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A New Love: Jacques Pépin's Fast Food
Talking Him Into It - Feeding The Guy
Another Change, and Two Summer Shortcakes
« Pre-Thanksgiving Party | Main | Delectable Dishes, New and Old »
This week I decided to try some of the recipes from this month's Gourmet in preparation for Thanksgiving. (A couple years ago I learned the hard way that if I want to serve something to my friends and family I should give it a trial run first.) Since cranberry sauce has never been my favorite part of Thanksgiving, I decided to look for an interesting alternative, and I tried two: Quick Cranberry Trifles (from the Contents page) and Persimmon Cranberry Sauce (from "A New Tradition"). Both recipes were amazing.
The cranberry trifle was spectacularly different from the holiday desserts I'm used to; the cranberries gave the dish a wonderful tang that, along with the seductive notes from the Sherry, made this a very sophisticated, very grown-up dessert. The combination of the ice cream and heavy cream for the custard also added a delicate depth to the dish. I made one to eat right away, instead of chilling it, and although the flavors had not mixed and the cake didn't blend with the other ingredients as well as it did in the chilled ones, it was still a wonderful dessert. My only caveat with this recipe is that despite it's name, this dessert is not "quick". Yes, it doesn't take long to assemble, but to make it right you do have to chill it for eight hours (and I'm not really the kind of person who thinks about the night's dessert directly after doing the breakfast dishes). That said, I can't wait to make this again - no matter what time of day I have to start it.
The Persimmon Cranberry Sauce was equally good and, to me, just as surprising, because I'd never had a cranberry sauce that overshadowed the other food on my plate. Yes, the poultry and mashed potatoes and vegetables I ate it with were good - very, very good in fact - but the sauce was so amazing that I couldn't stop eating it. I piled giant clumps of it on my meat, mixed it into my potatoes, and even used it as a topping for my salad. And the best part (okay, the flavor was the best part, but this was good too) is that it's ridiculously easy to make and takes less than fifteen minutes.
Wow - thank you Ruth Reichl and all the folks at Gourmet; I would never have known how much I loved cranberries without your guidance.
Posted by georgia to Kitchen and Cooking , Reviews on November 17, 2005 11:47 PM | permalink | Email this post
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Wow, thank you so much for posting the cranberry persimmon sauce recipe. We have a Fuyu persimmon tree and I can hardly wait to try this recipe.
I enjoy your blog! There is a nice variety here. I will be interested to see your magazine reviews.
Best wishes; Andrea
Posted by: Andrea at December 13, 2005 12:38 AM
