Reduce heat to 350 degrees and roast about 1 hour 15 minutes longer, until an instant thermometer registers 155 degrees in the thigh. Baste from time to time. Remove turkey from the oven. Scoop out zucchini stuffing, place in a serving dish and keep warm. Let turkey rest for 20 minutes before carving.
  4. Make gravy, if desired: Place roasting pan over medium heat. Whisk 4 tablespoons flour into pan drippings, scraping the pan. Whisk in 1/2 cup stock, white wine or water. Add any juices from the carving board. Simmer until gravy is as thick as heavy cream. Season with salt and pepper.
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District of Columbia

Garam Masala Pumpkin Tart

President Obama’s first state dinner at the White House, just before Thanksgiving in November 2009, honored Manmohan Singh, then the prime minister of India, and his wife, Gursharan Kaur. The chef for the dinner was Marcus Samuelsson, who decided to incorporate some Indian touches into the menu. Both naan and cornbread were served, and the dessert for each of the 400 guests was a pear Tatin and a pumpkin pie tartlet.

“I flavored what I consider a very American pumpkin pie with a staple of Indian cuisine: garam masala,” Mr. Samuelsson wrote in his new cookbook, “Marcus Off Duty: The Recipes I Cook At Home,” where he gives the recipe, but as a large tart, not an individual tartlet. It adds a worldly touch to an American tradition, ideally suited to Washington.  

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Garam Masala Pumpkin Tart

Garam Masala Pumpkin Tart

2 hours 45 minutes 8 to 10 servings

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/DC.html)

Ingredients

  • 1 ¼ cups/175 grams all-purpose flour, more for dusting
  • 1 teaspoon/5 grams kosher salt
  • Grated zest of 3 lemons
  • 8 tablespoons/114 grams/1 stick unsalted butter, in 1/2-inch pieces
  • 4 large eggs
  • 1 cup/200 grams, packed, light brown sugar
  • 2 teaspoons/6 grams garam masala
  • 1 15-ounce/425-gram can plain pumpkin purée
  • 1 cup/240 milliliters half-and-half
  • 2 tablespoons/30 milliliters pure maple syrup
  • Juice of 1 lemon
  • 1-inch piece/15 grams fresh ginger, peeled and minced
  • 1 teaspoon/5 milliliters vanilla extract
  • Whipped cream or tart vanilla frozen yogurt for serving (optional)

Preparation

  1. Place flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/3 of the lemon zest in a food processor and pulse to blend. Add butter and pulse until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add 2 tablespoons water. Pulse until mixture comes together. If necessary, add a little more water. Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface and form into a smooth disk. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate 1 hour.
  2. Roll dough out on a lightly floured surface to 12 1/2 inches in diameter. Fit dough into an 11-inch straight-sided loose-bottom tart pan without stretching it, pressing the dough into the sides of the pan. Trim excess dough. Refrigerate 30 minutes.
  3. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Line pastry with foil, then fill with pastry weights or dry beans. Bake 8 minutes. Remove foil and weights and bake 4 to 6 minutes longer. Remove from oven and set aside on a cooling rack. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees.
  4. Beat eggs in a large bowl. Add remaining ingredients, including the rest of the lemon zest and the salt. Whisk until thoroughly blended. Place pastry-lined tart pan on a baking sheet. Pour in filling. Bake 40 to 50 minutes until almost set — it will jiggle just a little in the center. Allow to cool at least 30 minutes before removing the outside of the pan. Serve at room temperature, with whipped cream or frozen yogurt if desired.
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Florida

Mojo Turkey

Florida’s cuisine ranges from the deep Southern cooking of the humid, citrus-scented central and northern parts of the state to the more Caribbean-inflected cuisine of the marshy lowlands of Miami and the Keys. Here, the turkey nods to what happened when Cuban culture drifted onto the Thanksgiving tables of South Florida, with a bird dressed in a marinade of sour oranges (a mixture of orange and lime juice works as well) mixed with a lot of garlic and oregano. Serve the bird with black beans and white rice on the side — and a Key lime pie for dessert.  

Mojo Turkey

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

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Mojo Turkey

Mojo Turkey

6 hours, plus marinating time 10 to 12 servings

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/FL.html)

Ingredients

  • 1 12- to -14- pound turkey, giblets and neck removed
  • 2 heads of garlic, peeled and chopped
  • 2 tablespoons ground cumin
  • 2 tablespoons kosher salt, plus more to taste
  • 2 tablespoons black pepper, plus more to taste
  • 2 cups sour orange juice, or 1 cup fresh orange juice and 1 cup fresh lime juice
  • ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
  • ¼ cup fresh oregano leaves, roughly chopped
  • 1 orange, cut into quarters
  • 1 lime, cut into quarters
  • 1 small yellow onion, peeled and cut into quarters

Preparation

  1. Rinse turkey well in cold water and pat very dry with paper towels.
  2. Make the marinade: Combine garlic, cumin, salt and pepper in a large mixing bowl and mash the mixture together with the back of a kitchen spoon to make a kind of paste. Stir sour orange juice (or orange and lime juices) and oil into the paste and whisk to combine. Add oregano leaves and mix again. Reserve 1/2 cup of marinade and put aside.
  3. Put turkey in a roasting pan that can fit in the refrigerator and cover with remaining marinade, making sure to get a lot of it into the turkey’s open cavity. Cover and refrigerate overnight, or for at least a few hours. Baste a few times with marinade.
  4. When ready to cook, heat oven to 450 degrees. Remove turkey from marinade and place on a clean cutting board. Discard marinade and clean roasting pan well. Return turkey to roasting pan, tuck the tips of the wings under the bird and shower it with salt and pepper. Place orange, lime and onion quarters in the turkey’s cavity, then truss its legs together with cotton string. Roast turkey, uncovered, in the oven for 30 minutes.
  5. Reduce oven heat to 325 degrees. Baste turkey with pan juices, and add remaining marinade to the pan. Continue roasting turkey, basting every 30 minutes and tenting it with foil if the skin is turning too dark, until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the thigh without touching bone registers 165 degrees, approximately 2 hours 45 minutes to 3 hours more. Transfer to a cutting board or platter and allow to rest at least 30 minutes before carving.
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On Facebook, Cindy Leah Gordon said:Key lime pie (homemade or from Publix)!”

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Georgia

Pecan Pie

Pecan pie is to the Southern Thanksgiving table what pumpkin, mince and apple pies are to the Northern version of the meal. Pecan trees can be found in back and front yards in Georgia, Texas and states in between, and pecan pie is a year-round dessert. The classic rendition is cloyingly sweet, because of the cup or cup and a half of corn syrup that most recipes call for. But you can dispense with the corn syrup and use a combination of mild honey (like clover or acacia) and Lyle’s Golden Syrup, which has a wonderful flavor that is almost like light molasses. It’s not the standard corn syrup, but you’ll end up with a pie that’s lighter but still sweet, true to Southern style.  

Pecan Pie

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

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Pecan Pie

Pecan Pie

1 hour 45 minutes, plus several hours’ chilling 9-inch pie, 8 to 12 servings

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/GA.html)

Ingredients

  • 8 ounces/222 grams French-style butter (82 percent fat), at room temperature
  • ¾ teaspoon/6 grams salt
  • 2 tablespoons/30 grams sugar
  • 3 cups/375 grams flour, sifted
  • 4 tablespoons/2 ounces/60 grams unsalted butter, at room temperature
  • ½ cup/118 milliliters mild honey, such as clover or acacia
  • ¼ cup/59 milliliters Lyle’s Golden Syrup
  • 1 teaspoon/5 milliliters vanilla extract
  • 1 tablespoon/15 milliliters dark rum
  • ¼ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
  • Pinch of salt
  • 4 extra-large eggs
  • 2 cups/235 grams shelled pecans
  • Whipped cream or vanilla ice cream, for serving

Preparation

  1. Mix butter, salt and sugar in a standing mixer on low speed for 1 minute. Add flour and mix on low speed just until ingredients come together. Add 6 tablespoons water and mix only until dough comes together; if it doesn’t come together right away, add another tablespoon water. Do not overmix. Scrape mixture out onto a sheet of plastic wrap and flatten into a square. Wrap well and refrigerate overnight.
  2. Very lightly butter a 9-inch pie dish. Divide dough into two equal pieces. Refrigerate one piece while you roll out the other. Ease the dough into the bottom edges of the pan and crimp the top edge. Pierce the bottom in several places with a fork. Refrigerate uncovered for several hours or overnight. (Other dough half may be rolled out and frozen for up to 3 months.)
  3. Heat oven to 325 degrees. Line crust with parchment and fill with pie weights. Place on a baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes. Remove from oven and carefully remove pie weights and parchment. Return crust to oven and bake 15 to 20 minutes, until lightly browned. Let cool completely.
  4. Increase oven temperature to 350 degrees. Cream butter in a standing mixer fitted with the paddle, or in a food processor. Add honey and golden syrup and cream together until smooth. Scrape down bowl and beater. Add vanilla, rum, nutmeg and salt and mix. Add eggs, one at a time, beating each one until incorporated before adding next.
  5. Fill pie shell with pecans and smooth them out to make an even layer. Scrape in butter and egg mixture, using a rubber spatula to scrape the bowl clean. Place on a baking sheet and bake 30 to 35 minutes, until nuts are lightly browned and filling is just about set. The filling will puff up and may be bubbling, but it will settle as it cools. Do not overbake; if you leave it in too long, it will crack. Remove from oven and cool on a rack. Serve with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.
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Hawaii

Mochi Rice Stuffing

Thanksgiving dinner in Hawaii may start with pineapple-Vienna-sausage skewers and litchis stuffed with cream cheese. Later there is turkey and ham, but also Spam fried rice and Filipino lumpia, maybe poke (sashimi salad), laulau (ti-leaf-wrapped meat or fish) and a Molokai sweet potato pie topped with haupia (coconut pudding). It is the crazy-quilt, all-embracing nature of the feast that makes it local-kine — that is, island-style.

Lara Mui Cowell of Honolulu offers this recipe from her popo (maternal grandmother), Jannie Luke Thom, a second-generation Chinese-American who was born in Hawaii before it became a state. The dish is a Chinese take on Western-style sage stuffing, swapping out bread crumbs for mochi rice and adding lap cheong (Chinese sausage) and char siu (Chinese barbecue pork). But in true Hawaiian style, you may substitute Portuguese sausage — or even Spam.  

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Mochi Rice Stuffing

Mochi Rice Stuffing

1 hour 8 to 10 servings

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/HI.html)

Ingredients

  • 2 ½ cups mochi rice (also known as glutinous sweet rice or sticky rice), rinsed
  • 6 large dried shiitake mushrooms, soaked according to package instructions
  • 1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger
  • 1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons olive oil, divided
  • 3 slices bacon, chopped
  • 2 teaspoons oyster sauce, or soy sauce
  • ½ teaspoon sugar
  • 1 cup diced onion (from 1 onion)
  • ½ cup chopped green onion (from 3 to 4 onions)
  • ½ pound diced lap cheong (Chinese sausage), or use dried sweet sausage such as chorizo or salami
  • ¼ pound diced char siu (Chinese barbecue pork), or use sugar-cured ham steak seared on both sides
  • 1 ½ cups cooked chestnuts, roughly chopped (store-bought is fine)
  • 1 cup chopped water chestnuts
  • Salt and pepper, to taste
  • 2 large eggs, beaten
  • 2 tablespoons roughly chopped cilantro, for garnish

Preparation

  1. If using a rice cooker, combine rice and 2 1/2 cups water in the rice cooker and soak for 1 hour, then cook until tender, about 20 minutes. If cooking on the stovetop, combine rice and 2 1/2 cups water in a large pot. Cover, bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to low and cook 20 minutes, or until water is almost completely absorbed. Remove from heat and let steam, covered, 15 minutes.
  2. Drain shiitakes, then remove stems and slice caps; set aside. In a small saucepan, combine ginger and 1 tablespoon olive oil over medium-low heat and cook 2 minutes; set aside and let steep.
  3. In a large skillet, cook bacon over medium heat until crisp, about 8 minutes; drain fat. In a small bowl, stir together oyster sauce and sugar, then add to the skillet with the bacon. Stir in onion, green onions, lap cheong, char siu, chestnuts, water chestnuts, ginger oil and mushrooms. Cook over medium-high heat until onions are translucent, about 4 minutes. Toss mixture with the prepared rice; set aside.
  4. Heat 2 teaspoons oil in a small nonstick skillet over medium heat. Pour eggs into hot pan and cook until edges begin to set, about 10 seconds. Pull omelet in from the edges toward the center of the pan and let liquid eggs flow underneath. When eggs are mostly set, fold omelet in thirds like a letter and transfer to a cutting board. Slice into strips. Serve rice with slivered omelet and cilantro on top.
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Idaho

Hasselback Potatoes With Garlic-Paprika Oil

There may never be a better book title than “Aristocrat in Burlap,” a dramatic biography of the Idaho potato, from the first seedlings cultivated by Presbyterian missionaries in the 1840s (with considerable help from Native Americans) to the brown-skinned Burbanks that built today’s $2.7 billion industry. The large size of Idaho potatoes — often 3 to 4 pounds each in the 19th century, nourished by volcanic soil and Snake River water — is the source of the mystique.

The Hasselback potato, named for the hotel in Stockholm where the recipe was invented in the 1950s, shows off the sheer mass of the Idaho potato like nothing else. In the original, the potato is wrapped in bacon, but you can get good smoky flavor and a gorgeous ruddy color by using smoked paprika.  

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Hasselback Potatoes With Garlic-Paprika Oil

Hasselback Potatoes With Garlic-Paprika Oil

1 hour 15 minutes 8 to 16 servings

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/ID.html)

Ingredients

  • 8 large Idaho or other large russet potatoes, about 1 pound each
  • cup extra-virgin olive oil or a neutral oil like grapeseed
  • 4 plump garlic cloves, smashed, peeled and left whole
  • 1 tablespoon sweet paprika
  • 1 teaspoon smoked paprika (optional)
  • Kosher or coarse sea salt

Preparation

  1. Place whole unpeeled potatoes in a pot. Cover with cold water by at least 2 inches. Bring to a boil over high heat. As soon as water boils, set a timer and cook potatoes for 10 minutes. Drain, cover with cold water, and let cool to room temperature. (This can be done up to 1 day ahead. Do not refrigerate.)
  2. Heat oven to 425 degrees. Combine oil, garlic and paprika in a bowl or measuring cup. Have a pastry brush ready.
  3. Place a potato on a large spoon. Use a sharp knife to make 1/8-inch-thick slices in the potato, crosswise, without cutting through the bottom, so potato remains intact. The sides of the spoon will prevent the blade from going too far down. (Or, rest potato on counter and line up a chopstick on each side to block the knife.) Don’t worry if the potato skin starts to shred; it will look fine after baking. Repeat with remaining potatoes.
  4. Place potatoes on a piece of foil and brush generously with the paprika oil, using fingers to separate slices and let oil drip down. Sprinkle with salt, making sure that it gets between the slices.
  5. Place on a baking sheet and bake 20 minutes. Remove from oven and brush again with oil. Use oven mitts to gently squeeze potato and open up the slices. Sprinkle again with salt. Bake 10 to 20 minutes more, until potatoes are cooked through. Serve whole or half potatoes.
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Illinois

Pumpkin Soup With Ancho and Apple

Chances are the contents of that can of pumpkin purée you may be using for pie, soup, biscuits, custard, ice cream or bread came from Illinois. It’s the state that produces the most pumpkin for canning. This vibrant soup, from the chef Rick Bayless, an owner of Frontera Grill and Topolobampo in Chicago, is inspired by Mexico, where pumpkin is as typical an ingredient as the pepitas, ancho chile, canela and crema that are also in the recipe. His original calls for fresh squash or pumpkin — about 1 1/2 pounds, peeled, seeded, cut in chunks and added to the pot with the apple. But Mr. Bayless was amenable to adapting his recipe for canned purée, paying homage to Illinois.  

Pumpkin Soup With Ancho and Apple

Taylor Glascock for The New York Times

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Pumpkin Soup With Ancho and Apple

Pumpkin Soup With Ancho and Apple

1 hour 6 to 8 servings

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/IL.html)

Ingredients

  • 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
  • ½ cup pepitas (shelled pumpkin seeds)
  • 1 medium onion, sliced 1/4-inch thick
  • 1 dried ancho chile, stemmed, seeded and torn in small strips
  • 1 apple, peeled, cored and chopped
  • ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
  • ½ teaspoon cinnamon, preferably Mexican canela
  • 3 cups plain canned pumpkin (about 1 1/2 cans)
  • Salt to taste
  • ½ teaspoon sugar
  • ½ cup Mexican crema, or crème fraîche, mascarpone or sour cream

Preparation

  1. Melt butter in a 3- to 4-quart saucepan. Add half the pepitas and the onion and cook, stirring, on medium heat, until the onion is golden and the pepitas have started to brown, about 10 minutes. Add the chile pieces, cook a minute or two, then add the apple, black pepper, cinnamon and pumpkin.
  2. Stir in 4 cups water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, in a small skillet, toast the remaining pepitas on medium heat and set aside.
  3. Pureé the soup in a blender. (You will need two shifts.) Return the soup to saucepan and season with salt and the sugar. Serve the soup in warm bowls with a dollop of crema and a sprinkling of toasted pepitas on top.
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Indiana

Persimmon Pudding

Wild persimmons start to blush along the country roads of Indiana in late September, stealing the colors of sunset and weighing down their trees like Christmas balls. They are native to the landscape, unlike the Chinese and Japanese varieties cultivated in California and found in grocery stores. Foraging carries on through November, when the fruit claims a place at the Hoosier Thanksgiving table in the form of a dark gold pudding, distant kin to the sweet persimmon bread offered to early colonials by the Cherokee.

This recipe comes from Alverta S. Hart of Mitchell, Ind. This fall, the town hosted its annual Persimmon Festival and as always, the most suspenseful event was the persimmon pudding contest. Ms. Hart submitted her first pudding in 1962 as an 18-year-old bride, and re-entered every year for nearly four decades until she became a judge, then chairwoman of the event, winning on and off and collecting every color of ribbon along the way.  

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Persimmon Pudding

Persimmon Pudding

1 hour 40 minutes 10 servings

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/IN.html)

Ingredients

  • 4 tablespoons/56 grams butter, melted, plus more for the dish
  • 5 Fuyu persimmons (about 2 1/4 pounds), trimmed and chopped
  • 2 eggs, beaten
  • 2 cups/400 grams sugar
  • 1 teaspoon/8 grams baking soda
  • 1 cup/240 milliliters buttermilk
  • 1 ½ cups/190 grams all-purpose flour
  • 2 ½ teaspoons/12 grams baking powder
  • 1 cup/240 milliliters heavy cream
  • ¼ teaspoon/ 1 1/2 grams salt
  • ½ teaspoon/3 milliliters vanilla extract
  • Dash of cinnamon

Preparation

  1. Heat oven to 325 degrees and butter a 2-quart baking dish. Purée persimmons in a food processor or blender until smooth. Strain pulp through a fine mesh strainer into a bowl, using the back of a spoon or a spatula to push purée through. Measure out 2 cups of pulp (discard remaining pulp).
  2. Combine eggs, sugar and persimmon pulp in a large bowl and beat with an electric mixer on medium speed until well mixed. Stir baking soda into buttermilk, then add to persimmon mixture and beat to combine.
  3. In a separate bowl, sift together flour and baking powder. Beat flour mixture into persimmon mixture in 3 batches, alternating with the cream, beginning and ending with the flour.
  4. Stir in melted butter, salt, vanilla and cinnamon. Transfer batter to prepared dish and bake until pudding is set, 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes.
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Iowa

Thanksgiving Cookies

Fifty or a hundred years ago, community cookbooks were as essential to a well-stocked American kitchen as rotary egg beaters. These spiral-bound compilations created as charity fund-raisers, often using local recipes, have been largely sidelined by the flood of professional cookbooks that are published every year.

Those are not likely to include recipes for suet pudding and lye soap, like the ones in “Treasured Recipes Old and New 1975” by the Schuyler-Brown Homemakers Extension in Iowa Falls. The book includes these date and walnut Thanksgiving cookies, contributed by Wilma Miller, who credits the recipe to her great-aunt. Ms. Miller wrote that the original recipe called for two pounds of walnuts, but that she prefers it with pecans “and not that many.” That makes sense. Mixing in even a pound of nuts requires the arms of a sturdy farm wife. The recipe yields enough for an entire church supper.  

Thanksgiving Cookies

Sabra Krock for The New York Times

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Thanksgiving Cookies

Thanksgiving Cookies

2 hours 6 to 7 dozen cookies

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/IA.html)

Ingredients

  • 2 ½ cups/350 grams all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon/5 grams salt
  • 1 teaspoon/3 grams cinnamon
  • ½ teaspoon/1 1/2 grams ground cloves
  • 8 ounces/2 sticks/227 grams soft unsalted butter
  • 1 ½ cups/300 grams light brown sugar
  • 3 large eggs, lightly beaten
  • 1 tablespoon/13 grams baking soda
  • 1 pound/450 grams chopped pitted dates
  • 1 pound/450 grams chopped walnuts or pecans
  • Confectioners’ sugar

Preparation

  1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line one or more baking sheets with parchment. Place flour in a bowl and whisk in the salt, cinnamon and cloves. Set aside.
  2. Cream butter and brown sugar together by hand or in an electric mixer. Beat in eggs. The mixture will not be smooth. Dissolve the baking soda in 1 tablespoon hot water and stir it in. Stir in the dates and nuts. The batter will be heavy and not easy to mix. Work in the flour mixture, about a third at a time. If your electric mixer has a dough hook, use it for working in the flour.
  3. Scoop heaping teaspoons of batter onto prepared baking sheet or sheets, making craggy mounds about 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Space them about 1 1/2 inches apart; the cookies will not spread very much. (Alternatively, for neater cookies, you can roll the batter into balls between your palms, then lightly press them down with the back of a spoon or the tines of a fork.) Allow to sit at room temperature 30 minutes to 1 hour before baking. Depending on the size of your oven and your baking sheets, you can form the cookies ready to bake on sheets of parchment paper on your countertop, then transfer them to baking sheets in shifts.
  4. Bake 15 to 20 minutes, until nicely browned. Let cool, then dust with sifted confectioners’ sugar. If you plan to freeze some of the cookies, do not dust them with confectioners’ sugar; wait until after they thaw.
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Kansas

Harvey House Candied Sweet Potatoes

When Fred Harvey opened his first Harvey House restaurant in 1876 on the railway line in Topeka, Kan., his idea was radical for the time: Railroad passengers would be fed good food in a pleasant environment by a cadre of wholesome young women shipped in from the East. His concept was so successful that it spawned 84 restaurants, a Hollywood movie and an official cookbook. And it was in “The Harvey House Cookbook” by George H. Foster and Peter C. Weiglin that we found this excellent recipe for sweet potatoes candied with confectioners’ sugar and butter. As the whole thing bakes, the sugar melts and caramelizes, becoming a brittle and crunchy shell covering the soft orange potatoes within. This dish is best served warm rather than piping hot, which makes it convenient for Thanksgiving. Bake it before you roast your turkey, then reheat it briefly just before serving.  

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Harvey House Candied Sweet Potatoes

Harvey House Candied Sweet Potatoes

1 hour 15 minutes 10 to 12 servings

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/KS.html)

Ingredients

  • 3 pounds sweet potatoes, scrubbed
  • ½ cup/1 stick butter
  • 1 cup confectioners’ sugar
  • Pinch of salt

Preparation

  1. In a large pot, boil sweet potatoes in their jackets in water to cover until fork-tender, 20 to 45 minutes depending upon their size. Drain and cool.
  2. Heat oven to 450 degrees. Peel potatoes and slice into 1/2-inch-thick rounds. Place in a 9-by-13-inch baking dish or 2-quart gratin dish, overlapping slices to fit in one layer.
  3. In a small saucepan, melt butter. Whisk in sugar and salt until smooth. Pour evenly over the potatoes. Bake until potatoes look shiny and glazed, 25 to 30 minutes. Serve hot or warm.
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Kentucky

Pocket Dressing

In a lot of states, people don’t just eat food on Thanksgiving; they hunt for it. Lora Smith, a writer and farmer with roots in Kentucky, sends along a recipe handed down from her great-grandmother, for her family’s “pocket” dressing: a baked patty of dressing that slides easily into the pockets and knapsacks of rabbit and quail hunters. The Smiths also have the patties at the table, where they are passed around on a platter.

Texture is key. The outside must be browned and crisp. Inside, softness comes from cornbread and biscuits, and chewiness from foraged mushrooms. A family member (traditionally, the oldest matriarch) leaves a thumbprint indentation on each patty before baking, so that a little gravy can settle and soak in.

The hunt continued through Thanksgiving weekend. “They’d again take the leftover dressing wrapped in wax paper with them, and sometimes turkey sandwiches or turkey with fresh biscuits pulled out of the oven that morning,” Ms. Smith said. “My father always carried a small backpack where he kept extra leftovers and cold bottles of Coke. His other job was to carry the rabbits and quail they shot in the backpack.” When the weather was especially chilly, the patties solved another problem. According to Ms. Smith, “they also served as nice hand warmers.”  

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Pocket Dressing

Pocket Dressing

1 hour 25 minutes 24 patties

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/KY.html)

Ingredients

  • Olive oil, for the muffin tins
  • 1 pound buttermilk biscuits (about 12 2 1/2-inch biscuits) or 1/2 loaf stale white bread
  • 1 batch cornbread from 8-inch-square pan, preferably not sweet (see note)
  • 12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) butter
  • 1 large onion, chopped, (1 1/2 cups)
  • 5 stalks celery, chopped (2 cups)
  • 5 sage leaves, roughly chopped
  • 10 ounces roasted chestnuts (store-bought is fine), chopped
  • Salt and pepper
  • 1 pound shiitake or cremini mushrooms (or a combination), chopped
  • 3 eggs, beaten
  • 2 to 3 cups turkey broth

Preparation

  1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly oil 2 12-cup muffin tins. Finely crumble biscuits and cornbread into a large bowl with your hands; set aside.
  2. Melt 8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add onions and cook, stirring occasionally, until starting to soften, about 5 minutes. Add celery and cook 4 more minutes. Stir in sage and chestnuts and season with salt and pepper to taste; transfer to the bowl with biscuit and cornbread crumbs.
  3. Melt remaining 4 tablespoons butter in skillet over medium-high heat. Add mushrooms and cook, stirring occasionally, until they have released most of their liquid and are beginning to brown, about 8 minutes; remove to the bowl with onion mixture and crumbs.
  4. Add eggs and 2 cups turkey broth to bowl and stir until everything is well-combined and moist. The mixture should hold together when squeezed in your hand. Add up to 1/2 cup more broth if mixture is too dry.
  5. Form mixture into 3-inch balls with your hands. Flatten balls slightly between your palms, then set them in prepared muffin tins. Use your thumb or fingers to form a dimple in the top of each. Fill dimples with turkey broth. Transfer to oven and bake until the tops are browned and starting to crisp, about 40 minutes. Serve alongside turkey, drizzled with gravy if you like, or wrap the patties individually if serving as a portable snack.
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Louisiana

Shrimp-Stuffed Mirlitons

The mirliton is a pale green squash with an end puckered up like a toothless granny. They are native to Louisiana, but if you grew up eating from certain Latin American culinary canons, you might know them as chayote.

In New Orleans, mirliton stuffed with shrimp is a dish both common and fancy. The chef David Guas, who grew up in Louisiana and now runs the Bayou Bakery in Washington, D.C., ate this version at his Granny Lilly’s holiday table in Amite, La. His recipe is a version of her original, but with a touch of heat from cayenne pepper as influenced by Justin Wilson, a relative who had a long-running cooking show on New Orleans public television that he punctuated with the tagline “I guaranteeeeee!”

Use the freshest shrimp you can find. Something from the Gulf of Mexico would lend authenticity. And be careful scooping the flesh from the mirlitons. The skin is thin and can break easily.  

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Shrimp-Stuffed Mirlitons

Shrimp-Stuffed Mirlitons

1 hour 30 minutes 6 entree or 12 side dish servings

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/LA.html)

Ingredients

  • 6 mirlitons (chayote squash)
  • ¼ tablespoon butter, softened
  • ½ teaspoon lemon juice
  • 1 ½ teaspoons chopped parsley
  • 2 ¼ teaspoons salt
  • ¼ teaspoon black pepper
  • teaspoon cayenne
  • 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
  • ¾ cup bread crumbs
  • 1 tablespoon grapeseed, canola or other neutral oil
  • ¾ cup sweet onions, chopped
  • 2 tablespoons bell peppers, diced small
  • 2 tablespoons celery, diced small
  • 2 ¼ teaspoons minced garlic (3 to 4 cloves)
  • ½ cup chopped green onions
  • ½ cup chopped tomatoes
  • 12 ounces of chopped shrimp (about 13 large, unpeeled shrimp)
  • 1 ⅓ cups shrimp, chicken or vegetable stock

Preparation

  1. Cut mirlitons in half and scoop out the large seed in the middle. Boil in salted water to cover for 25 minutes, or until tender when punctured with the tines of a fork. Be careful not to overcook.
  2. Drain and cool for 15 minutes, then scrape out insides into a colander to drain. Leave 1/4 inch of flesh inside shell, being careful not to puncture skin.
  3. Chop drained mirliton flesh and add to a medium bowl. Mix in butter, lemon juice, parsley, salt, pepper, cayenne, Worcestershire sauce and 1/2 cup bread crumbs; set aside.
  4. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Heat oil in a medium saucepan or cast-iron skillet over medium heat. Add onion, bell pepper and celery and sauté until almost translucent. Add garlic, green onion and tomatoes for just about 2 minutes. Add shrimp for 30 seconds to give them a touch of color. Quickly remove pan from heat and let it sit for 3 to 5 minutes to cool slightly. Fold sautéed ingredients into mirliton mixture.
  5. Scoop stuffing mixture into each mirliton half. Place mirliton in an oven-safe 1 1/2-inch deep pan. You may need two pans. Dust top of each mirliton evenly with remaining bread crumbs. Pour stock into pans to a half-inch depth, before covering and baking. Cover pans tightly with foil and bake for 20 minutes. Remove foil and bake for an additional 15 minutes or until tops are lightly browned.
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Maine

Lobster Mac and Cheese

Maine did not become a state until 1820, and the history of its Thanksgivings is inextricably linked with those of its former administrators in Massachusetts. A 1949 McCall’s magazine article about the Sortwell family Thanksgiving in Wiscasset highlighted the family’s 150-year history of serving New England roast turkey on “a damask-covered table heavy with the good fruits of the land.” The photograph could have been made in Boston or Marblehead.

More recently, the state’s bounteous lobster harvest (some 126 million pounds in 2013, the most recent figure) has led local cooks to introduce lobster to the Thanksgiving table. The following recipe for lobster mac and cheese, a variation on a classic plain recipe that Julia Moskin published in The Times, is a rich and shockingly flavorful addition to the holiday feast, and requires only a single lobster to serve six or eight.  

Lobster Mac and Cheese

Sabra Krock for The New York Times

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Lobster Mac and Cheese

Lobster Mac and Cheese

1 hour 40 minutes 6 to 8 servings

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/ME.html)

Ingredients

  • Kosher salt and black pepper, to taste
  • 1 ½ pound lobster
  • 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
  • 1 cup cottage cheese
  • 2 cups whole milk
  • 1 teaspoon dry mustard
  • Pinch cayenne pepper
  • Pinch freshly grated nutmeg
  • 1 pound sharp Cheddar cheese, grated
  • ½ pound macaroni or elbow pasta, uncooked

Preparation

  1. Fill a large pot with salted water and set it over high heat to come to a boil. Plunge lobster into water and cover pot. Cook for 8 to 10 minutes, or until it is bright red. Check doneness by pulling an antenna; if it comes off without resistance, the lobster is done. Remove lobster to a bowl and allow to cool.
  2. Meanwhile, heat oven to 375 degrees, with a rack in the upper third of the oven. Use a tablespoon of butter to butter a 9-by-13-inch-square baking pan.
  3. In a blender, purée cottage cheese, milk, mustard, cayenne and nutmeg, and lightly season with salt and pepper. Transfer mixture to a large bowl, add grated cheese and uncooked pasta and stir well to combine. Pour into prepared pan, cover tightly with foil and bake for 30 minutes.
  4. Meanwhile, crack lobster claws and tail over the bowl and remove the meat, reserving all liquid that comes out of the lobster. Roughly chop lobster meat.
  5. Uncover baking pan, gently stir in lobster meat and up to 2 tablespoons of the reserved lobster juices, and dot with remaining tablespoon of butter. Bake, uncovered, for 30 minutes more, until browned on top. Let cool for 15 to 20 minutes before serving.
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Maryland

Sauerkraut and Apples

In the Chesapeake, seafood often finds its way onto the Thanksgiving menu. But in Baltimore, which has a strong eastern European and German immigrant history, the holiday table demands something else. “The absence of sauerkraut when turkey is present, Thanksgiving included, is unthinkable, comparable to potatoes without gravy or crisp French fries without ketchup,” wrote John Shields, the chef and owner of Gertrude’s restaurant in Baltimore, in his cookbook “Chesapeake Bay Cooking.” (Sauerkraut is a mainstay well beyond Thanksgiving; Gertrude’s hosts an annual Krautfest in January.)

Traditionally, homemakers fermented the cabbage in earthenware crocks in their cellars, but these days the fresh stuff is available to buy. On Thanksgiving, it’s often simply served as a side, or incorporated into dishes like this, in which the sauerkraut is braised in beer with bacon and apples.  

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Sauerkraut and Apples

Sauerkraut and Apples

55 minutes 8 servings

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/MD.html)

Ingredients

  • 6 tablespoons butter
  • 4 slices bacon, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
  • 1 small onion, thinly sliced
  • 3 tart apples, such as Stayman, Pippin, Granny Smith or Jonagold, peeled, cored, and thinly sliced
  • 2 pounds sauerkraut, drained and rinsed
  • 1 bottle (12 ounces) beer (you may substitute apple cider)
  • Black pepper, to taste
  • ½ teaspoon caraway seeds

Preparation

  1. Melt butter in a large heavy pot over medium-high heat. Add bacon and cook, stirring often, until fat has started to render, about 5 minutes.
  2. Toss onion and apples in the fat and cook, stirring occasionally, until onions begin to soften, about 3 minutes. Stir in sauerkraut.
  3. Add beer and season with pepper and caraway seeds. Bring mixture to a boil, then cover the pot. Reduce heat so mixture is just simmering and cook for 45 minutes. Or transfer the covered pot to a 350-degree oven and bake for 1 hour. Stir and serve hot.
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Massachusetts

Clam and Chouriço Dressing

Massachusetts is the birthplace of the iconic Thanksgiving tableau, the home to Norman Rockwell, whose 1943 painting “Freedom From Want” gives Americans its most enduring vision of the holiday table. It is also home to one of the largest Portuguese-American communities in the United States and the source of one of the nation’s most flavorful hyphenated cuisines. Matthew Jennings, the chef and an owner of the forthcoming Townsman restaurant in Boston, pays homage to that cooking with a New Bedford-style Thanksgiving dressing made with local Massachusetts quahog clams and the Portuguese sausage known as chouriço. Fresh chorizo is an acceptable substitution, but canned clams are not.  

Clam and Chouriço Dressing

Karsten Moran for The New York Times

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Clam and Chouriço Dressing

Clam and Chouriço Dressing

1 hour 10 servings

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/MA.html)

Ingredients

  • 6 cups stale country bread, cut into 1 1/2-inch cubes (1 1/4 pounds)
  • 1 pound fresh chouriço sausage (or use fresh chorizo), casing removed
  • 1 tablespoon minced garlic
  • 1 large white onion, diced (2 cups)
  • 4 stalks celery, diced (1 1/2 cups)
  • 2 tablespoons minced fresh thyme
  • 1 tablespoon minced fresh sage
  • 8 tablespoons unsalted butter
  • 2 tablespoons whole grain mustard
  • ½ bunch fresh parsley, chopped (2/3 cup)
  • 1 dozen shucked and chopped quahog clams, liquor reserved (see note)
  • Kosher salt and ground black pepper

Preparation

  1. Heat oven to 325 degrees. Spread bread cubes on a baking sheet in a single layer and bake 10 to 15 minutes, or until lightly toasted; set aside.
  2. Increase oven temperature to 375 degrees. Heat a large skillet over medium heat and add sausage. Sauté, breaking up meat with a wooden spoon, until fat has rendered and sausage is cooked through, 8 to 10 minutes. Remove to a large bowl with a slotted spoon and set aside. Discard all but 2 tablespoons of the fat left in the pan.
  3. Add garlic, onion, celery, thyme and sage to pan and cook over medium-low heat, stirring, until vegetables start to soften, about 5 minutes. Remove vegetables to bowl with sausage.
  4. Melt butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Cook, swirling pan, until foam subsides and butter just begins to brown and smell nutty.
  5. Add bread cubes, mustard, parsley, brown butter, clams and clam liquor to bowl with sausage and vegetables and mix well. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Transfer dressing to a baking dish and bake until golden brown and crisp on top, about 15 minutes.
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Michigan

Baked German Potato Salad

While all sorts of products, like oysters, were coming by boat from the East to Michigan and the rest of the Midwest during the pioneer period, the European families who settled there generally liked to stick to their ethnic traditions. “In the Upper Peninsula, there were the Finlanders, and they had Cornish hens,” said Priscilla Massie, a co-author of the cookbook “Walnut Pickles and Watermelon Cake: A Century of Michigan Cooking.” Then there were the Germans families, who, Ms. Massie said, tended to adopt Thanksgiving first. Their tangy baked potato salad can be found on many tables around the state to this day, made easy by a crop that’s available statewide.  

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Baked German Potato Salad

Baked German Potato Salad

1 hour 25 minutes 8 to 10 servings

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/MI.html)

Ingredients

  • 3 ½ pounds red potatoes, cut into 1 1/2-inch cubes (about 8 cups)
  • Salt
  • ¾ cup diced bacon (5 to 6 slices)
  • Olive oil, if needed
  • 1 cup finely chopped celery (3 to 4 stalks)
  • 1 cup finely chopped onion (1 onion)
  • 3 tablespoons flour
  • cup cider vinegar
  • cup sugar
  • ½ teaspoon celery seed
  • 1 teaspoon whole-grain mustard
  • ½ teaspoon black pepper
  • 3 tablespoons chopped parsley

Preparation

  1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Put potatoes in a large pot and cover with cold water; season with salt. Bring potatoes to a boil, then cook until they are just tender but not falling apart, about 5 minutes. Drain and set aside.
  2. Cook bacon in a large skillet over medium heat, stirring often, about 8 minutes; remove with a slotted spoon and toss with the potatoes. Measure the bacon fat left in the skillet, adding olive oil if necessary to equal 1/4 cup, and return to the skillet.
  3. Set skillet over medium heat and add celery and onion. Cook, stirring, 1 minute. Stir in flour until incorporated. Slowly add 1 1/3 cups water and the vinegar, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon, 2 to 3 minutes.
  4. Remove skillet from heat and stir in sugar, 1 1/2 teaspoons salt, celery seed, mustard, pepper and parsley. Pour over potatoes and bacon and gently toss to coat.
  5. Transfer potatoes to a 3-quart baking dish; cover with foil and bake for 35 minutes. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.
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Minnesota

Grape Salad

This grape salad, which falls into the same category of old-fashioned party dishes as molded Jell-O salad, comes from a Minnesota-born heiress, who tells me it was always part of the holiday buffet in her family. It couldn’t be simpler to prepare and has only three ingredients: grapes, sour cream and brown sugar.

Rather like a creamy fruit salad with a crisp sugar topping, it really is delicious, though the concept sounded strange to me before I first tasted it. Other versions, I hear, call for softened cream cheese and nondairy “whipped topping”; I can’t say I’ll be trying that. Some cooks caramelize the brown sugar under the broiler and some don’t, but I definitely recommend this step, which gives the dish a crème brûlée aura.  

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Grape Salad

Grape Salad

30 minutes, plus at least 1 hour chilling time 8 servings

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/MN.html)

Ingredients

  • 2 pounds seedless grapes, removed from stems and rinsed, about 6 cups
  • 2 cups sour cream
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • ¾ cup toasted pecans (optional)

Preparation

  1. Heat broiler. Put grapes in a large mixing bowl. Add sour cream and stir with a wooden spoon or spatula, making sure all grapes are well coated.
  2. Transfer mixture to a 2-quart ceramic soufflé dish or other baking dish. Sprinkle brown sugar evenly over top. Place dish under broiler as far from heat source as possible and broil until sugar is caramelized and crispy, about 5 minutes (be vigilant or you’ll risk a burnt black topping). Rotate dish as necessary for even browning. Chill for at least one hour. May be prepared up to 24 hours ahead. Just before serving, sprinkle with toasted pecans, if using.
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Mississippi

Ale-Braised Collard Greens With Smoked Ham Hock

Greens have always had a symbolic role on the Southern table. A pot of greens is the food of the fields, of grandmas and of barbecues. It’s a dish rooted in both the black South and the white South, but one that unites every Southerner in the communion of the table. At Thanksgiving, soft greens with a kiss of pork are a natural part of the lineup.

Hayden and Erica Hall are Mississippi natives who left Clarksdale, the birthplace of the blues, for bigger cities. He worked for chefs like Wolfgang Puck. She worked on Capitol Hill. Together, the couple returned home in 2010 to open Oxbow Restaurant. They offer this recipe, in which collard greens are braised in amber ale. (They like Yalobusha Copperhead from Water Valley, Miss.) The ale is essential, as is a ham hock. Red pepper flakes and apple cider vinegar give the greens a sharp edge, a welcome respite on a bland plate of turkey and potatoes.  

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Ale-Braised Collard Greens With Smoked Ham Hock

Ale-Braised Collard Greens With Smoked Ham Hock

1 to 2 1/2 hours 6 servings

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/MS.html)

Ingredients

  • 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
  • 1 medium yellow onion, diced
  • 2 garlic cloves, minced
  • Kosher salt, as needed
  • ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
  • 1 tablespoon dark brown sugar
  • 12 ounces American amber ale (such as Yalobusha Copperhead Amber Ale)
  • ½ cup apple cider vinegar
  • 1 smoked ham hock
  • 3 bunches (about 3 pounds) collard greens, thoroughly washed, stems removed, cut into 2-inch pieces
  • Black pepper, as needed

Preparation

  1. Heat oil in a large stockpot over medium heat. Add onion and garlic and sauté, stirring occasionally, until onion is softened and just starting to color, 10 to 12 minutes.
  2. Add 1 teaspoon salt, the red pepper flakes and the brown sugar; stir to combine. Add beer and cook, scraping up any browned bits from bottom of pan. Raise heat to high and bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer for 3 minutes.
  3. Add 2 cups water, the apple cider vinegar, the ham hock and the collard greens; stir to combine. Cover pot, raise heat to high, and bring to a rolling boil. Stir collards thoroughly to incorporate flavors, then reduce heat to low and simmer, stirring every 30 minutes, until collards reach desired tenderness, at least 30 minutes but preferably up to 2 hours. Remove ham hock; pull off and chop meat and return to pan, or discard if desired. Season with salt and pepper.
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Missouri

St. Louis Gooey Butter Cake

Legend has it that the St. Louis gooey butter cake originated by accident in the 1930s, when a baker mixed up the proportion of butter in one of his coffee cakes. Rather than throw it out, he sold it by the square, and the sugary, sticky confection was a hit. Naturally, a slice of gooey cake ends up next to — or in place of — the pumpkin pie at many a Missourian’s Thanksgiving table. Some bakers like to add pumpkin and spices to the gooey filling. Not so in this yeast-risen version from Molly Killeen, the St. Louis native behind Made by Molly, a dessert company in Brooklyn. Her recipe is soft-centered, crisp-edged and not too sweet. The leftovers are excellent for breakfast the next morning.  

St. Louis Gooey Butter Cake

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

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St. Louis Gooey Butter Cake

St. Louis Gooey Butter Cake

1 1/2 hours, plus about 3 hours’ rising 16 to 20 servings

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/MO.html)

Ingredients

  • 3 tablespoons/45 milliliters milk at room temperature
  • 1 ¾ teaspoons/5 grams active dry yeast
  • 6 tablespoons/85 grams unsalted butter at room temperature
  • 3 tablespoons/45 grams sugar
  • 1 teaspoon/5 grams kosher salt
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 ¾ cups/215 grams all-purpose flour
  • 3 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon/50 milliliters light corn syrup
  • 2 ½ teaspoons/10 milliliters vanilla extract
  • 12 tablespoons/170 grams/1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
  • 1 ½ cups/300 grams sugar
  • ½ teaspoon/3 grams kosher salt
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 cup plus 3 tablespoons/145 grams all-purpose flour
  • Confectioners’ sugar, for sprinkling

Preparation

  1. In a small bowl, mix milk with 2 tablespoons warm water. Add yeast and whisk gently until it dissolves. Mixture should foam slightly.
  2. Using an electric mixer with paddle attachment, cream butter, sugar and salt. Scrape down sides of bowl and beat in the egg. Alternately add flour and the milk mixture, scraping down sides of bowl between each addition. Beat dough on medium speed until it forms a smooth mass and pulls away from sides of bowl, 7 to 10 minutes.
  3. Press dough into an ungreased 9-by 13-inch baking dish at least 2 inches deep. Cover dish with plastic wrap or clean tea towel, put in a warm place, and allow to rise until doubled, 2 1/2 to 3 hours.
  4. Heat oven to 350 degrees. To prepare topping, in a small bowl, mix corn syrup with 2 tablespoons water and the vanilla. Using an electric mixer with paddle attachment, cream butter, sugar and salt until light and fluffy, 5 to 7 minutes. Scrape down sides of bowl and beat in the egg. Alternately add flour and corn syrup mixture, scraping down sides of bowl between each addition.
  5. Spoon topping in large dollops over risen cake and use a spatula to gently spread it in an even layer. Bake for 35 to 45 minutes; cake will rise and fall in waves and have a golden brown top, but will still be liquid in center when done. Allow to cool in pan before sprinkling with confectioners’ sugar for serving.
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Montana

Marinated Venison Steaks

“Thanksgiving here is about hunting rather than football,” said Errol Rice of the Montana Stockgrowers Association. The season for hunting big game comes to a close in the last, best place on the Thanksgiving weekend, and those who have not yet bagged a buck are known, said Dennis Konopatzke, the proprietor of Great Northern Brewing Company in Whitefish, to rush their holiday dinners in order to get out to the woods to hunt.

You’ll find huckleberries on Thanksgiving tables in Montana, Mr. Konopatzke added, or the Norwegian cured fish known as lutefisk, or pork pies and stuffed pasties, all nods to the state’s diverse history of settlers from afar. But game is the game. What follows is a recipe honed over the years by the members of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation for a marinade that works on wild venison perfectly and most other proteins as well. Broil some steaks and pair the result with traditional Thanksgiving side dishes.  

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Marinated Venison Steaks

Marinated Venison Steaks

30 minutes, plus 8 to 12 hours’ marinating 6 servings

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/MT.html)

Ingredients

  • 1 ½ cups extra-virgin olive oil
  • ¾ cup soy sauce
  • ½ cup red wine vinegar
  • ½ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
  • ¼ cup Worcestershire sauce
  • 2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
  • 1 ½ teaspoons roughly chopped fresh parsley
  • 2 tablespoons dry mustard
  • 2 ¼ teaspoons kosher salt, plus more as needed
  • 1 teaspoon black pepper, plus more as needed
  • 2 pounds venison loin or leg, cut into 6 steaks

Preparation

  1. Combine all ingredients except venison in a large bowl. Submerge venison in the marinade, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 8 hours and up to 12 hours.
  2. Heat broiler, stovetop grill pan or grill. Remove venison from marinade and season with salt and pepper. Working in batches if necessary, place steaks under the broiler or on the grilling surface and cook, flipping once, until medium-rare, 4 to 5 minutes per side. Allow venison to rest for 5 minutes before serving.
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Nebraska

Standing Rib Roast

Like many Nebraskans, the poet Erin Belieu’s family members use any large gathering as a pretext for serving prime rib. Thanksgiving is no exception. When Ms. Belieu, a fourth-generation Nebraskan, was growing up in Omaha, her family served prime rib alongside the turkey — until they realized no one really liked the bird and dispensed with it altogether. Her grandfather was a cowboy, and the whole family was steeped in the state’s ranching culture, even when they eventually moved to the city.

In her house, the beef was minimally seasoned and roasted in a hot oven until the exterior was crackling and browned, the inside juicy and red. A little horseradish sauce might be served on the side, but her father always disapproved. Good beef doesn’t need it. “He thought sauce was for drugstore cowboys,” she said.  

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Standing Rib Roast

Standing Rib Roast

1 1/2 to 2 1/4 hours, plus at least 2 hours 20 minutes’ resting time 8 to 12 servings

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/NE.html)

Ingredients

  • 1 (4 rib) standing rib roast, 7 to 8 pounds
  • 1 tablespoon coarse kosher salt
  • 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
  • 1 cup minced herbs (optional)
  • 4 garlic cloves, mashed to a paste (optional)
  • 2 teaspoons smoked paprika (optional)
  • Extra-virgin olive oil, as needed (optional)

Preparation

  1. Pat meat all over with paper towels, then season it all over with salt and pepper. If you want to make a smoky garlic-herb paste, combine herbs, garlic, smoked paprika and just enough olive oil to make a paste. Rub all over meat. Let meat come to room temperature for 2 to 3 hours depending upon how cold it was to begin with.
  2. Heat oven to 450 degrees. Place meat bone-side down in a roasting pan or on a rimmed sheet pan. Roast for 20 minutes, then turn heat to 350 degrees and continue to roast until the meat registers 115 degrees on an instant-read thermometer for rare, 125 for medium rare (it will continue to cook after you pull it out of the oven). Timing depends on your oven, your pan and the shape of your roast, so start checking after the meat has been in the oven for an hour, but it could take 1 1/2 hours or even slightly longer.
  3. Let meat rest at room temperature for 20 minutes before carving.
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Nevada

Turkey French Dip

Like many restaurant workers toiling in Las Vegas, Eric Klein, the executive chef at Spago, spends Thanksgiving Day on the line, dishing out turkey and trimmings to vacationing high rollers. Time with family and friends comes after the holiday. While the rest of the city combs shopping arcades for Black Friday deals, he’s making magic with the leftovers.

One of his favorites is this play on a French dip sandwich. Shredded turkey stands in for the usual beef, while gravy, thinned out to make it brothlike, replaces the jus for dipping. To this he adds the requisite leftover stuffing, and he folds the cranberry sauce into a fragrant and creamy aioli. He likes to crumble mild blue cheese over the top of his sandwich for extra pizazz, but feel free to leave it out if you’re feeling more traditional.  

Turkey French Dip

Melina Hammer for The New York Times .Nevada

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Turkey French Dip

Turkey French Dip

15 minutes 2 servings

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/NV.html)

Ingredients

  • ¼ cup leftover cranberry sauce
  • 3 tablespoons mayonnaise
  • 2 tablespoons apple or mango chutney, coarsely chopped
  • 2 cups leftover shredded turkey meat
  • 1 ⅓ cups warm gravy
  • Salt, as needed
  • 1 cup leftover stuffing
  • 1 ounce mild blue cheese, crumbled (optional)
  • 2 hoagie rolls, split

Preparation

  1. In a small bowl, whisk together cranberry sauce, mayonnaise and chutney. In a small pot, heat together turkey and 2/3 cup of the gravy.
  2. Bring a small pot of water to a boil. Place remaining gravy in a serving dish and stir in enough boiling water to make it thin enough to use as a sandwich dip. It should be like a rich broth. Season with salt if needed.
  3. Spread chutney mixture over cut side of bread halves. Make sandwiches with turkey, stuffing and blue cheese, if you like. Cut sandwiches in half and dip in the warm, thin gravy as you eat them.
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New Hampshire

New England Roast Turkey

Dublin, N.H., is the home of Yankee Magazine, founded by Robb Sagendorph in 1935, “for Yankee readers, by Yankee writers, and about Yankeedom.” Its brief: to express and preserve New England culture, from pretty farm towns to curiosities found in the barn. Does that culture see its highest form in a recipe for a classic New England roast turkey, the sort that has adorned tables from Portsmouth north for generations? It very well may. What follows is an adaptation of an old Yankee recipe that is as solid and unfancy as granite itself. Old-line New Englanders may be tempted to soak an old cotton button-down dress shirt in butter and drape it over the bird for the first two hours. But this is not necessary.  

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New England Roast Turkey

New England Roast Turkey

4 1/2 hours, plus at least 12 hours’ brining 12 or more servings

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/NH.html)

Ingredients

  • 1 12- to 14-pound turkey
  • 2 ¼ cups kosher salt, more as needed
  • 1 cup white sugar
  • 3 bay leaves
  • 1 tablespoon black peppercorns, cracked, more as needed
  • 3 sprigs each fresh rosemary, thyme and sage
  • 1 large yellow onion, peeled and quartered
  • 2 ribs of celery, roughly chopped
  • 2 carrots, peeled and roughly chopped

Preparation

  1. Rinse turkey under cold water and place on a rack in its roasting pan while you make the brine.
  2. For the brine, combine salt, sugar, bay leaves, pepper and herbs with 2 1/2 gallons water in a pot or cooler large enough to hold turkey comfortably. Stir until salt and sugar dissolve. Put turkey in brine and refrigerate or ice overnight, at least 12 hours.
  3. When ready to cook, heat oven to 425 degrees. Remove bird from brine, drain well and pat very dry with paper towels. Discard brine. Set turkey, breast side up, on a roasting rack set into a large roasting pan. Season with salt and pepper, then fill the cavity with onion, celery and carrots. Fold wings under the bird and tie its legs together with butcher’s twine. Roast for 30 minutes.
  4. Reduce heat to 350 degrees and roast approximately 3 hours more, basting bird every 30 minutes with drippings and tenting it with foil if skin is turning too dark, until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the thigh without touching bone registers 165 degrees. Transfer to a cutting board or platter and allow to rest at least 30 minutes before carving.
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New Jersey

Crepes-Style Manicotti

For many Italian-American families, in New Jersey and elsewhere, the Thanksgiving smorgasbord doesn’t feel quite right without a little touch of red sauce. So you say: “Manicotti? That doesn’t really go with turkey and stuffing and cranberries.” What, you want to argue about it? Besides, Thanksgiving also represents an American expression of abbondanza, the Italian concept of too-muchness that makes a meal feel epic.

Here, courtesy of Reservoir Tavern, which has been serving customers in the Boonton area since 1936, comes a recipe for baked manicotti that uses crepes in place of pasta. Nicola Bevacqua, a member of the family that owns the place, said that his own family digs into this melted-cheese masterwork each holiday, as do the New Jersey locals who drop by to pick it up. The crepes, he assured us, “are light and airy and will leave you plenty of room for the turkey.”  

Crepes-Style Manicotti

Danny Kim for The New York Times

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Crepes-Style Manicotti

Crepes-Style Manicotti

3 hours 10 to 12 servings

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/NJ.html)

Ingredients

  • 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
  • 1 large white onion, finely chopped
  • 5 garlic cloves, minced
  • 2 (28-ounce) cans crushed tomatoes
  • 1 (6-ounce) can tomato paste
  • ½ teaspoon kosher salt, plus more as needed
  • ½ teaspoon black pepper, plus more as needed
  • teaspoon sugar
  • 4 fresh basil leaves, minced
  • 8 large eggs
  • 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
  • 2 pounds ricotta
  • 2 cups shredded mozzarella (from about 10 ounces)
  • 1 cup grated Parmesan (from about 2 ounces)
  • 1 tablespoon minced fresh flat-leaf parsley
  • teaspoon grated nutmeg
  • 1 cup grated pecorino Romano (from about 2 ounces), plus more for serving

Preparation

  1. Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and garlic; sauté, stirring occasionally, until onion is translucent, 8 to 10 minutes. Add tomatoes, tomato paste, salt, pepper and sugar and bring to a gentle boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 1 1/2 hours. Add basil, season to taste with salt and pepper, and let cool.
  2. Meanwhile, make the crepe batter: In a large bowl, whisk six eggs with 1 1/2 cups of water. Gradually add flour and 1/8 teaspoon salt, whisking gently until smooth. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
  3. While batter chills, make the filling: In a large bowl, combine ricotta, mozzarella, Parmesan, the remaining two eggs, the parsley, 1 teaspoon salt, the pepper and the nutmeg. Cover and refrigerate until ready to assemble the manicotti.
  4. Heat oven to 375 degrees and lightly brush two 9-by 13-inch baking dishes with oil.
  5. Make the crepes: Remove batter from fridge and whisk it briefly. Heat about 1/2 teaspoon vegetable oil in an 8-inch nonstick pan over medium heat. Add about 3 tablespoons of batter, lifting and swirling the pan to spread a thin, even layer of batter on the bottom of the pan. Cook until batter starts to appear dry, about 30 seconds, then carefully flip crepe over and continue cooking for another 30 seconds. Transfer to a wire rack to cool. Repeat with remaining crepe batter, adding oil every few crepes and adjusting heat as necessary.
  6. Assemble the manicotti: Spread 3 to 4 tablespoons filling down the center of a crepe. Roll it up and place it, seam-side-down, in one of the baking dishes. Repeat with remaining crepes and filling. Divide marinara sauce between two baking dishes, spreading it evenly over the manicotti, then bake for 30 minutes. Sprinkle each baking dish with about 1/2 cup pecorino Romano and continue baking until the sauce is bubbling and the cheese is just starting to brown, about 10 minutes more.
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New Mexico

Slow-Cooked Red Chile Turkey

Anyone who has spent time in New Mexico knows that fiery red chile sauce, made with local dried chiles, finds its way into most meals there, enhancing plates of huevos rancheros or enchiladas. But just as often, it is the base for a meat stew, usually beef, pork or lamb. The dish is known as carne adovada, and it is insanely good.

Yes, there probably is a roasted turkey in most homes for Thanksgiving, and maybe a steaming pot of tamales. But the thought occurred to me that turkey thighs (the tastiest part of the bird) simmered in red chile would be a welcome substitute. It turns out I was right. Slowly braised for 2 hours, this spicy turkey is succulent and tender.  

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Slow-Cooked Red Chile Turkey

Slow-Cooked Red Chile Turkey

About 3 hours 8 to 10 servings

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/NM.html)

Ingredients

  • 6 large turkey thighs, about 6 pounds
  • Salt and pepper
  • 6 ounces dried New Mexico chiles, about 24 large pods
  • 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
  • 1 large onion, finely diced
  • ½ teaspoon coriander seeds, toasted and ground
  • ½ teaspoon cumin seeds, toasted and ground
  • 8 garlic cloves, minced
  • 1 bay leaf
  • Cilantro sprigs (optional)

Preparation

  1. Season turkey generously with salt and pepper, then set aside at room temperature.
  2. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Quickly rinse chiles and pat dry. Put chiles on a baking sheet in one layer and bake just until fragrant and lightly toasted, about 5 to 7 minutes, then cool. (Alternatively, toast chiles in batches in a dry cast-iron pan over medium-high heat, turning them frequently.) Split chiles lengthwise with a sharp knife. Remove and discard stems and seeds (wear gloves if you have sensitive skin).
  3. Put chiles in a saucepan, cover with 4 cups water and bring to a boil. Turn heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes, then let cool.
  4. Remove chiles from cooking liquid and place in a blender jar. Add a cup or so of cooking liquid and purée to a smooth paste, adding more liquid if the mixture seems very thick.
  5. Put a large wide skillet over medium-high heat. Add oil, then add onion and a little salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, until onion is softened, 5 minutes or so. Lower heat as necessary to keep onion from browning. Add coriander, cumin, garlic and bay leaf, then add chile purée and let simmer for 8 to 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. You should have about 4 cups sauce.
  6. Put seasoned turkey in a Dutch oven or deep roasting pan. Pour red chile sauce over, making sure meat is well coated. Cover and bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake for 1 1/2 hours, until turkey falls from the bone when probed with a fork.
  7. To serve, put turkey on a platter and cut meat into large pieces. Nap with sauce and garnish with cilantro sprigs. For more casual dining, serve directly from pot.
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New York

Double Apple Pie

Although a golden-domed apple pie may be an iconic Thanksgiving dessert across the country, it is particularly apropos to New York. There is the Big Apple itself — a nickname for the city that’s said to have its origins in horse-racing slang, not the orchards throughout the state, though they make New York the second-largest apple producer in the country. The state also happens to be home to the very first apple nursery in the country (1730).

No matter where you bake it, this particular apple pie recipe is a keeper. Gently spiced with cinnamon, tinged with brown sugar and loaded with apple butter, it’s as deeply flavored as an apple pie can be, all covered with a buttery wide-lattice top crust. Although it’s at its most ethereal when baked on the same day you serve it, it’s still wonderful made a day ahead.  

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Double Apple Pie

Double Apple Pie

2 1/2 hours, plus at least 3 1/2 hours’ chilling and cooling 8 servings

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/NY.html)

Ingredients

  • 2 ½ cups/300 grams all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon/5 grams kosher salt
  • 2 ½ sticks/20 tablespoons/285 grams unsalted butter, chilled and cubed
  • 4 tablespoons/60 milliliters vodka (optional)
  • 3 pounds/1 1/3 kilograms apples, peeled, cored and thinly sliced crosswise (1/8-inch)
  • ½ cup/110 grams granulated sugar, more as needed
  • 2 tablespoons/30 grams dark brown sugar
  • 2 tablespoons/30 grams quick-cooking tapioca
  • 1 ½ teaspoons/3 grams ground cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon/3 grams ground ginger
  • ¼ teaspoon grated nutmeg
  • Pinch ground cloves
  • 1 ½ tablespoons/22 milliliters lemon juice
  • 3 tablespoons/45 grams apple butter
  • Heavy cream or milk, as needed
  • Whipped cream, sour cream or crème fraîche, for serving

Preparation

  1. Make the crust: In a food processor, pulse together flour and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Add butter and pulse until mixture forms 3/4-inch pieces. Mix vodka with 4 tablespoons ice water (or use 1/2 cup ice water). Add half the ice water mixture to dough, pulse a few times, then continue adding liquid a tablespoon at a time until dough just comes together (you might not use all the liquid). Dough should be moist, but not wet, and hold together when pinched. If there are visible pieces of butter in the dough, all the better.
  2. On a lightly floured surface, gather dough into a ball. Remove a third of the dough and form into a disk. Form remaining dough into a disk. Cover both tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour and up to 5 days.
  3. On a lightly floured surface, roll out larger disk to a 12-inch circle. Transfer dough to a 9-inch pie plate. Fold over any excess dough, then crimp edges. Prick crust all over with a fork, then chill crust for 30 minutes or up to 24 hours.
  4. While dough chills, heat oven to 400 degrees. Line chilled crust with foil or parchment paper and fill with pie weights or dried beans. Bake for 15 minutes; remove foil and weights and bake until pale golden, 5 minutes more. Cool on rack until needed. (You can bake the crust up to 24 hours in advance.)
  5. Toss apples with sugars, tapioca, spices, 1/2 teaspoon salt and the lemon juice. Fold in apple butter. Transfer apples to crust and press gently to make sure fruit is tightly packed.
  6. Roll out remaining dough disk to a 10-inch round. Use a knife to cut strips 1 3/4 inches wide. Arrange strips over the filling in a lattice pattern. Brush top of crust with heavy cream or milk. Sprinkle with granulated sugar.
  7. Place pie on a rimmed baking sheet lined with foil. Bake 15 minutes; reduce heat to 350 degrees and continue baking until crust is golden brown and juices are bubbling thickly, about 1 hour 15 minutes more. Let pie cool on a wire rack for at least 2 hours before cutting. Serve with whipped cream, sour cream or crème fraîche.
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North Carolina

Sweet Potato Cornbread

North Carolina and sweet potatoes go way back. The relationship, according to the food writer Sheri Castle, hinges on a history of abundance. “Sweet potatoes were plentiful, even among the poorest folks of any ethnicity,” she said. “Enslaved Africans used sweet potatoes in place of yams and other West African root vegetables.” To this day, the state is a national leader in growing the crop.

Stephanie L. Tyson, the chef who oversees the kitchen at a Winston-Salem spot called (appropriately) Sweet Potatoes, likes to blend one Southern staple into another. The result is a cornbread laced with a holiday-friendly undercurrent of cinnamon and nutmeg. Ms.Tyson has said that the cornbread just clicks with a side of greens, but we have a feeling it will play well with cranberries and gravy, too.  

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Sweet Potato Cornbread

Sweet Potato Cornbread

45 minutes 12 muffins

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/NC.html)

Ingredients

  • 2 tablespoons/30 milliliters vegetable oil, plus more for the muffin tin
  • 1 large sweet potato (about 1 pound), peeled and cut into large chunks
  • 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
  • 1 ¼ cups/300 milliliters milk
  • ¾ cup/94 grams all-purpose flour
  • 1 ¼ cup/213 grams finely ground yellow cornmeal
  • 1 tablespoon/14 grams baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon/6 grams salt
  • ½ cup/100 grams sugar
  • ½ teaspoon/1 gram ground cinnamon
  • ½ teaspoon/1 gram ground nutmeg

Preparation

  1. Heat oven to 450 degrees and lightly brush a 12-cup muffin tin with oil.
  2. Place potato in a small saucepan and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until potato is tender, about 10 minutes. Drain the potato, then return to the pot and mash until mostly smooth. Measure out 1/2 cup and transfer to a large bowl (discard any remaining potato in the pot). Add eggs, oil and milk to bowl and stir to combine.
  3. Sift flour, cornmeal, baking powder, salt, sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg in separate large bowl. Add potato mixture and mix until just combined. (Do not overmix.) Pour batter into the prepared muffin cups and bake until the cornbread is puffed and golden, about 20 minutes. Let cool 5 minutes, then turn out onto a rack to cool completely.
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North Dakota

Lefse

Lefse, thin potato-dough flatbreads like Scandinavian tortillas, or Oslo injera, can be found on holiday tables throughout the upper Midwest, wherever Norwegian families settled to farm. The recipe is adapted from Ethel Ramstad, 90, who learned it from one Ollie Amundson in North Dakota decades ago. We picked it up when she was teaching it to Molly Yeh, 25, a Chicago-raised food blogger marrying Ms. Ramstad's great-nephew, on a farm in the Red River Valley, right before Thanksgiving.

The riced potato mixture that forms the basis of the dough should be very, very cold when it is rolled out, to prevent stickiness. And although you do not need a lefse griddle to make great lefse, a lefse stick — essentially a long, thin, wooden spatula — is an admirable investment in success.  

Lefse

Eric Moran for The New York Times

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Lefse

Lefse

2 hours 20 minutes, plus 3 to 12 hours’ resting About 18 large or 36 small lefse

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/ND.html)

Ingredients

  • 5 pounds/2 1/4 kilograms red-skinned potatoes, peeled and cut into uniform size
  • cup/158 milliliters neutral oil, such as canola
  • 1 (5-ounce) can/148 milliliters evaporated milk
  • ½ cup/100 grams sugar
  • 2 teaspoons kosher salt
  • 2 ½ to 3 cups/312 to 375 grams all-purpose flour, more as needed

Preparation

  1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil over high heat. Cook potatoes until tender, 15 to 20 minutes. Drain well.
  2. Rice potatoes into a large bowl, continuing until you have 8 cups. Add oil, evaporated milk, sugar and salt, and mix well. Let cool, then cover and refrigerate for a few hours, or overnight.
  3. When ready to make lefse, add 2 1/2 cups flour and mix well. Divide dough into two logs if you have a lefse grill, and four if you do not. Dough should be sticky and hold together, but not so sticky it’s impossible to work with; if necessary, add remaining 1/2 cup flour. Cut each log into 9 or 10 pieces, shape into small balls and place on plates in refrigerator.
  4. If you have a lefse grill, heat it to 400 degrees. If you don’t have a lefse grill, set a wide, low-lipped nonstick pan over medium-high heat.
  5. Generously dust work space with flour and flour a rolling pin. Roll one dough ball in flour, then use the heel of your hand to press it into a thick disk. If you have a lefse grill, gently roll dough into a large, thin circle (if you are using a regular pan, roll into a thin circle just smaller than the size of your pan), lifting and flipping frequently so it doesn’t stick; use more flour as needed. Brush excess flour from dough. Use a lefse stick to carefully transfer to grill (use a thin spatula if cooking in a pan). Cook for 1 minute, or until lefse is steaming and small bubbles appear on uncooked side. Using lefse stick or spatula, flip lefse and cook for 45 seconds or so. Place lefse on a clean dish towel and cover with another. Repeat, stacking lefse atop one another between the dish towels.
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Ohio

English Pea and Onion Salad

Jonathon Sawyer is no snob. Although he runs the kitchens in a slew of acclaimed restaurants in the Cleveland area, including The Greenhouse Tavern, the chef decided to honor Thanksgiving and his home state, Ohio, by sending along a personal recipe that calls to mind the processed-food delights that, for decades, characterized the cooking of the Midwest. “Think of this salad as a little slice of nostalgia from the canned-and-frozen households of the mid-20th century,” he wrote in an email.

Mr. Sawyer recommends frozen peas (“I think frozen peas are magical,” he said) and organic eggs, but over the years he has seen the dish made with Miracle Whip, cubes of cheese from the deli, powdered Ranch dressing, French’s fried onions. “The real goal of having a salad like this on the holiday table is it’s a tart, sweet and delicious break from the overindulgence of roasted birds, velvety gravy and buttery potatoes,” he said. And hey, that break from the overindulgence happens to have bacon in it.  

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English Pea and Onion Salad

English Pea and Onion Salad

30 minutes 6 servings

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/OH.html)

Ingredients

  • 5 ounces slab bacon, cut into 1/4-inch cubes
  • 2 lemons, zested and juiced
  • 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
  • 1 small onion, diced and rinsed under cold water
  • 3 tablespoons mayonnaise
  • 4 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
  • 4 tablespoons mixed chopped fresh herbs, such as parsley, mint, tarragon and basil
  • 2 large eggs, hard-cooked and finely diced
  • Salt and pepper
  • 2 cups fresh or thawed frozen peas
  • 2 tablespoons sliced almonds, toasted
  • 2 tablespoons bread crumbs, toasted

Preparation

  1. Heat oven to 400 degrees and line a baking sheet with foil. Spread bacon cubes on baking sheet and cook until caramelized and crispy, 15 to 20 minutes. Strain off rendered fat and set aside to cool.
  2. Meanwhile, combine lemon zest and juice, olive oil, onion, mayonnaise, 2 tablespoons Parmesan, 2 tablespoons fresh herbs and the eggs in a large bowl. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
  3. If you’re using fresh peas, chop them to tenderize; if using frozen, strain off excess moisture. Fold peas into dressing. Transfer mixture to a shallow serving bowl and spread in an even layer.
  4. Sprinkle remaining 2 tablespoons fresh herbs over the top, then create a layer of the remaining 2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese. Top with almonds, then bread crumbs and finally bacon.
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Oklahoma

Green Bean Casserole

Green bean casserole is unheard-of on Thanksgiving tables in New England, said Clifford A. Wright, author of the casserole cookbook “Bake Until Bubbly.” But as you move through the Midwest and down into Oklahoma, where the casserole is king, it is a cornerstone of the holiday meal. When this reporter asked some Oklahomans about their Thanksgiving staples, the now-traditional green bean casserole — which originated in 1955 in the Campbell Soup Company test kitchen and came to include frozen or canned green beans, canned cream of mushroom soup, Durkee French Fried Onions and a Ritz cracker or cornflake topping — turned up in every response.

This version pays tribute to the classic but upgrades its components. The cream of mushroom soup is replaced with crème fraîche and sautéed mushrooms; bacon and Gruyère are added to the mix; fresh green beans stand in for frozen (though you could use frozen in a pinch); and bread crumbs swap in for the Ritz crackers — though Mr. Wright said the Ritz topping is surprisingly good.  

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Green Bean Casserole

Green Bean Casserole

1 1/4 hours 6 to 8 servings

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/OK.html)

Ingredients

  • 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
  • 2 pounds green beans, trimmed and broken in half
  • Salt, to taste
  • 6 slices bacon
  • 2 shallots, finely chopped (about 1/2 cup)
  • ½ pound mushrooms, sliced
  • 1 cup crème fraîche
  • cup heavy cream
  • 6 ounces Gruyère, shredded (1 1/2 cups)
  • 2 teaspoons chopped fresh marjoram or 1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves (optional)
  • ½ cup bread crumbs (or crumbled Ritz crackers)

Preparation

  1. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Use 1 tablespoon butter to grease a 2- to 2 1/2-quart baking dish or gratin.
  2. Bring a large pot of water to a boil, salt generously and add green beans. Boil for 5 minutes and transfer to a bowl of cold water. Drain on a kitchen towel.
  3. Heat a large, heavy skillet over medium heat and add bacon. Cook until crispy, about 10 to 12 minutes. Remove to paper towels and let cool.
  4. Discard all but 2 tablespoons of bacon grease in pan and return to heat. Add shallots and cook, stirring, until they begin to soften, 2 to 3 minutes. Add mushrooms and turn heat up slightly. Cook, stirring and scraping the bottom of pan, until mushrooms begin to sweat. Add salt to taste and cook until tender, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat.
  5. In a large bowl whisk together crème fraîche and cream. Stir in Gruyère. Add green beans, mushrooms and shallots, and marjoram or thyme. Crumble in bacon. Add salt and pepper to taste and stir everything together until beans are well coated. Transfer to baking dish.
  6. Melt remaining butter and toss with bread crumbs. Sprinkle evenly over top of casserole. Bake 30 minutes, until bread crumbs are golden brown and casserole is bubbling. Remove from heat, let sit until bubbles subside, and serve.
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Oregon

Cranberry Sauce With Pinot Noir

Some of the best wine on the planet comes from Oregon, and with this recipe Jenn Louis, the chef behind Lincoln Restaurant and Sunshine Tavern in Portland, has found a way to weave it into the Thanksgiving feast: as a boon companion to cranberries. “Many deep red wines, or port, can overwhelm the punchy berry,” Ms. Louis wrote in an email. “Instead, Oregon pinot noir keeps the cranberry sauce bright and clean.” The recipe here doesn’t hold back; it is shot through with allspice, cloves, peppercorns, rosemary, cinnamon, vanilla and honey, in a mix that calls to mind the rusticity and abundance of the Pacific Northwest.  

Cranberry Sauce With Pinot Noir

Leah Nash for The New York Times

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Cranberry Sauce With Pinot Noir

Cranberry Sauce With Pinot Noir

20 minutes, plus cooling 2 1/2 cups

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/OR.html)

Ingredients

  • 10 whole allspice berries
  • 10 whole cloves
  • 10 whole black peppercorns
  • 4 cups fresh or thawed frozen cranberries
  • 1 ½ cups Oregon pinot noir
  • 1 cup light brown sugar, loosely packed
  • 1 cup clover or wildflower honey
  • 1 cup fresh orange juice
  • 6 strips orange zest, about 1 inch by 3 inches, removed with a vegetable peeler
  • 2 (4-inch) sprigs rosemary
  • 1 small cinnamon stick
  • 1 vanilla pod

Preparation

  1. Combine allspice, cloves and peppercorns in a spice grinder or coffee grinder and pulse until finely ground.
  2. In a medium saucepan, combine cranberries, wine, brown sugar, honey, orange juice, orange zest, rosemary, cinnamon stick and ground spices.
  3. With the tip of a paring knife, split vanilla pod lengthwise. Use the back of the knife to scrape seeds from pod. Add seeds and pod to pot.
  4. Bring mixture to a boil, then reduce heat to a gentle simmer. Cook, stirring often, until cranberries have burst and liquid thickens slightly, about 15 minutes. Remove from heat and discard zest, rosemary sprigs, cinnamon stick and vanilla pod. Transfer mixture to a bowl and let cool.
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On Facebook, Susan McGlennan Schwartz said: “An Oregon salmon appetizer, hazelnut and cranberry sauce, marionberry cobbler and pinot noir.”

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Pennsylvania

Glazed Bacon

Betty Groff, the home cook turned proprietor of Groff’s Farm Restaurant, once said that there were only two authentic American cuisines: Pennsylvania Dutch and Creole. Her brown-sugar-glazed bacon represents the former, and she occasionally served it as an hors d’oeuvre at her restaurant, which she started in her family’s 1756 Pennsylvania Dutch farmhouse in Mount Joy in the late 1950s. The restaurant became a place of pilgrimage for food lovers, among them Craig Claiborne, who wrote an article about it in The New York Times in 1965. This recipe, which Ms. Groff said “will amaze every guest,” serves six, but she noted that you can easily scale it up to serve 30, or possibly more.  

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Glazed Bacon

Glazed Bacon

40 minutes 6 appetizer servings

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/PA.html)

Ingredients

  • ½ pound thick-cut bacon slices (about 6 slices)
  • ½ cup light brown sugar
  • 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
  • 2 tablespoons red wine

Preparation

  1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking pan with foil; it should be large enough to hold the bacon in a single layer. Place bacon in pan and bake until lightly browned and crisp, 15 to 20 minutes. While bacon cooks, mix remaining ingredients together.
  2. Drain bacon fat from pan. Brush the bacon strips on both sides with the brown sugar mixture. Return bacon to the oven and cook another 10 minutes or so, until glaze is bubbling and darkened.
  3. Remove bacon from the oven and transfer to a cutting board or platter lined with foil or parchment paper. Let cool about 15 minutes. Bacon should not be sticky to the touch. Cut each strip in thirds and arrange on a serving dish.
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On Facebook, readers said:Dutch corn casserole made with Cope's dried corn.” “Shoofly pie.” “Potato filling: mashed potatoes with browned onions, bread cubes, butter, milk, eggs, salt and pepper, a little sugar and some fresh parsley.”

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Puerto Rico

Mofongo Stuffing

What does mofongo mean to Puerto Rico? Well, what do biscuits mean to the South, or green chiles to the people of New Mexico? Mofongo, which in its most traditional form is a fried-and-mashed fusion of plantains, pork rinds, garlic and peppers, symbolizes the island’s soul food. It is beloved, even if sometimes misunderstood; it can be vexingly heavy, but when it’s executed properly there’s a righteous balance of crispness and fluff.

For this recipe we went to Jose Enrique, the Puerto Rican chef who’s gaining attention for giving Caribbean cuisine an extra layer of refinement. We asked him for a mofongo for the Thanksgiving table, standing at the ready to soak up gravy and meet your turkey on the tip of a fork.  

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Mofongo Stuffing

Mofongo Stuffing

50 minutes 6 servings

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/PR.html)

Ingredients

  • ¼ cup olive oil
  • 1 medium onion, chopped
  • 4 garlic cloves, chopped
  • ¼ cup chopped cubanelle peppers (about 1/2 pepper)
  • ¼ cup chopped ají dulce peppers (about 3 small peppers)
  • 1 ají caballero pepper (or use 1 fresno chile)
  • 12 ounces tomatoes, chopped (about 2 tomatoes)
  • ½ cup chopped cilantro
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • Vegetable oil, for frying
  • 4 green plantains, peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces (about 2 pounds)
  • 1 ounce pork rinds

Preparation

  1. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Heat olive oil in skillet over medium heat. Add onion, garlic, cubanelle, ají dulce and ají caballero peppers and cook, stirring occasionally, until vegetables begin to soften, about 5 minutes.
  2. Stir in tomatoes and cilantro and cook 1 minute. Add 1 cup water and the butter and let mixture simmer, stirring occasionally, 10 minutes. Carefully transfer mixture to a blender or food processor and purée until smooth.
  3. Fill a large heavy-bottom pot with about 1 1/2 inches of vegetable oil and set over medium-high heat. Working in batches, deep-fry plantains until tender, about 3 minutes per batch; drain on a paper-towel-lined plate.
  4. Combine plantains, vegetable purée and pork rinds in a large bowl and mash with a potato masher until combined but still chunky. Transfer to a small baking dish and bake until top is just starting to brown, 10 to 15 minutes.
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Rhode Island

Indian Pudding

Indian pudding was a compromise. A mass of cornmeal, milk and molasses, baked for hours, it was born of the Puritans’ nostalgia for British hasty pudding and their adaptation to the ground-corn porridges of their Native American neighbors. Originally served as a first course, it grew sweeter (but not too sweet; Puritanism runs deep) and migrated to the end of supper.

For a proper historical re-enactment of the dish, you need meal stone-ground from Rhode Island whitecap flint corn, a hard, tough-to-crack corn, less sweet but more buttery than hybrid strains. One of the oldest incarnations of the plant, it was cultivated by the local Narragansett and saved from extinction by a few equally flinty Rhode Island farmers. This recipe comes from George Crowther, owner and chef of the Yankee diner Commons Lunch, which has stood on the town square of Little Compton, R.I., since 1966.  

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Indian Pudding

Indian Pudding

1 hour 15 minutes 8 servings

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/RI.html)

Ingredients

  • Butter, for the baking dish
  • 4 cups/ 960 milliliters whole milk
  • 1 cup/130 grams fine-ground yellow cornmeal
  • ½ cup/ 120 milliliters molasses
  • 4 eggs
  • ½ cup/ 100 grams sugar
  • ½ cup/ 80 grams raisins
  • 1 teaspoon/ 5 milliliters vanilla extract
  • ½ teaspoon/ 1 gram ground ginger
  • Whipped cream or ice cream, for serving

Preparation

  1. Heat oven to 350 degrees and butter a 2-quart baking dish. In a large pot, warm milk over medium-high heat until hot but not boiling. Whisk in cornmeal and molasses and cook, whisking, 2 minutes. Reduce heat to medium-low.
  2. Crack eggs into a medium bowl and lightly beat. Very slowly add 1/2 cup of the hot cornmeal mixture to the eggs, whisking constantly. Pour tempered egg mixture into the pot, whisking constantly to keep eggs from scrambling, and cook 3 minutes. Remove pot from heat.
  3. Stir in sugar, raisins, vanilla and ginger. Pour mixture into prepared pan, then place in a larger baking dish or roasting pan. Transfer to oven and carefully pour water into the larger dish until it comes about halfway up the sides of the smaller baking dish.
  4. Bake until pudding is set, but still jiggles slightly in the center, 45 minutes to 1 hour. Serve warm, topped with whipped cream or ice cream.
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South Carolina

Salty Pluff Mud Pie

Community-supported agriculture takes many forms these days: You can subscribe to a weekly delivery of produce from a farm, a monthly cooler from a seafood supplier or a biannual supply of country ham. But only in Charleston, S.C., will you find a C.S.A. for pie. Amy Robinette, who grew up in Spartanburg, S.C., is committed to adapting Southern desserts, which have often come to rely on supersweet and artificial ingredients, back to real food.

In her kitchen, the chocolate chess pie her grandmother always made for Thanksgiving — filled with white sugar, evaporated milk, and cocoa powder — has been adapted to local honey, fresh cream, dark cocoa powder and sea salt from the nearby Bull’s Bay Saltworks. Called salty pluff mud pie, it is her most popular creation. “Pluff” mud is the sticky, sulfurous sediment that lines the bottom of the South Carolina tidal marshes; some say it is the true source of Lowcountry flavor. “I thought it was an awful smell at first,” said Ms. Robinette, who moved to Charleston to attend culinary school and never left. “But now, when I smell pluff mud, I know I’m home.”  

Salty Pluff Mud Pie

Karsten Moran for The New York Times

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Salty Pluff Mud Pie

Salty Pluff Mud Pie

1 hour 20 minutes, plus cooling 8 servings

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/SC.html)

Ingredients

  • 1 ½ cups/354 milliliters honey
  • 4 ½ tablespoons/32 grams dark cocoa powder
  • 6 tablespoons/85 grams butter, cubed
  • ¾ cup/180 milliliters heavy cream
  • 4 eggs
  • 1 chilled, unbaked pie crust in a 9-inch pan
  • 2 tablespoons/30 milliliters milk
  • Flaky sea salt, for topping

Preparation

  1. Heat oven to 325 degrees. Combine honey, cocoa, butter and cream in a large heavy-bottom saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring occasionally, until butter is melted and mixture is just starting to simmer.
  2. Meanwhile, lightly beat 3 eggs in a medium bowl. Very slowly add 1/2 cup of hot honey mixture, whisking constantly. Pour tempered egg mixture back into the pot, whisking constantly to keep the eggs from scrambling. Continue to cook, stirring, until mixture is smooth and thick, 3 to 4 minutes; remove from heat.
  3. Remove pie crust from refrigerator and flute edges. Whisk together remaining egg and the milk until well combined. Brush egg wash over edge of pie dough, making sure to cover the ins and outs of the fluting.
  4. Pour filling into pie shell and lightly tap pie plate on the counter to release any air bubbles. Bake pie for 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until filling is no longer soupy when jiggled. Allow pie to cool for at least 3 hours, then sprinkle with sea salt.
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South Dakota

Pear Kuchen

Emily Elsen and Melissa Elsen, sisters who run the Four & Twenty Blackbirds bakery in Brooklyn, hail from South Dakota, where their family ran a small restaurant. Kuchen, a German cake topped with fruit that is a staple of the state’s Thanksgiving tables, is central to their childhood memories of the holiday. Their recipe, topped with pears, “looks a little different than those traditionally found in local South Dakota church and community cookbooks,” Melissa Elsen wrote in an email, “but it tastes like it does in my memory (with the addition of cardamom).” That cardamom, it turns out, is key to the dish’s success, with citrus and savory notes that are as pleasant as they are unexpected.  

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Pear Kuchen

Pear Kuchen

1 hour, plus 2 to 3 hours’ rising 2 kuchens, 8 servings each

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/SD.html)

Ingredients

  • ½ cup/118 milliliters whole milk
  • 1 ⅛ teaspoons/3 1/2 grams active dry yeast (about half a packet)
  • 2 tablespoons/28 grams unsalted butter, softened
  • ¼ cup/50 grams sugar
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • 1 large egg yolk
  • 1 ⅔ cups/209 grams all-purpose flour
  • 4 tablespoons/53 grams cream cheese, softened
  • ¼ cup/50 grams sugar
  • 2 tablespoons/16 grams all-purpose flour
  • 1 large egg
  • ¾ cup/177 milliliters whole milk
  • ¼ teaspoon salt
  • 3 cardamom pods, crushed in a mortar and pestle
  • ½ teaspoon anise seed, crushed in a mortar and pestle
  • 1 tablespoon/14 grams unsalted butter
  • ½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • 2 tablespoons/16 grams all-purpose flour
  • 1 ½ tablespoons/21 grams sugar
  • 1 tablespoon/13 grams packed light brown sugar
  • ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • Small pinch of salt
  • 1 ½ tablespoons/21 grams unsalted butter, cut into small pieces and softened
  • 3 ripe Bosc pears (about 1 pound)
  • ½ tablespoon/7 grams sugar
  • 2 ¼ teaspoons/11 milliliters apple cider vinegar or lemon juice

Preparation

  1. Make the dough: Warm milk to 110 degrees (or until warm to the touch), sprinkle with yeast, stir and let stand for 5 minutes until dissolved. Add butter and stir until mostly melted.
  2. Butter or oil a large bowl. In a second large bowl, whisk together sugar, salt and egg yolk. Add flour and stir with a wooden spoon until incorporated. Add warm milk mixture and stir until combined and dough comes together in a smooth, sticky ball, about 2 minutes. Transfer to prepared bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm spot until doubled in size, 2 to 3 hours. (Alternatively, dough can rise in refrigerator overnight.)
  3. Meanwhile, make the pastry cream: Place a fine-mesh sieve on the rim of a medium bowl. In a heavy-bottomed medium saucepan, blend cream cheese and sugar until smooth. Whisk in flour, egg, milk, salt, cardamom pods and anise seed. Cook over medium heat, whisking occasionally, until mixture starts to thicken, then whisk constantly until it starts to boil. Continue cooking, whisking constantly, for 2 more minutes, then immediately pour mixture into fine-mesh sieve. Use a spatula to push it through sieve and into bowl. Let cool, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes, then stir in butter and vanilla. Press plastic wrap directly on surface of pastry cream and refrigerate until ready to use.
  4. Make the streusel: In a small bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon and salt. Add butter pieces and toss to coat. Use fingertips to rub butter into dry ingredients until pea-size lumps form. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use.
  5. Roll out dough: Butter two 9-inch pie plates. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and with floured hands gently knead it into a log. Divide log in half and flatten into discs. With a lightly floured rolling pin, roll each disc into an 8-inch round. Transfer rounds to pie plates, pressing dough to edges of pan and just slightly up sides. Let rise for about 20 minutes while you prep fruit.
  6. Set a rack in the middle of the oven and heat to 350 degrees. Peel and core pears, then slice them lengthwise into 1/4-inch-thick slices and place in a medium bowl. Sprinkle with sugar and apple cider vinegar or lemon juice and toss to coat.
  7. Assemble the kuchens: Spread about 1/4 cup pastry cream on bottom of each kuchen, stopping 1/2 inch from edge of dough, then arrange pear slices in an overlapping circular pattern on top. Divide remaining pastry cream between kuchens and carefully spread it evenly over pears. Sprinkle streusel over both and bake in center of oven until dough is light golden brown, 20 to 25 minutes. (If your oven can’t accommodate both kuchens, refrigerate one while the other bakes.) Serve warm or at room temperature. Baked kuchens can be wrapped tightly in plastic wrap, then foil, and frozen up to 1 month. Rewarm before serving.
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Tennessee

Roasted Brussels Sprouts With Peanut Vinaigrette

Karen Van Guilder Little grew up in Knoxville, where Thanksgiving always included old-school American brussels sprouts, boiled into submission and doused in butter. “I was the only one who ate them,” she said, “but I was always the weird kid who would eat anything.”

Fast forward to last December, when Ms. Little and her husband, Andrew Little, a chef, opened Josephine in Nashville. Not many states with fewer than seven million people have three major food cities, but Memphis, Nashville and Knoxville are all burgeoning restaurant destinations. And every new place, it seems, has to have killer brussels sprouts. At the Catbird Seat in Nashville, they are dressed with sorghum and ham. At Hog and Hominy in Memphis, they’re slicked with tomato and bacon jams and shocked with mint.

“I knew I couldn’t do bacon, because everybody else had that covered,” Mr. Little said. “I started playing around with peanut butter — it’s rich and salty like bacon — and it just clicked.” The sprouts are never allowed to come off the menu, and grace the Van Guilder/Little Thanksgiving table every year.  

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Roasted Brussels Sprouts With Peanut Vinaigrette

Roasted Brussels Sprouts With Peanut Vinaigrette

50 minutes 8 to 10 servings

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/TN.html)

Ingredients

  • 2 pounds brussels sprouts, trimmed, halved and rinsed in cold water
  • ¼ cup peanut oil
  • Salt
  • 4 teaspoons champagne vinegar
  • 2 teaspoons honey or maple syrup
  • 2 tablespoons unsweetened peanut butter, creamy or chunky
  • Hot sauce or chile oil (optional)
  • 1 large navel orange
  • 3 tablespoons dried tart cherries or cranberries, plumped in warm water, drained and coarsely chopped
  • Crispy fried shallots, for garnish (optional)
  • Chopped fresh mint, for garnish (optional)

Preparation

  1. Heat oven to 400 degrees and place a pan of hot water in the bottom, to help prevent the sprouts from becoming tough. Turn on convection if you have it.
  2. Toss sprouts with peanut oil, sprinkle with salt, and spread out on one or two baking sheets. Roast 15 minutes. Stir and continue cooking 10 to 20 minutes more, until browned and crisp. Check sprouts every 5 minutes or so; if they are browning too fast, reduce heat by 25 degrees and turn off convection.
  3. Meanwhile, make the dressing: In a bowl, whisk together vinegar and honey. Whisk in peanut butter until thick and creamy. Add water until consistency is like creamy salad dressing. Season to taste with hot sauce, if using.
  4. When sprouts are tender and browned, remove from oven, transfer to a large bowl and sprinkle with salt. Add half the dressing and toss well.
  5. Take orange and cut a thick slice off the bottom and the top to make flat surfaces. Rest bottom on a cutting board and use a small, sharp knife to carve off all the peel and pith, cutting from top to bottom and following the curve of the fruit. When all the orange flesh is exposed, cut out each segment by slicing along the white membranes. Gently loosen from the orange and set aside.
  6. Add half the orange and half the cherries to bowl and toss. Taste. Adjust with more dressing, orange and cherries until flavors are balanced. Serve warm or at room temperature, topped with fried shallots or fresh mint, or both, if using.
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On Facebook, Susan Anderson Napolitano said:Chess pie. My mother grew up making it with her mother in the 1940s, living in Memphis. They didn't have much money, but they usually had some flour, butter, eggs, vanilla, vinegar, cornmeal and brown and white sugar on hand.”

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Texas

Turkey Tamales

Tamales are a holiday staple for Mexican-American families from the Rio Grande Valley up to North Texas, and not just at Christmas. “We have a big market for Thanksgiving tamales,” said Cyndi Hall of Tamale Place of Texas, in Leander, near Austin.

Although Ms. Hall said she’s seen more families buy tamales than ever before, many still keep the tradition of coming together to make them. You can cook up a turkey breast or extra legs for tamales to have with the Thanksgiving meal, or make the tamales with leftover turkey for the long weekend.

They aren’t difficult, but they do take time, so the more hands you have for your assembly line, the quicker it goes. Corn husks and masa mix for tamales can be found in markets that sell Mexican ingredients; make sure you get the masa for tamales (Maseca is the most widely available brand), not the finer, drier tortilla masa harina.  

Turkey Tamales

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

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Turkey Tamales

Turkey Tamales

4 hours 16 medium-size tamales

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/TX.html)

Ingredients

  • 1 (8-ounce) bag dried corn husks
  • 2 cups dried masa mix for tamales (do not use masa harina)
  • 5 ounces/ 2/3 cup chilled lard
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • Salt
  • 1 cup cool chicken or turkey broth
  • ½ pound fresh tomatillos, husked
  • 2 jalapeño or serrano chiles, stemmed (and seeded if desired)
  • 2 tablespoons chopped white onion, soaked for 5 minutes in cold water, drained and rinsed
  • 1 large garlic clove, peeled
  • 6 to 12 cilantro sprigs, plus chopped cilantro for garnish
  • 1 tablespoon grapeseed or canola oil
  • 1 cup chicken or turkey broth
  • Salt to taste
  • ½ teaspoon crushed dried chipotle chiles or chipotle powder
  • 2 cups/ 1/2 pound shredded cooked turkey

Preparation

  1. Prepare the corn husks: Place in a large saucepan, cover with water and bring to a boil. Turn off heat and use a plate to submerge husks. Soak 1 hour.
  2. Meanwhile, prepare the masa: In a medium bowl, mix masa with 11/4 cups hot water. Let cool.
  3. Combine lard and baking powder in a stand mixer and beat for 1 minute, until light. Add salt and masa in 3 additions, beating at medium-low speed. Gradually add 3/4 cup broth while beating on low speed; beat for another minute or two. Taste for salt. Test to see if masa is aerated enough by dropping 1/2 teaspoon into a cup of water; it should float to the top. Batter should be soft but not runny, holding together on a spoon if you tilt the spoon. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour. Beat masa again for a couple of minutes, adding remaining broth.
  4. Meanwhile, make the filling: Place tomatillos in a saucepan, cover with water and bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer 8 to 10 minutes, flipping them over halfway through, until softened and olive green. Drain and place in a blender. Add green chiles, onion, garlic and cilantro sprigs. Blend until smooth.
  5. Heat oil in a large, heavy saucepan or skillet over medium-high heat. Add tomatillo purée and stir constantly until it thickens and begins to stick to pan, about 5 minutes. Stir in broth, add salt to taste and bring to a simmer; let simmer 10 to 15 minutes, stirring often. Stir in chipotles. Sauce should be creamy and coat the front and back of a spoon. Taste and adjust seasoning. Remove from heat. Stir in shredded turkey.
  6. Make the tamales: Select 16 corn husks; look for large ones that have no tears. Take a few more and tear into 16 1/4-inch-wide strips for tying tamales. Use some of the remaining husks to line a steamer that is at least 6 inches deep (or a pasta pot with an insert); reserve a few husks in case you need to double-wrap tamales. Add just enough water to the pot to miss hitting the bottom of the basket.
  7. Lay a corn husk in front of you and pat dry. Spread a scant 1/4 cup of the masa into a 4-inch square, leaving a 1 1/2-inch border at pointy tapered end of the husk and a roughly 3/4-inch border on the other sides. Spoon a heaped tablespoon of turkey mixture down the middle of the masa. Pull long edges of husk toward each other and join them so that batter is now wrapped around the filling. Fold the two pinched-together edges over in the same direction and wrap the tamale. If it does not seem well wrapped, wrap in a second husk. Fold pointy end up to enclose the bottom and tie with a strip of husk. The wide top end will be open. Stand tamale up, closed end down, in steamer. Repeat with remaining masa and filling. The tamales should be crowded into the steamer so they remain upright. If they don’t, fill spaces with crinkled foil. If tops stick out from top of steamer, trim with scissors.
  8. Lay unused soaked husks over open tops of tamales. Bring water to a boil, cover pot, reduce heat to medium and steam tamales for 11/2 hours. Meanwhile, bring a kettle of water to a boil to replenish water in bottom of the pot, should it run out (check periodically). Tamales are done when husk comes away easily from the masa; when done, let them sit at least 15 minutes in the pot, uncovered, to firm up. Serve hot.
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What Makes Thanksgiving in Texas?

On Facebook, Tricia Wehring said:Deep-fried turkey, sure. Pecan pie, yes definitely, but cornbread stuffing says Texas!”

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Utah

Caramel Budino With Chex Topping

Briar Handly left Vermont for the Rocky Mountains as soon as he finished high school. “I didn’t have much of a plan beyond skiing,” Mr. Handly said. But jobs cooking burgers in turn-and-burn dives led to high-end ski resorts, and then culinary school. Now he’s among a few chefs who are cracking the code of how to make Utah restaurants individual, seasonal and profitable. (Working against 100-mile-an-hour wind gusts and the state’s labyrinthine liquor laws isn’t easy.)

Handle, which opened in Park City in September, is his first restaurant as chef and owner, but he knows the local palate backwards and forwards. “Pudding always sells,” he said. Pudding, like Jell-O (Utah’s official state snack) is a staple at Mormon gatherings, where sugar is a favorite indulgence. (Alcohol and nicotine are forbidden by the church.) His sneaky and delicious twist on butterscotch pudding has a breath of whiskey from the High West Distillery across the street; you may leave it out. The Chex streusel brings back every Thanksgiving Day, as he snacked endlessly on bowls of Chex Mix while watching football.  

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Caramel Budino With Chex Topping

Caramel Budino With Chex Topping

1 hour, plus 4 hours’ chilling 12 servings

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/UT.html)

Ingredients

  • 1 cup/220 grams brown sugar
  • ¼ cup/60 milliliters corn syrup
  • 3 cups/720 milliliters heavy cream
  • 1 ½ cups/360 milliliters whole milk
  • 1 vanilla bean, halved and seeds scraped
  • 1 large egg, plus 3 large yolks
  • 5 tablespoons/40 grams cornstarch
  • ½ teaspoon salt, more to taste
  • 5 tablespoons/70 grams butter, cubed
  • 2 tablespoons/30 milliliters whiskey, preferably High West Double Rye (optional)
  • ¼ box/85 grams Chex cereal
  • ½ cup/110 grams brown sugar
  • ½ cup/113 grams unsalted butter, melted
  • ½ cup/63 grams all-purpose flour
  • ½ teaspoon/1 gram ground cinnamon
  • ½ teaspoon/3 milliliters vanilla extract
  • Salt and freshly grated nutmeg, to taste
  • 1 cup/240 milliliters heavy cream
  • 1 cup/226 grams mascarpone cheese
  • 1 cup/240 milliliters maple syrup
  • Sea salt, to taste

Preparation

  1. Make the budino: Combine brown sugar, corn syrup and 2 tablespoons water in a large heavy pot. Set over medium heat and cook, stirring, until mixture is smooth and sugar begins to caramelize, about 3 minutes.
  2. Add cream, milk and the vanilla bean pod and seeds and continue cooking over medium heat, stirring often, until sugar is dissolved, about 8 minutes.
  3. In a large bowl, whisk together whole egg, egg yolks and cornstarch. Very slowly, add 1/2 cup of the hot cream mixture, whisking constantly. Pour tempered egg mixture into pot, whisking constantly to keep eggs from scrambling. Cook 6 to 8 more minutes, stirring constantly, until mixture is thick. Remove from heat and discard vanilla bean.
  4. Add salt, butter and whiskey. Emulsify budino with an immersion hand blender, or transfer to a regular blender and pulse until butter is melted and incorporated. Taste and add salt, if desired.
  5. Working quickly so a skin does not form, pour budino into 12 4-ounce ramekins or small jars. Let cool in the refrigerator until set, about 4 hours.
  6. Meanwhile, make the Chex topping: Heat oven to 350 degrees. Mix Chex, brown sugar, butter, flour, cinnamon, vanilla, salt and nutmeg in a large bowl until cereal is coated. Spread mixture on a parchment-lined baking sheet and bake 20 minutes, tossing every 5 minutes, until browned and crisp. Let cool.
  7. Make the whipped mascarpone: Beat cream with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until soft peaks form. Add mascarpone and maple syrup and beat on medium speed until smooth. Season with salt, then transfer to a piping bag. Pipe whipped cheese on top of set budinos. Sprinkle Chex on top.
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What Makes Thanksgiving in Utah?

On Facebook, Tai Anderson said: “Jell-O salad is an unfair blight on Utah food. Funeral potatoes, though ... those are legit.”

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Vermont

Vermont Cheddar Mashed Potatoes

Early American colonists may not have eaten Cheddar at the first Thanksgiving, but they certainly began to make it in the traditional English manner soon thereafter. At some point the colonies were actually exporting domestic cheese to the mother country, where it was known as Yankee Cheddar.

To some, Cheddar is synonymous with Vermont, even if it is produced in several other states, too. For most, mashed potatoes are an absolute essential for a proper Thanksgiving table. Combining them seems natural, whether customary or not. Using two-year-old aged Vermont Cheddar, which is deeply flavored but not too sharp, gives these creamy mashed potatoes a subtle Cheddar presence, neither overwhelmingly cheesy nor gooey.  

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Vermont Cheddar Mashed Potatoes

Vermont Cheddar Mashed Potatoes

45 minutes 8 to 10 servings

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/VT.html)

Ingredients

  • 3 pounds medium russet potatoes, peeled and quartered
  • ¾ pound Vermont aged white Cheddar, grated
  • ½ teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon kosher salt
  • Black pepper, to taste
  • Small pinch cayenne
  • Pinch of grated nutmeg
  • 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
  • ¾ cup heavy cream, heated
  • 2 eggs, lightly beaten

Preparation

  1. Boil potatoes in well-salted water until tender, about 15 minutes. Drain well in a colander and place in the bowl of a stand mixer with a wire whisk attachment. Beat at medium speed for 2 to 3 minutes to allow steam to escape.
  2. Turn off mixer and add cheese, baking powder, salt, pepper, cayenne and nutmeg. Beat again for a minute or so.
  3. Add butter and cream, mixing slowly, then increase speed to medium and drizzle in beaten eggs. Stop and scrape down bowl with rubber spatula to make sure ingredients are incorporated evenly. Beat at medium-high speed until mixture is smooth, 2 to 3 minutes.
  4. Serve immediately in a heated bowl. Alternatively, transfer potatoes to a 2-quart baking dish, cover with foil and let stand at room temperature. Reheat for 30 to 40 minutes at 350 degrees, until piping hot. (If you want the top browned, remove foil halfway through baking. Otherwise give the potatoes a stir before serving.)
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Virginia

Corn Pudding

As a child of Virginia, Edna Lewis — the African-American chef and cookbook author credited with preserving countless recipes from the old South — was ambivalent about a lot of Thanksgiving standbys that belonged, in her view, to Yankee territory: cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, even turkey.

“But Lewis can’t imagine Thanksgiving without corn pudding,” Molly O’Neill wrote here in The Times in 1992. Plenty of Virginians would agree with her. For them, as for Miss Lewis, this buttery, fluffy dish serves as not only a seasonal bridge — a farewell to summer, with winter chill waiting in the wings — but also as a sweetly welcome blurring of the lines between a side dish and a dessert.

In her essential book “The Taste of Country Cooking,” Miss Lewis, as she was called, wrote that her mother always paired corn pudding with a “casserole made from fresh-dug sweet potatoes.” That strikes us as a partnership worth encouraging.  

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Corn Pudding

Corn Pudding

1 hour 6 to 8 servings

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/VA.html)

Ingredients

  • 3 tablespoons/42 grams butter, melted, plus more for dish
  • 2 cups/350 grams corn (from about 3 ears)
  • cup/67 grams sugar
  • 1 teaspoon/5 grams salt
  • 2 large eggs, beaten
  • 2 cups/480 milliliters whole milk
  • ½ teaspoon/1 gram freshly grated nutmeg

Preparation

  1. Heat oven to 350 degrees and butter a 1 1/2-quart baking dish. Cut the corn from the cob into a mixing bowl by slicing from the top of the ear downward. Don’t go too close to the cob; cut only half the kernel, then scrape off the rest with the back of the knife.
  2. Stir sugar and salt into corn. Mix beaten eggs and milk together, then stir into corn mixture. Add melted butter and mix thoroughly.
  3. Spoon mixture into prepared dish and sprinkle with nutmeg. Place the dish in a larger baking dish or roasting pan. Transfer to oven and carefully pour hot water into the larger dish until it comes about halfway up the sides of the smaller baking dish.
  4. Bake for 40 to 50 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the center of the pudding comes out clean. The pudding will be set but still jiggle.
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Washington

Glazed Shiitake Mushrooms With Bok Choy

The State of Washington, culinarily speaking, is apples, cherries, wheat. It is wild salmon, crabs, oysters and mussels. And it is mushrooms, a plethora of them. Western Washington’s coastal rainy climate means there are evergreen forests and woodlands galore, which is a boon for avid mycologists, foragers and hunter-gatherers. But the cultivation of mushrooms, especially shiitakes, is a thriving business throughout the state, too, and these can be found simply by going to the grocery store.

Many restaurants there use a pan-Asian palette of ingredients, influenced in part by the Asian-American communities that make up a significant part of the state’s population. Though it may not immediately conjure images of Thanksgiving, this woodsy-looking dish pays tribute to those flavors, and the spirit of cultural mashups on the holiday table: gorgeous glazed shiitakes and tender green bok choi sparked with ginger, sesame and hot pepper.  

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Glazed Shiitake Mushrooms With Bok Choy

Glazed Shiitake Mushrooms With Bok Choy

30 minutes 6 to 8 servings

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/WA.html)

Ingredients

  • 2 pounds baby bok choy
  • 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
  • 3 small dry red Chinese hot peppers
  • 1 pound shiitake mushrooms (about 4 dozen), stems removed
  • Salt and pepper
  • 4 garlic cloves, minced
  • 1 tablespoon grated ginger
  • 1 tablespoons sugar
  • 1 teaspoon sesame oil
  • 3 tablespoons tamari or soy sauce
  • 6 scallions, sliced diagonally, for garnish
  • 1 tablespoon roasted sesame seeds for garnish (optional)

Preparation

  1. Bring a large pot of well-salted water to a boil. Cut off and discard stem ends of bok choy. Separate leaves, rinse and drain. Drop leaves into boiling water and cook for 1 to 2 minutes, until barely cooked. Immediately remove, rinse with cool water, drain and pat dry. Arrange leaves in one layer on an ovenproof earthenware platter, then set aside.
  2. Put a large wok or cast-iron skillet over high heat. Add oil and heat until nearly smoking, then add hot peppers and shiitake caps, stirring to coat. Season lightly with salt and pepper. Stir-fry for 2 minutes. Reduce heat slightly and add garlic, ginger, sugar, sesame oil and tamari. Stir-fry for 1 minute more.
  3. Spoon shiitake and pan juices over reserved cooked bok choy. Serve at room temperature, or if you prefer, reheat covered with foil for 10 to 15 minutes in a hot oven. Garnish with scallions and sesame seeds, if using.
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West Virginia

Pawpaw Pudding

When it comes to pawpaw, accept no substitutes. Trust us; we tried. We went to a bunch of experts — scholars who specialize in fruit, plus chefs and cookbook authors who know all about the proud culinary history of Appalachia — and we asked them, “If a home cook doesn’t happen to have any pawpaw, what combination of other fruits and vegetables might work well as a replacement?” We picked up passing nods to sweet potatoes, bananas, papayas, avocados, really ripe mangoes. But in the end everyone came back with variations on “Forget it, there’s nothing like a pawpaw.”

The weird, goopy-textured, tropical-ish fruit whose name sounds like a punch line on “Hee Haw” can be found scattered all over the country, but recipes (for cakes, pies, puddings) abound largely in West Virginia and nearby states like Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana. If you happen to secure some pawpaw, best to get out of its way, as is the case with this pudding. Pawpaw is a holiday guest who responds well to minimal interference.  

Pawpaw Pudding

Rikki Snyder for The New York Times

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Pawpaw Pudding

Pawpaw Pudding

1 hour 15 minutes 12 servings

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/WV.html)

Ingredients

  • ½ cup/1 stick/113 grams butter, melted and slightly cooled, plus more for baking dish
  • 2 cups/400 grams sugar
  • 1 ½ cups/190 grams all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • ¼ teaspoon salt
  • ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • ¼ teaspoon ground ginger
  • ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • 3 large eggs
  • 2 cups /1 pound/454 grams pawpaw pulp, thawed if frozen (see note)
  • 1 ½ cups/355 milliliters whole milk
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • Lightly sweetened whipped cream, for serving

Preparation

  1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 13-by-9-by-2-inch baking dish.
  2. In a large bowl, whisk together sugar, flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg.
  3. In another large bowl, whisk together eggs and pawpaw pulp until smooth. Whisk in milk and vanilla. Whisk in melted butter. Pour into sugar mixture and stir only until combined.
  4. Pour batter into prepared dish. Bake 50 minutes or until just set in the center. Cool to room temperature on a wire rack before cutting. Serve with a dollop of whipped cream.
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Wisconsin

Wild Rice With Mushrooms

In Wisconsin, wild rice is truly wild, not cultivated as in other states, the tassels rising and swaying over rivers, lakes and floodplains come late August and September. Called manoomin by the local Chippewa, it is a protected crop that can be harvested only by state residents holding a valid license. And only by hand, as the Chippewa have always done, using wooden flails gently (the grains should fall from the stalk without great effort) from canoes propelled by paddles or push poles.

Shellie Holmes of Rhinelander, Wis., who shares her recipe here, likes to cook wild rice just until it pops open. This is a break with her family’s tradition, which favored a chewier texture and did not allow popping.

“Do not mix with other rice,” she urged, lest you lose the flavor of the wild.  

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Wild Rice With Mushrooms

Wild Rice With Mushrooms

50 minutes 4 to 6 servings

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/WI.html)

Ingredients

  • 8 ounces long-grain Wisconsin wild rice
  • 8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter
  • 1 pound cremini or button mushrooms, sliced
  • ½ teaspoon salt, more to taste
  • Black pepper, to taste
  • cup dry sherry, such as Dry Sack (do not use cream sherry)

Preparation

  1. Bring 5 cups water to a boil. Stir in rice, then reduce heat so liquid is just simmering. Cover and cook until grains just begin to pop, about 40 minutes. Drain excess liquid from rice and set aside.
  2. Meanwhile, melt 4 tablespoons butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add half the mushrooms and cook, stirring occasionally, until they have released their liquid and are golden brown, about 8 minutes; remove to a plate. Repeat with remaining butter and mushrooms.
  3. Return all the mushrooms to the skillet and season with the salt and pepper, to taste. Very carefully add sherry to deglaze the pan, and cook until most of the liquid has evaporated but mushrooms are still moist.
  4. Mix mushrooms into prepared rice and season again with salt and pepper.
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On Facebook, readers said:Real cranberry sauce.” “Beer.” “Old-fashioneds.”

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Wyoming

Three Sisters Stew

Matt Mead, the governor of Wyoming, recalls being taken out by his grandfather on the family ranch to shoot his first duck for Thanksgiving at age 9, when he was so small that his grandfather had to brace him from behind to help absorb the kick from the shotgun.

Game is found on many Thanksgiving tables in the state, but other traditions predate the hunt. The trinity of corn, beans and squash was central to the agriculture of the Plains Indians in what would later become Wyoming, and some cooks honor that history each Thanksgiving with a dish called Three Sisters stew. The writer Pamela Sinclair’s version is a highlight of her 2008 cookbook, “A Taste of Wyoming: Favorite Recipes From the Cowboy State.” The stew works nicely as a rich side dish for turkey, and can easily be adapted to vegetarian tastes by omitting the pork and adding a pound of cubed butternut squash instead.  

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Three Sisters Stew

Three Sisters Stew

1 hour 40 minutes 8 servings

(http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/11/18/thanksgiving/WY.html)

Ingredients

  • 1 pound trimmed pork loin, cut into 1-inch cubes
  • 1 teaspoon ground cumin
  • Kosher salt, as needed
  • Black pepper, as needed
  • 2 tablespoons neutral oil, such as canola
  • 1 large yellow onion, diced
  • 3 garlic cloves, minced
  • 4 cups turkey or chicken stock, preferably homemade or low-sodium
  • 1 medium yellow squash, diced
  • 1 (15-ounce) can pinto beans, drained
  • 1 (15-ounce) can black beans, drained
  • 1 (14 1/2-ounce) can chopped tomatoes
  • 2 cups fresh or frozen corn kernels
  • 1 (4-ounce) can roasted green chiles (1/2 cup)
  • ½ bunch fresh cilantro, roughly chopped

Preparation

  1. Season pork with cumin, salt and pepper. Heat oil in a Dutch oven or large heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium-high heat until it shimmers. Add pork, in batches if necessary, and cook, turning as needed, until lightly browned on all sides, 5 to 6 minutes. Transfer pork to a bowl and set aside.
  2. Add onion to pan and sauté, stirring occasionally, until translucent, 5 to 7 minutes. Add garlic and sauté, stirring occasionally, until lightly colored, 2 to 3 minutes. Return pork to pan, along with stock and squash, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, covered, for about 30 minutes.
  3. Add beans, tomatoes, corn and chiles and cook, uncovered, over medium heat until stew has thickened, about 40 minutes. Add cilantro and season to taste with salt and pepper.
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Correction: Nov. 26, 2014

An article last Wednesday recommending a Thanksgiving dish from each state, with a recipe, contained numerous errors.

The recipe from Connecticut, for quince with cipollini onions and bacon, omitted directions for preparing the quince. It should be peeled, cored and cut into 1-inch chunks. An illustration with the West Virginia recipe, for pawpaw pudding, depicted a papaya — not a pawpaw, which is correctly depicted above. The introduction to the recipe from Arizona, for cranberry sauce and chiles, misstated the origin of Hatch chiles. They are grown in New Mexico, not in Arizona.

The introduction to the Delaware recipe, for du Pont turkey with truffled zucchini stuffing, referred incorrectly to several historical points about the Winterthur estate. It was an ancestral home of the du Pont family, not the sole one; it was established in 1837, not in 1810; the house was completed in 1839, not in 1837. The introduction also misstated the relationship of Pauline Foster du Pont to Eleuthère Irénée du Pont. Pauline was the wife of Mr. du Pont’s grandson, not his daughter-in-law.

And, finally, the label for the illustration for the nation’s capital misspelled the District of Columbia as Colombia.