8 Weird Twists on Classic Thanksgiving Dishes
Thanksgiving is America’s most traditional holiday meal, one with a national menu that every family follows in their own way year after year. For many of us, "traditional" means those tried-and-true recipes from Grandma’s house (possibly “inspired” by a supermarket supplement or ladies’ auxiliary cookbook from the ‘60s) that we look forward to on Thanksgiving. You may eat the same dishes every year—be they marshmallow-topped yams, straight-from-the-can cranberry sauce, or gummy white bread stuffing—but mess with the classics at your peril. Even the most experimental restaurant chefs throw in the towel at Thanksgiving and go for the crowd pleasers.
Lately, however, some restless souls have branched out and twisted our American Thanksgiving flavor profiles with a devil-may-care bravery that the pious Pilgrims might condemn, but that we love. Saviors or sinners? We'll let you be the judge.
Quicksilver Studios1/8The Left Over Roll
At the Bonsai Bistro in Idaho’s Coeur d'Alene resort, having just one weird Thanksgiving-inspired maki roll wasn’t enough (after all, we’ve seen them pop up in a few places already). So they went ahead and created more, including the Left Over Roll (smoked turkey breast, traditional stuffing, dried cranberries, green beans, cream cheese, tempura battered and fried, served with cranberry wasabi and red wine soy demi-glace) and the Please Pass the Sides Roll (green beans, crispy fried onions, bacon, striped with a red wine gravy reduction). We can only wonder what Jiro Ono would say. On second thought, maybe don’t tell him.
2/8Thanksgiving Samosa
Leave it to an Indian Gastropub to turn the turkey dinner on its head…and stuff it into a deep-fried samosa. That’s just what downtown Los Angeles’s Badmaash has done, combining rosemary roasted turkey, turkey gravy, bacon, sweet corn, and water chestnuts inside short dough crust. With cranberry chutney on the side. Naturally.
3/8Yinzer Turkey Dinner Pierogi
Why let Asian cuisines have all the fun? At Braddock’s American Brasserie in Pittsburgh, executive chef Jason Shaffer called on the region’s proud Polish heritage to create the Yinzer Turkey Dinner Pierogi. Hand-rolled apple sage turkey kielbasa is placed on a generous bed of billowy apple and sausage stuffing pierogies, and then doused in traditional gravy. You made time for a nap, right?
4/8Turkey Gizzard Kebabs
At Tavern Road in Boston’s Fort Point neighborhood, owner-chef Louis DiBiccari has taken the whole local/seasonal/use everything approach and put his stamp on the holiday with—what else?—turkey gizzard kebabs. Just the thing we’re sure the Pilgrims would’ve cooked up if Massasoit’s tribe had night markets instead of wetu huts.
5/8Tur-Duc-Ken Roulade
Most foodies young or old have heard of the Southern tradition known as turducken. But we doff our collective hats to Dragonfly at Dallas’s Hotel ZaZa for its Tur-Duc-Ken Roulade, which takes the Cajun ____ conglomeration of deboned duck inside chicken inside turkey, applies some French technique, and finishes the dish with shiitake brioche bread pudding, foie gras pan gravy, buttered green beans, and cranberry mojo. The result seems so elegant that it doesn’t belong on this list…except, yes, it’s still turducken.
6/8Thanksgiving Leftovers Pizza
Any survey of American Culinary Ingenuity would be incomplete without at least one entry from Brooklyn. And indeed, respect must be paid to Krescendo’s inspired Thanksgiving Leftovers Pizza, a pie topped with a heavy cream/sour cream/sweet potato “sauce,” strips of ham, and thin-sliced au gratin purple potatoes, finished with a barely cooked egg and chunks of chèvre.
7/8Butternut Old Fashioned
Just when we thought the bartenders got left out comes word of Nikki Sunseri’s Butternut Old Fashioned. Served at retro resto Little Dom’s in L.A.’s arty-chic Los Feliz neighborhood, the cocktail is based on Eagle Rare bourbon that’s been infused for roughly a week with cinnamon-sugar-roasted butternut squash, stirred with real maple syrup, maple bitters, and a twist of citrus. Now THAT sounds like a nice way to finish your vegetables.
8/8Japanese Pumpkin Eggrolls
Ready for dessert? Depending on what coast you’re on, you can indulge in Chef Kathy Fang’s Japanese Pumpkin Egg Rolls with caramel sauce at San Francisco’s Fang Restaurant, or trek out to quiet Armonk, N.Y., for chef Ethan Kostbar’s Thanksgivukkah-inspired Pumpkin Sufganiyot stuffed with cranberry jam at Moderne Barn. Because what better way to upset Thanksgiving tradition than to tell folks, "Sorry, no pie!"
