(Chef tip:  To soak or not to soak?  Soak!   Chef Rick Bayless, in his Authentic Mexican cookbook, says this: “The preliminary soaking keeps the outside from burning right off the bat and the inside damp enough to steam.”  He recommends soaking corn ears in a deep bowl of cold water for an hour, using a heavy plate to cover and keep submerged. He also uses a two step corn grilling process. To impart a leafy husky flavor, after soaking he grills the corn in the husks and silk for 15 minutes, until the husks are blackened.   He then removes the husks and silk and grills again until the kernels are browned.  Check out his Charcoal Grilled Corn with Cheese and Chile here.)

Mexican Grilled Corn Con Queso
Café Habana, New York City

Serves 12
Ingredients

* 12 ears fresh Supersweet Corn, husked
* 12 ounces Cotija (queso anejado) or feta cheese
* 1 tablespoon chili powder
* 12 fresh lime slices

1. Preheat grill or broiler. Grill or broil corn, turning occasionally until hot and some kernels turn golden brown, about 5 minutes.
2. Crumble 1 ounce of cheese on one side of a corn ear. Sprinkle with 1/4 teaspoon chili powder.
3. Broil until cheese starts to melt 1 to 2 minutes. Serve with a slice of lime.

Grilled Corn with Maple and Chipotle
Chef Philip Anderson,  Harris Teeter Executive Chef

Ingredients
6 ears of corn, husked
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/3 cup butter
2 chipotle chilies, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon black pepper

Instructions

In a small saucepan, combine butter, maple syrup, garlic, salt, pepper, and chipotle chilies. Allow to simmer over medium heat for about 10-12 minutes.  Remove from heat and cool.  Preheat grill for medium heat. Place corn onto grill and brush with maple glaze. Be sure to turn corn frequently and brush with glaze.  Cook for 8-10 minutes.  Remove from heat and serve.

Grilled Corn with Spicy Cilantro Butter
Chef John Folse

Prep: 30 Minutes
Serves 8

“When cilantro butter is brushed lightly over grilled corn, a dish inspired by the outdoor cooks of  Trinidad,  this accompaniment to seafood or steaks will be the hit of the barbecue.”

Ingredients
* 8 large ears of Silver Queen Corn
* 1/4 pound salted butter, softened
* 2 cloves garlic, minced
* 3 tbsps finely chopped cilantro
* 1/4 cup finely sliced green onions
* salt and black pepper to taste

Shuck corn and remove any silk and rinse thoroughly under cold running water and set aside. Into a food processor place butter, garlic and a pinch of salt and pepper.  Process until smooth. Transfer the butter to a ceramic bowl and fold in the cilantro and green onions. Cover and set aside.  When ready to cook, brush oil onto the hot grill and cook the corn, turning occasionally, 10 to 12 minutes.  As the corn cooks, brush it occasionally with the cilantro butter.  When ready to serve, brush once more with the butter. Serve hot.

Corn on the Cob with Chilies, Queso Fresco and Lime Butter
Chef Michelle Bernstein, Michy’s restaurant in Miami

Ingredients

* 12 ears fresh corn, unshucked
* ½ pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
* 4 tablespoons lime juice
* 1 tablespoon chopped tarragon
* Salt and freshly ground black pepper
* ½ pound queso fresco, finely grated
* Combine ingredients below to make spice mixture:
* 2 tablespoons cayenne pepper
* ¼-cup chili powder
* 2 teaspoons sweet paprika
* 1-tablespoon garlic powder
* ¼-teaspoon ground cinnamon

Soak the corn in cold water for 1 hour.  Prepare the grill.  Put the soaked cobs on the hot grill and cook for 25 to 30 minutes, turning frequently.

While the corn is grilling make the lime butter:  In a small bowl add the butter, lime juice, tarragon and salt and pepper, to taste.  Mix well and spread onto a large plate.  Take the corn off the grill and carefully peel back the husks (it will be hot). Remove the corn silk and tie the husks in a knot so you can hold on to it like a handle.  Roll in the butter and then roll.  Top with a good amount of the queso fresco; sprinkle with the spice mixture.  Serve immediately.

Grilled Corn with Herbed Goat Cheese Spread
Chef Susan Goss of West Town Tavern in Chicago
Serves 6

Ingredients

* 6 ears fresh supersweet corn
* 2 ounces fresh goat cheese (about ¼ cup)
* 2 tablespoons butter, softened
* 1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves or 1 teaspoon dried thyme
* 1⁄8 teaspoon ground black pepper
* Pinch salt

Preheat outdoor grill or preheat oven to 500° F.  Place corn in husks on grill or roasting pan; wrap husked ears in aluminum foil.  Grill or roast corn, turning occasionally, until kernels are tender, about 12 minutes.  Meanwhile, in a small bowl, combine goat cheese, butter, thyme, pepper and salt; stir until smooth; set aside.  Remove husks and silks or unwrap corn in foil;  spread goat cheese mixture on ears.

Caramelized Cranberry Compote with Rosemary
Chef Paul Callahan

* ½ cup dried cranberries (or craisins), rehydated with water for 1 hour, you may also use fresh
* ½ cup brown sugar
* 1 tsp fresh rosemary leaves + 1 sprig rosemary for garnish
Cover the dried cranberries with water and allow to rehydrate for 1 hour. Add cranberries and the water to a saucepan. Add brown sugar, stir and simmer for 15 minutes (big bubbles will form on the sides of the pan and cranberries start to soften). Add rosemary and cook until most of the water is absorbed and the mixture has thickened, about 5 minutes. Serve warm or cool in refrigerator for 30 minutes. If serving as a side dish, garnish with a sprig of rosemary if desired. Add a large spoonful to squash Soup or serve with pork, chicken, or turkey, or use as a condiment in sandwiches. The compote will last up to two weeks refrigerated.

As an alternative, Chef Todd English has a more complex compote recipe here. And for more cranberry alternatives and chef recipes, check out this Cranberry Chutney Recipe, and this recipe for a Pumpkin Risotto with Cranberry Sauce.

Silly Foodies! Daily Blender, Average Betty, Chef John, Savory Tv, Aspen Food & Wine 2009

Our friend Tiana let us know today that we are lacking stuffing recipes on the site, a Thanksgiving staple that we have so far  sadly neglected, and even more sadly failed to notice!

A quick search of our favorite chefs led us to a video recipe of Chef John from Food Wishes,  a delicious looking Pecan and Apricot Sourdough Stuffing with Herbs, a recipe which Chef John says has a tangy sweet balance of flavor and is great not only for a holiday, but anytime of year.   View Chef John’s written recipe here.  Thank you Chef John for coming to our rescue, once again!

Chef Suvir Saran is the executive chef and co-owner of Dévi restaurant in NYC.   Food critic Frank Bruni called Devi “perhaps the city’s best Indian restaurant” in a New York Times Diner’s Journal review.

Chef Suvir shares a healthy fresh cranberry chutney recipe, that is meant to be made the day or evening before serving.   And today, Chef Suvir visited Savory Tv and shared a beautiful story regarding this cranberry chutney:

“I spoke about this recipe in Atlanta with kids from the public school system a few days after Thanksgiving last year, and then came home around Christmas to find wonderful drawings done by the students, many of whom promised to never eat canned cranberry relish/salad, and encourage their parents to make the recipe above instead.

The recipe is from Charlie, my partners mother in West Virginia, and we have eliminated some ingredients that were not necessary and added nothing but goop and starch to the recipe.

What was marvelous to us was reading the Seattle Times a couple of years ago, soon after the publishing of the book, and reading how the writer who had prepared this recipe, decided to make it their families new cranberry relish recipe.

It made me proud of Charlies mother, her recipe and an age old favorite recipe.

Our farm, my second book and the restaurant in Jersey City as also the kiosks at UC Berkeley and Cornell University are all called American Masala.  They are all about celebrating the magical tastes of foods from around India, the US and other countries that add magic at our home table, and recipes that find their way into my books and thereby into these restaurant concepts.”

Thank you Chef Suvir, you are truly an inspiration.

Read on for the recipe:

Cranberry Chutney From Chef Suvir Saran

Recipe and photo courtesy of the Cranberry Marketing Committee.

Also view our other chef recipe video for cranberry chutney, as well as our other Thanksgiving recipes.  Enjoy your holiday!

This restaurant recipe is from Executive Chef Tom Berry of Nantucket’s Great Harbor Yacht Club, and is a roasted pumpkin risotto with Parmesan and a cranberry brown butter sauce,  a dish that can be served for the holiday or used with leftovers.

Read on for the recipe

Roasted Pumpkin Risotto with Cranberry Brown Butter Sauce
Chef Tom Berry
Recipe used with permission, via Ocean Spray Cranberries.

INGREDIENTS:

1 medium onion, chopped
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
2 cups aborio rice
1/2 cup white wine
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 tablespoon butter
2 tablespoon chopped, fresh parsley
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 3-pound sugar pumpkin
1/4 cup light olive oil
6 cups chicken or vegetable stock

DIRECTIONS:

Roasted Pumpkin Risotto:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cut pumpkin in half; scrape out the seeds and membrane. Place pumpkin halves cut side down on a cookie sheet and lightly rub the skin with half of the olive oil to prevent it from cracking. Roast pumpkin halves until tender, about 20-25 minutes. Cool and scoop out pumpkin meat into a medium mixing bowl.

In a large saucepan, heat the chicken stock until hot; set aside. Coat the bottom of a second large saucepan with remaining olive oil, and sweat the onion and garlic over medium heat, about 5 minutes. Add rice and cook for 2 minutes, stirring often. Add wine and simmer, stirring often, until liquid has been absorbed, about 2 minutes. Add half of the hot chicken stock and continue to cook, stirring constantly, until most of the liquid has been absorbed, about 10 minutes. Add remaining chicken stock and reserved pumpkin meat. Continue to cook and stir until most of the liquid has been absorbed and the rice grains are tender but not broken, about 10 minutes. Fold in Parmesan cheese, butter and parsley, season with salt and pepper. Serve the risotto in bowls with the cranberry brown butter sauce drizzled around. Serves 4.

Recipe Variation: This recipe works great with leftover turkey! Just fold in 2 cups of picked turkey meat during the last 10 minutes of cooking. Add ¾ cup of Craisens Dried Cranberries–pumpkin and cranberries are a great flavor combination.

Cranberry Brown Butter Sauce:

1/3 cup Ocean Spray® Cranberry Juice Cocktail
1 cup Ocean Spray® Fresh or Frozen Cranberries
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 shallot, sliced
1/4 cup white sugar
1 stick unsalted butter
Salt and pepper

Add cranberry juice cocktail, cranberries, mustard, shallot and sugar to a blender and puree until very smooth. Season with salt and pepper. In a small saucepan over low heat, melt butter and cook until it is light brown and has a nutty aroma. (Be careful not to burn.)

With the blender running on medium speed, slowly add the brown butter until well incorporated. Serve immediately with risotto or keep at room temperature until needed. The sauce can be made a day ahead and refrigerated, but will become very firm and needs to be slowly reheated for use.

Yield: approximately 2 cups

Recipe as adapted from the video:
Shaved Brussels Sprouts Salad with Prosciutto
Chef Stephanie Izard

For the salad:
1/4 lb of prosciutto (simply omit this for a vegetarian option)
1 lb of brussels sprouts, sliced
2 cups of corn
8 ounces of manchego (or alternatively Parmesan) cheese, shaved
1/4 cup of chopped toasted pecans

For the vinaigrette:
1/4 cup of lemon juice
2 Tbsp of maple syrup
2 Tbsp of minced shallot
4 Tbsp of extra virgin olive oil
1 pinch of salt and pepper

For more from Stephanie check out her blog here, which has delicious videos and recipes, and also follow her updates on Twitter.

Starting with the mashed sweet potatoes mixed with butter, salt, and pepper, his first method blends in mashed bananas for a Caribbean flavor.  The second method blends in light coconut milk.  In his third method he simply folds in orange juice concentrate.

We tried the mashed bananas version last night.  We steamed 2 cut and peeled sweet potatoes for 20 minutes, added 1 tbsp of butter, salt and pepper to taste, and added one mashed banana.  We  garnished it with a few dried cranberries, and it was delicious.

Care to step it up a notch? Try one of the above techniques using homemade butter instead of store bought. Read this post to learn how simple it is to make in less than 15 minutes –> How to make butter.

You will need:  4 cups of chicken broth,  2 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil, chopped garlic (one or two cloves) , one chopped onion, 1 cup of arborio rice, chardonnay white wine, sweet peas (frozen is fine), Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, one lemon (juice it and zest it), butter, salt, and pepper.

First, warm the chicken broth, juice and zest your lemon.   Add the olive oil into a hot pan, add the chopped onion, add the chopped garlic, and stir while cooking just until tender.  Add the arborio rice and cook while stirring for 2-3 minutes.  Next, add the white wine, and stir together for a minute to let it absorb.  Add approximately 3 generous ladles or about 3 cups of chicken broth, and turn the heat down to a simmer.   Add salt and ground pepper, and cooks while stirring for about 7 minutes, or until the rice is al dente.   Add the lemon zest, peas, a generous amount of butter and a few splashes of lemon juice.  You may add more chicken broth if needed.  At the end, top with grated parmesan cheese.

Next up, part 3, a to die for sirloin steak with red wine sauce. Stay tuned!

Austrian Chef Kurt Gutenbrunner is chef/co-owner of the NYC treo of restaurants Wallsé, Café Sabarsky, and Blaue Gans.  In this video he shares his recipe for a simple white asparagus with vinaigrette.

Recipe courtesy of Kurt Gutenbrunner and New York Magazine:

3 pounds, about 16 pieces white asparagus
1 ½ tablespoons salt
1 tablespoon sugar
2 ounces butter
1 small piece of baguette or white bread

Drape a dish towel over a large, inverted mixing bowl. (1) To peel asparagus, grip the spear with three fingers, protecting the tip, and lean it against the bowl to prevent it from breaking. With a swivel vegetable peeler, remove the thick outer layer starting just below the tip, turning the spear as you peel. Peel them well, as the skin can be tough and bitter. (2) Trim approximately one inch off the woody end of each spear. Add the salt, sugar, and butter to 4 quarts of water in a large pot and bring to a boil. (3) Add the bread, which helps eliminate bitterness, and the asparagus, and cook for about 8 minutes, until cooked through but still firm. Remove asparagus and dry on a towel. Serve at room temperature with an herb vinaigrette (made with good extra-virgin olive oil and lemon juice) or hollandaise sauce.

And we so proudly announce to you a new crush, on the blood orange fruit.  For those not familiar, the blood orange is a wonderful winter fruit.  An offspring of the traditional sweet orange, blood oranges are typically native to Sicily and Spain, and are harvested from early to mid winter.  Their deep red flesh comes from a pigment called anthocyanin, a powerful antioxidant present in açaí, concord grapes, cranberries and raspberries.    How do they taste?  Less acidic than other oranges, blood oranges tend to have a rich, both sweet and tart flavor, with berry undertones.  While shopping, choose a heavy feeling blood orange with a thin skin for the juiciest fruit.  A slight green tinting of the rind is fine.  They’ll keep in the refrigerator for up to one month, or on the counter for approximately a week.

Our video today features the lovely host Carolyn Jennings from Chic Tv with chef Cedric Tovar from the NYC Park Avenue Peacock Alley Restaurant.   He whips up a gorgeous looking braised white asparagus, and serves it with a dressing made from blood orange juice.   Click the “read more” to watch the video and for the recipe.

BRAISED WHITE ASPARAGUS WITH BLOOD-ORANGE SAUCE
Chef Cedric Tovar

Time: 30 minutes

1 pound very thick white asparagus
1 cup lightly seasoned chicken stock, approximately
2 1/2 tablespoons salted butter
1 bay leaf
4 blood oranges
Sea salt
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
Freshly ground black pepper.

1. Snap off ends of asparagus. Trim triangular leaves from sides, and peel spears. Place in single layer in heavy saucepan. Add enough stock to come about halfway up sides of spears. Add 2 tablespoons butter, place bay leaf on top, cover and cook over medium-high heat about 8 minutes, until spears are very tender.

2. Meanwhile juice 3 blood oranges. Place all but 1 tablespoon juice in another saucepan, and simmer until reduced to 3 tablespoons. Whisk in remaining butter, and season lightly with salt and pepper. Set aside. Peel remaining orange, removing all pith. Divide into segments, removing all membrane.

3. Drain asparagus well, and place side by side on each of two large plates. Spoon blood orange sauce onto plates around spears. Drizzle asparagus with oil, allowing some droplets to fall into sauce. Dust lightly with salt and pepper. Top with cluster of blood-orange segments, and serve.

Yield: 2 servings.

PS. Do you want to try a blood orange cocktail for dessert? Ok, I know we said detox, but think of those antioxidants! The adorable chef Mark Tafoya has a delicious looking blood orange granita recipe, check it!