Chefs Thomas + Ryan answer three burning questions to ensure your holiday table is dressed to impress.
What do you make for your vegetarian guests?
We might be biased, but pasta is an easy win for a hearty, veg-friendly dish that you can scale up for larger groups. From our recipe archives, check out our Campanelle w/ Mushrooms + Kale, but we also have our eye on Smitten Kitchen’s Skillet-baked Mac and Cheese, Hetty McKinnon’s one-pot Spinach, Feta and Dill pasta, and Colu Henry's trusty Pasta e Ceci for an option with a little extra protein. These are all easy-to-execute pastas, especially when you’re cranking out other dishes at the same time. And because vegetarians can’t live on noodles alone, we always recommend having snacks on hand to get the party started. We serve a housemade “Today’s Ricotta” at Flour + Water every night, but for a cheat version, throw high-quality ricotta into a food processor with a little olive oil and sea salt, and whip until smooth. To serve, drizzle it with honey, more olive oil, and flaky salt, along with crostini or your carb vehicle of choice.
What sauce pairs best with delicata squash?
We love playing on the natural sweetness of roasted delicata squash by pairing it with the toasty, caramelized notes of brown butter. While that combo alone is magic, at our Flour + Water Pizzeria, we’re currently (heh) gilding it with currant agrodolce, which is our play on the Italian sweet and sour sauce/condiment, along with fried pepitas, and shards of parmigiano. For a short cut version of that, after dousing your squash with brown butter (the more, the merrier), swap in pomegranate seeds + a drizzle of pom molasses for the agrodolce to emulate those same sweet + tart flavors. Finish it with toasted pepitas for texture, and the parm for a salty, savory foil to the sweeter components in the dish.
I hate baking. What’s a low-effort dessert that still looks and tastes impressive?
If you’re comfortable turning on your stove, a semifreddo (Italian for “half-cold” or “half-frozen”) is a low input, high impact dessert that looks fancy on the plate, but isn’t fussy. You can find some simple recipes online that require only a handful of ingredients (heavy cream, vanilla, eggs, sugar, kosher salt) outside of the toppings. For something even more hands-off, even in winter, we’re big ice cream heads over here (is our California showing?). At our Pizzeria, we offer our Double8 Buffalo milk soft-serve ice cream with topping options that include chocolate sauce, chocolate cookie crumbs, olive oil + salt, brown butter cereal crunch, and Amarena cherries. While we’re guessing Buffalo milk ice cream is probably not something you’ll find in your local grocery store’s frozen case, any great quality vanilla ice cream will do the trick (and if you’re near a Salt & Straw, they make an awesome Double Fold Vanilla). If you want to take the DIY out of the equation, you can’t go wrong with pairing torn Medjool dates with a premium olive oil (such as Brightland’s Alive) and a pinch of flaky salt. For another option, we’re also partial to Italian wild Amarena cherries in sweet syrup that bring a pop of color to the bowl.