Scroll through the reader notes for Melissa Clark’s wine-braised chicken with mushrooms and leeks and one thing becomes very clear — it’s a great dish to serve to friends and family. “This recipe is on my short list for dinner parties. I make it the day before so the flavors have a chance to deepen,” Mary Mancera writes. Chris, another reader, writes: “Love this recipe, but then again, hard to go wrong with chicken, leek, mushroom and white wine.” We feel compelled to say, however, that it’s also a perfect dinner to trot out when it’s just you, your slipper socks and the warm glow of your TV. Case in point: Annie calls this dish “roasted chicken with fancy cream of mushroom soup.”
Featured Recipe
Wine-Braised Chicken With Mushrooms and Leeks
If, for your crew, Christmas means red meat, Genevieve Ko has a brilliant new recipe for fuss-free seared bone-in rib-eye steaks. It’s sort of a reverse-reverse sear situation, Genevieve writes: “To nail the perfect rib-eye without smoking out your friends or ruining such a splurge, reverse-reverse sear by developing a crust first on the stovetop then letting the meat become tender in a low oven. This turns out a beautifully browned crust and evenly rosy center without a khaki ring of over-doneness — and gives you time to wash up and pour drinks for guests.” Serve with potatoes au gratin and a shingled pile of roasted carrots.
If you prefer your mains meatless, Melissa’s buttery lemon pasta with almonds and arugula is essentially a pantry pasta gussied up with handfuls of fresh greens, and sliced almonds and chile flakes swirled in brown butter. And this kaddu (sweet and sour butternut squash) from Priya and Ritu Krishna is peak Big Hot Vegetables. Stewed with ginger, onion, turmeric, tomatoes and brown sugar, the butternut squash takes on a sour, spicy complexity to complement its inherent sweetness.
Regardless of dinner’s dishes, you’ll need something sweet and seasonal to cap off the evening. These aptly named best sugar cookies from Susan Spungen are ready for your icings and frostings and sprinkles and sparkles. They’re also delicious just by themselves (try swapping out the vanilla for orange zest, lemon zest, finely chopped rosemary or almond extract). And, of course, mulled wine. If there’s an aroma that more immediately sings “the holidays are here,” we have yet to find it.
