Full Plate Miracle
A Hanukkah celebration for the books
Hi friends,
Welcome to This Needs Hot Sauce. Now that it’s officially the holiday season, I have to remind you that paid subscriptions to This Needs Hot Sauce make excellent gifts. Sign up for bonus issues (one every week!) and personalized recommendations. Get one for yourself and one for a friend, just $5 a month.
Now, let’s dive in.
Something to cook:
I spent most of this week eating lentil soup, which kept really well. I froze some of it and look forward to eating it later this winter.
In an effort to eat some vegetables in the midst of all the holiday parties, I bought a bunch of Persian cucumbers and sugar snap peas. They made great snacks topped with everything but the bagel seasoning or with a little yogurt tahini dip (yogurt with some grated garlic, tahini, lemon juice, and salt).
Frida had a lovely birthday brunch featuring chilaquiles rojos. The recipe came courtesy of Isa and Noah and they’re generously sharing it with all of you.
Finally, my family hosted our annual Latkes and Vodkas Hanukkah Party. It’s always a special night of food, friends, and family. My parents have lived in the same house for over 15 years and it’s very special to see people you’ve known for 20+ years and under 2 mingle together over food and drinks. You can also read a recap from last year’s party and one from 2017, the first year of this tradition. Since we did our party before Hanukkah, there were no candles, but it was still a very special evening.
We made two kinds of latkes (zucchini and potato) and guests took turns frying (the hardest part it that latkes are basically impossible to make in advance). My parents have a food processor to grate the potatoes which is a lifesaver. The recipe is super simple with onions, eggs, flour, salt, and pepper. Make sure to drain before frying.
Latkes are all about the toppings and we serve many options: horseradish yogurt, lemon herb yogurt, homemade applesauce, caramelized onion jam, lox, and my favorite topping, whipped feta with pomegranate seeds. Mixing and matching toppings is encouraged.
In addition to latkes, we served crudités with hummus, homemade chex party mix (something my grandma always made for my dad when he was growing up), this salad, and vegetable soup.
For the vodka, my dad went all out. He made an illustrated menu with cocktail ideas including white Russians, Moscow mules, martinis, and more. We also put out dry erase markers so people could write their names on glasses. I made a drink with vodka, tonic, seltzer, cranberry syrup, and lime and kept that on repeat. We also had red wine and some bottles of sparkling.
Desserts are a guest contribution and babka is always a favorite. Julia and I made these chocolate peanut butter cup cookies. They did not look at all like the picture, but the flavor was amazing, really chocolatey. I love how there’s peanut butter in the dough and the filling. We sprinkled flakey salt on before baking and would recommend flattening the cookies a lot.
Our neighbor Rory makes fresh homemade doughnuts and is a party legend (he brings the dough, oil, glaze, and an electric skillet, it’s a flex).
New this year was an afterparty at Station House, which is hopefully a tradition.
Something to order:
The holiday season kicked off with a family dinner at Cookshop, which has a great wine list. The food is great too, some highlights were the crispy potatoes with chimichurri, the brussels sprouts, the burrata, the white bean soup (really), and the coffee popcorn sundae.
Spirit Animal is the wine shop from the team at Barano, a delicious Italian restaurant that does not get nearly enough love (it’s pricey but great for special occasions). They threw a FREE holiday wine tasting with different importers and a crazy snack spread: burrata, two kinds of pizza, chickpea dip with pesto, cheese, charcuterie…it was beyond. They do tastings frequently (not quite as big as this one) so check out their Instagram and look for snacks.
Natalie invited me to join her at the Wing on Friday and the food situation was lovely. The free coffee is very good and they make a lovely macro bowl with kimchi and avocado and freekeh with a spicy lemon dressing.
I ended the week with dinner at Win Son with Leah and a bunch of her friends and it was perfect. It was such a busy week and everything felt better with some eggplant, wine, and the Win Son vibes.
Something to read:
Madeleine wrote a really thoughtful piece about Mexico City’s public markets, which are being threatened by a mixture of tourism, public policy, and chain store.
Would you meet friends for breakfast instead of dinner? It’s definitely cheaper but I love having plans to look forward to at the end of the day.
If you’re putting together a cheese plate soon, check out this highly subjective cracker ranking.
Obsessed with this oral history of that incestuous Folger’s commercial
How Katie Parla, a food writer based in Italy, built her career.
Love a hot take: White Claw might be the only thing that can save craft beer from itself.
I’m a huge fan of Ashtin Berry on Instagram and I loved her conversation with Marissa and Adam on this podcast.
I had to share this story Julianne sent in inspired by this baking post.
My favorite baking experience was sending Ian surprise snickerdoodle cookies back when we were babies (he was a freshman in college and I was a senior in high school). I baked a ton of really good homemade snickerdoodle cookies and packed them into one of those large popcorn tin containers (where are they now? A very early 2000s Christmastime joy). This tin may have looked a bit suspicious to the postal service and when Ian was called to retrieve a package...
But turns out...
Pro tip: if you're sending or giving cookies this holiday SZN as a gift, put a slice of white bread in the cookie container. The cookies will absorb its moisture, keeping them soft and chewy, without any transferred flavor from the bread!
This week, I want to know what you eat on Christmas. I don’t have a set tradition, though my family has done our fair share of Chinese food (Julia and I went to M.Shanghai last year) and we’ve also made seafood dishes on Christmas Eve inspired by the Feast of the Seven Fishes. This year, I’m going to Dale’s mom’s house and am excited about some Jamaican food. So what do you eat on Christmas? I’m so curious!
(And as a preview, next week, I’m going to collect submissions for our best of 2019 edition. So start thinking!)
Happy eating and thanks for reading.
xo, Abigail