Three Things

Indulgent potatoes for Thanksgiving, mole poblano, and an easy way to improve your social health

Greetings eaters and readers! What’s for dinner this week? Last night, I stirred spinach into a bowl of khichdi and was reminded that it’s really one of the great one-bowl protein-packed vegetarian dinners. (Here’s an Instant Pot version.) Also on the line-up: Rigatoni with Honeynut Squash, Chard and Hazelnuts, Cioppino (Tomatoey Fish Stew) with Garlic Bread, and the Potato-Cheddar Pizza that was made famous by Jim Lahey over a decade ago and one million percent holds up in the easy, delicious, comfort-food department. Lastly, I made pancakes over the weekend, and I have nothing insightful to share about them except to say that they pair deliciously with a Premier League match on the telly. Here are Three Things I’d like you to tell you about this week…

1. Cheesy Potatoes Gratin

Can it please be Thanksgiving already? I am craving that long weekend of family time more than ever right now, and yes, I realize I say that every year, but I genuinely mean it every year. All the kids migrate home from college, the kitchen chaos is the happiest kind, and my social feeds become comforting messengers of rich, buttery, cheesy potato dishes, the only kind of potato dishes that belong on a Thanksgiving spread in my extremely non-dairy-sensitive opinion. Here’s one I re-tested for you over the weekend that I encourage you to bookmark for the holidays.

Cheesy Potatoes Gratin

To make ahead: Bake the entire thing up until the point where you add the cheese. When you’re ready to make, reheat in a 350°F oven under loose foil for 20 to 25 minutes. Remove foil, add cheese, then broil for the five final minutes until cheese is golden and bubbly. This recipe was inspired by the simple scalloped potatoes in Sam Sifton’s indispensable manual, Thanksgiving: How to Cook it Well.

2 1/2 cups whole milk
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 large garlic clove, pressed
kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
4 pounds Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and sliced thin
6 ounces Gruyere, grated

Preheat the oven to 425°F. Combine milk and cream in a saucepan and bring to a simmer. Remove from the heat and stir in garlic, salt and pepper.

Butter a 9-by-13-inch baking dish with 1 tablespoon of butter. (The dish shown above is oval, but is roughly the same size.) Place half of the potatoes in one shingled layer in the dish — overlapping is fine — then pour over a third of the milk mixture. Repeat with the rest of the potatoes, and pour the remainder of the milk mixture over the top. It should come almost to the top. Dot with remaining butter all over the top. Bake for 1 hour until the liquid is bubbling but mostly absorbed. (The potatoes shouldn’t wiggle.) Remove from the oven, sprinkle Gruyère all over the top and broil for a final 5 minutes until the cheese is golden and bubbly. Let cool slightly before digging in.

2. Mole Poblano for the Win

Next April, I am co-hosting a Taste Travels trip to Mexico where I will be joined by a lucky crew of Dinner: A Love Story readers who will, among other things, partake in a local-chef led mole poblano cooking class. The entire itinerary is pretty fabulous, but this class is definitely what I’m looking forward to the most — like most people I love a dark, complex mole poblano, and I especially love the experience of preparing it, because it feels like such an adventure. “One Sauce, Twenty-Five Ingredients,” says the promotional material for my trip, and that means I am usually going on a little scavenger hunt to track down everything I need. Last week, the craving struck, and without a private cooking instructor to point me in the direction of an authentic mole, I reached for maybe the next best thing: Sandra Gutierrez’s Latinísimo. Those of you who have been around this newsletter for a little while have heard me talk about the glossy, 300-recipe cookbook devoted to the 21 cuisines of Latin America. Gutierrez covers distinct regional recipes — acknowledging the similarities and differences between countries — tracking the influences brought on by the role of colonialism, as well as immigrants who moved to the area throughout the centuries. It’s one of those books that has slowly made its way from the upper display area of my cookbook shelf to the accessible lower ones because I find myself reaching for it constantly. Last summer, after trying pupusas for the first time — the Salvadorian stuffed griddled masa cakes — I beelined directly for Gutierrez’s book to figure out how to replicate them at home. When I had a vision of turning esquites into a Capital-D Dinner Salad, Latinísimo was the book I pulled off the shelf for inspiration. And last week, it was the Mole Poblano para Todos los Dias (“Everyday Mole”) that reeled me in. I used the sauce as a bed underneath sliced rotisserie chicken, then topped the whole thing with sliced avocados and cotija and minced scallions…

…and Gutierrez was nice enough to share the recipe. You can download it here:

Dals Sandra Gutierrez Mole Poblano

126KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

* PS: There are still a few spots available for the Mexico tour. Grab a friend and join me! You can find out more details here.

3. This is the Thing to Optimize

I listened to an interview with The Amen Effect author Sharon Brous on the 10% Happier Podcast last week and it reminded me, yet again, that yes, our society is suffering from a crisis of loneliness that’s threatening our social fabric (“the instinct to pull away is as strong as its ever been”), but there are very real things we can do to combat this on an individual level. Brous shared a story about her friend who chose to engage the person sitting next to her at a pottery studio instead of retreating to whatever was playing on her AirPods — and was rewarded with an uplifting moment of real human connection that I can’t stop thinking about. Study after study has shown that the most crucial variable for longevity and for living a meaningful life is found in everyday connection and in the quality of our relationships, so in a world where we can track and optimize everything — from our step counts, to our sleep quality, to our diets and even the way we meditate — why are we not being more vigilant about our social health? This is the thing to optimize, says Harris and I didn’t even really wait for the podcast to end before firing a bunch of texts to friends to set up coffee dates and walks and, of course, some casual weeknight dinners. Here are a few menus from the archives for that in case you’d like to follow suit:

• A Low-Key Meal for Friends - Cook one large format dish, like my Chicken-Leek Pie, and buy the rest. (Swap in Mushroom Shepherd’s Pie to go veg.)

• Come Over for Meatballs - A 99% make-ahead menu.

• The Winter Classic - The menu I’ve been serving for decades.

Have a great week,

Jenny

P.S. Speaking of Operation Connect…

Jodi and I are reviving our Like Magic project and have a question: Do you have a special Thanksgiving ritual? Submit your ritual (or another story!) on Like Magic and spare no details! xo

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