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| Monica May of the Nickel Diner spices up Thanksgiving dinner with a side of wild mushroom sausage. Of course, she finishes off the meal with pumpkin pie. Photo by Gary Leonard. |
A Quintet of Downtown Chefs Offers Turkey and Other Thanksgiving Tips
by Kristin Friedrich
DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES - Some Downtown Los Angeles chefs are on the clock at their restaurants come Thanksgiving. Others close shop to cook for family and friends. Either way, they have strong ideas about the storied fall feast.
They're also willing to share their expertise, and you'll find some common threads - pinot noir, jujube stuffing, pumpkin pie and a palpable hatred of canned cranberries.
Here are menu tips and turkey pointers from a few of our kitchen favorites.
Brian Kiepler, Nick & Stef's: Kiepler jumped on board the Patina Restaurant Group train at the age of 19 and has been there ever since. He's 32 now, and has worked so many Thanksgivings that his Southern California family now comes to wherever he is - of late, that's steakhouse Nick & Stef's, which is open on Turkey Day with a Thanksgiving menu and the restaurant's regular fare as well.
The Birds and the Cows: "We start patting them down a few days before, extracting all the moisture we can from the skin. Then we'll roast them whole over a mirepoix [an onion, carrot and celery mix], basting it with its juices and using a butter rub on the skin before it hits the oven. I cover them in cheesecloth too, so the skin is completely crispy and juicy. Nick & Stef's steaks - we'll have those too. Those are 100% black angus, corn fed in Nebraska."
The Sides: "There's a choice of a cranberry quinoa stuffing or a sausage sage stuffing. We'll also have haricot vert, poached in chicken stock and butter, candied yams, cranberry sauce. For those, you want to take whole cranberries and a little bit of vanilla, a touch of brandy, water and sugar, and let them macerate in a pot until everything falls apart. Then you serve that whole mix - it's a nice, rustic, chunky dish."
The Booze: "Pinot noir is good, but so is a nice beer. There's a brewing company in Quebec called Unibroue that makes a Belgian style ale called Maudite. It's bottle fermented, high alcohol content and amazing."
The Dessert: "We're offering a pumpkin pie as well as our regular desserts, pumpkin Guinness bread pudding, a chocolate torte, various ice creams, fresh baked cookies and madelines."
Nick & Stef's is at 330 S. Hope St., (213) 680-0330 or patinagroup.com.
Monica May, the Nickel Diner: May conjured small plates and a scrappy catering business out of her tiny Banquette kitchen until this year, when she spread her wings at the Nickel. The retro diner, located a block south of Banquette, was immediately packed and is set to open for dinner soon. It's closed for Thanksgiving, but May's there the rest of the year - smoky voice, smoky eyeliner and total composure in the open kitchen.
The Bird: "I like Heritage Organic Farms turkeys. Sharlene [Fong, the Nickel pastry chef] wants to deep fry, but I'm a traditional girl. I like to brine in a solution of salt, brown sugar, red onion and bay leaves and let it soak overnight. Sometimes, I'll bone out the bird, except for the legs and thighs, and stuff the breast. I'll use a butter rub with fresh sage and thyme, a little bit of garlic, salt and black pepper."
The Sides: "I make a lovely wild mushroom sausage, with Italian pork sausage. I like Brussels sprouts with pancetta and shallots, finished off with a little bit of malt wine vinegar and sour cream. I'd roast off root vegetables too - carrots, butternut squash, rutabagas, turnips even - and cauliflower fired in the oven. I'd also do a mashed butternut squash, or bake little individual kobash squashes with sage, maple syrup and butter."
The Booze: "With turkey, I'd say a Spanish albarino or a really rocking pinot noir."
The Dessert: "A pumpkin pie, of course. I love to make tartan, caramelized apple tarts with apples from the farmers market. They're grown in the high desert, really sweet and crisp."
Parting Words: "This is the fastest Thanksgiving I've ever cooked by phone."
The Nickel is at 524 S. Main St., (213) 623-8301 or 5cdiner.com.
Twain Schreiber, Checkers Restaurant: Born in England, raised in South Africa and steadily employed at kitchens all over this country, Schreiber last cooked at Liberty Grill and now heads up the kitchen at Checkers Restaurant. He embraces some traditional Thanksgiving dishes and happily rejects others - all of which will be out in the open come Nov. 27, when Checkers serves a limited holiday-themed menu.
The Bird: "In my opinion, the turkey is such a big bird, no matter what you do, you're going to have to get in there. I brine it for a day with fresh squeezed oranges and lemons, honey and boiling water. Then inside I put oranges, lemons, limes, salt and pepper. You cook them slow, because there's that fat layer between the skin and meat, and if you cook them that way, you get that happy, crispy skin. It's like a big chicken."
The Sides: "Stuffing a turkey doesn't do it for me, so I make it on the stove. I'll do two different stuffings: a vegetable one, with stock from all the birds, and sourdough crumbs that we've been drying out from the restaurant; and in the other one, I put chorizo sausage. No nuts or anything like that, too many people are allergic."
The Lack of Booze: "I don't drink alcohol, and I never had a drinking problem either."
The Dessert: "I like pecan and apple pie. Pumpkin's a vegetable; it doesn't belong in a pie. But that's me not being American again."
Checkers is at 535 S. Grand Ave., (213) 624-0000 or hiltoncheckers.com.
Fred Eric, Tiara Cafe: Eric is the jester genius behind Vida, Fred 62 and, currently, the Fashion District's Tiara Cafe. This year, he's cooking for the family, and everybody's coming Downtown to Tiara. A previous Chinese-themed Peking turkey and tofu feast didn't go over so well with Grandpa Lou. "You don't want to throw him any loopdiloops," Eric says of the 94-year-old patriarch.
The Bird: "We'll roast the turkey. I brine it first with butter, vinegar, sugar and herbs like coriander and thyme. Then you wrap it in commercial grade plastic from Smart and Final. You roast it with the breast down, legs up, lying on top of an empty coffee can. You cut the plastic off at the end, cook it at a blazing heat for 15 minutes."
The Sides: "Get jujubes at farmers markets or Korean markets. They look like chestnuts. You chop those up and put them into a stuffing with breadcrumbs and innards, or no innards. But that's really good. Popovers are essential - a cup of flour, an egg, a cup of milk. Some people say animal drippings, but that's nasty. Make everything that you can in advance - prep, prep, prep. You want to just be heating things at the end. And don't do anything fancy; it doesn't make for a good Thanksgiving mentality."
The Booze: "The holiday's got to start and end with alcohol. Nothing takes the edge off like wine or sprits. I'm going to drink Argentinean malbec, and I'd like a pinot blanc and some blanc de blanc, some nice champagne. Alcohol's an excellent friend maker."
Grandpa Lou's Contribution: "He brings nothing but pessimism. No, he brings the hope that I don't make another weird turkey."
The Dessert: "Everyone loves their pumpkin pie. If you just make a cookie dough that incorporates graham crackers, serve it separate, like pots de cr¸me with pumpkin puree. It's all the good stuff about a pie, but not a pie."
Tiara Cafe is at 127 E. Ninth St., (213) 623-3663 or tiara-cafe.com.
Greg Bernhardt, Church & State: Like the recently opened Nickel, the Toy District's new Church & State was immediately packed. Located in a high-ceilinged, strong soundtracked corner pocket of the Biscuit Company Lofts, chef Greg Bernhardt - who has worked at Grace, Vida and Le Dome - has built a brawny brasserie menu with the likes of charcuterie platters, steak frites and duck confit. He says of those choices, and of any Thanksgiving menu, "I'm a man of the classics."
The Secret to Getting a Chef off the Couch: "I make it very clear to my friends and family, I don't want to be cooking. But what ends up happening is, I'm watching somebody's horrible knife skills and I'll jump in. I don't want to watch my mom cut her finger off."
The Bird: "I like deep frying a turkey. First and foremost, you're locking in all the flavors. But you're also turning what could be a four- to six-hour process into 45 minutes. There's certainly a finesse to maintaining the temperature of super hot fat - it can be obscenely dangerous. But with a large enough pot and some space, you're fine. I inject it with marinades - Paul Prudhomme has awesome marinades - and brine it overnight. Then I use a really neutral oil like canola or corn. Peanut is great, but it's twice as expensive."
The Sides: "Fresh cranberries. I implore all Americans to get away from canned cranberries, a ridiculous and foul leftover from the Depression era. To the cranberries, I'll add a sherry vinegar and water, equal parts, sugar to taste, then add fresh lemon zest, thyme and fresh peppercorn. It takes five minutes prep and an hour on the stove, and everything else pales in comparison.
My other favorite is the jujubes from Korean markets. Chop them up, husk them off their seed, add bread crumbs and finish it with a dark chicken or turkey stock. I would take the neck off the turkey and use that stock to roast off vegetables, make the stock for the dressing and finish my gravy."
The Dessert: "Pumpkin always, and for that, I would use a can. That's one of the few things a can works for. I'd take all those pies - apple, pumpkin, pecan, and all with Ciao Bella vanilla gelato, the greatest creation of all time."
Church & State is at 1855 Industrial St., (213) 405-1434.
page 10, 11/17/2008
© Los Angeles Downtown News. Reprinting items retrieved from the archives are for personal use only. They may not be reproduced or retransmitted without permission of the Los Angeles Downtown News. If you would like to re-distribute anything from the Los Angeles Downtown News Archives, please call our permissions department at (213) 481-1448.
They're also willing to share their expertise, and you'll find some common threads - pinot noir, jujube stuffing, pumpkin pie and a palpable hatred of canned cranberries.
Here are menu tips and turkey pointers from a few of our kitchen favorites.
Brian Kiepler, Nick & Stef's: Kiepler jumped on board the Patina Restaurant Group train at the age of 19 and has been there ever since. He's 32 now, and has worked so many Thanksgivings that his Southern California family now comes to wherever he is - of late, that's steakhouse Nick & Stef's, which is open on Turkey Day with a Thanksgiving menu and the restaurant's regular fare as well.
The Birds and the Cows: "We start patting them down a few days before, extracting all the moisture we can from the skin. Then we'll roast them whole over a mirepoix [an onion, carrot and celery mix], basting it with its juices and using a butter rub on the skin before it hits the oven. I cover them in cheesecloth too, so the skin is completely crispy and juicy. Nick & Stef's steaks - we'll have those too. Those are 100% black angus, corn fed in Nebraska."
The Sides: "There's a choice of a cranberry quinoa stuffing or a sausage sage stuffing. We'll also have haricot vert, poached in chicken stock and butter, candied yams, cranberry sauce. For those, you want to take whole cranberries and a little bit of vanilla, a touch of brandy, water and sugar, and let them macerate in a pot until everything falls apart. Then you serve that whole mix - it's a nice, rustic, chunky dish."
The Booze: "Pinot noir is good, but so is a nice beer. There's a brewing company in Quebec called Unibroue that makes a Belgian style ale called Maudite. It's bottle fermented, high alcohol content and amazing."
The Dessert: "We're offering a pumpkin pie as well as our regular desserts, pumpkin Guinness bread pudding, a chocolate torte, various ice creams, fresh baked cookies and madelines."
Nick & Stef's is at 330 S. Hope St., (213) 680-0330 or patinagroup.com.
Monica May, the Nickel Diner: May conjured small plates and a scrappy catering business out of her tiny Banquette kitchen until this year, when she spread her wings at the Nickel. The retro diner, located a block south of Banquette, was immediately packed and is set to open for dinner soon. It's closed for Thanksgiving, but May's there the rest of the year - smoky voice, smoky eyeliner and total composure in the open kitchen.
The Bird: "I like Heritage Organic Farms turkeys. Sharlene [Fong, the Nickel pastry chef] wants to deep fry, but I'm a traditional girl. I like to brine in a solution of salt, brown sugar, red onion and bay leaves and let it soak overnight. Sometimes, I'll bone out the bird, except for the legs and thighs, and stuff the breast. I'll use a butter rub with fresh sage and thyme, a little bit of garlic, salt and black pepper."
The Sides: "I make a lovely wild mushroom sausage, with Italian pork sausage. I like Brussels sprouts with pancetta and shallots, finished off with a little bit of malt wine vinegar and sour cream. I'd roast off root vegetables too - carrots, butternut squash, rutabagas, turnips even - and cauliflower fired in the oven. I'd also do a mashed butternut squash, or bake little individual kobash squashes with sage, maple syrup and butter."
The Booze: "With turkey, I'd say a Spanish albarino or a really rocking pinot noir."
The Dessert: "A pumpkin pie, of course. I love to make tartan, caramelized apple tarts with apples from the farmers market. They're grown in the high desert, really sweet and crisp."
Parting Words: "This is the fastest Thanksgiving I've ever cooked by phone."
The Nickel is at 524 S. Main St., (213) 623-8301 or 5cdiner.com.
Twain Schreiber, Checkers Restaurant: Born in England, raised in South Africa and steadily employed at kitchens all over this country, Schreiber last cooked at Liberty Grill and now heads up the kitchen at Checkers Restaurant. He embraces some traditional Thanksgiving dishes and happily rejects others - all of which will be out in the open come Nov. 27, when Checkers serves a limited holiday-themed menu.
The Bird: "In my opinion, the turkey is such a big bird, no matter what you do, you're going to have to get in there. I brine it for a day with fresh squeezed oranges and lemons, honey and boiling water. Then inside I put oranges, lemons, limes, salt and pepper. You cook them slow, because there's that fat layer between the skin and meat, and if you cook them that way, you get that happy, crispy skin. It's like a big chicken."
The Sides: "Stuffing a turkey doesn't do it for me, so I make it on the stove. I'll do two different stuffings: a vegetable one, with stock from all the birds, and sourdough crumbs that we've been drying out from the restaurant; and in the other one, I put chorizo sausage. No nuts or anything like that, too many people are allergic."
The Lack of Booze: "I don't drink alcohol, and I never had a drinking problem either."
The Dessert: "I like pecan and apple pie. Pumpkin's a vegetable; it doesn't belong in a pie. But that's me not being American again."
Checkers is at 535 S. Grand Ave., (213) 624-0000 or hiltoncheckers.com.
Fred Eric, Tiara Cafe: Eric is the jester genius behind Vida, Fred 62 and, currently, the Fashion District's Tiara Cafe. This year, he's cooking for the family, and everybody's coming Downtown to Tiara. A previous Chinese-themed Peking turkey and tofu feast didn't go over so well with Grandpa Lou. "You don't want to throw him any loopdiloops," Eric says of the 94-year-old patriarch.
The Bird: "We'll roast the turkey. I brine it first with butter, vinegar, sugar and herbs like coriander and thyme. Then you wrap it in commercial grade plastic from Smart and Final. You roast it with the breast down, legs up, lying on top of an empty coffee can. You cut the plastic off at the end, cook it at a blazing heat for 15 minutes."
The Sides: "Get jujubes at farmers markets or Korean markets. They look like chestnuts. You chop those up and put them into a stuffing with breadcrumbs and innards, or no innards. But that's really good. Popovers are essential - a cup of flour, an egg, a cup of milk. Some people say animal drippings, but that's nasty. Make everything that you can in advance - prep, prep, prep. You want to just be heating things at the end. And don't do anything fancy; it doesn't make for a good Thanksgiving mentality."
The Booze: "The holiday's got to start and end with alcohol. Nothing takes the edge off like wine or sprits. I'm going to drink Argentinean malbec, and I'd like a pinot blanc and some blanc de blanc, some nice champagne. Alcohol's an excellent friend maker."
Grandpa Lou's Contribution: "He brings nothing but pessimism. No, he brings the hope that I don't make another weird turkey."
The Dessert: "Everyone loves their pumpkin pie. If you just make a cookie dough that incorporates graham crackers, serve it separate, like pots de cr¸me with pumpkin puree. It's all the good stuff about a pie, but not a pie."
Tiara Cafe is at 127 E. Ninth St., (213) 623-3663 or tiara-cafe.com.
Greg Bernhardt, Church & State: Like the recently opened Nickel, the Toy District's new Church & State was immediately packed. Located in a high-ceilinged, strong soundtracked corner pocket of the Biscuit Company Lofts, chef Greg Bernhardt - who has worked at Grace, Vida and Le Dome - has built a brawny brasserie menu with the likes of charcuterie platters, steak frites and duck confit. He says of those choices, and of any Thanksgiving menu, "I'm a man of the classics."
The Secret to Getting a Chef off the Couch: "I make it very clear to my friends and family, I don't want to be cooking. But what ends up happening is, I'm watching somebody's horrible knife skills and I'll jump in. I don't want to watch my mom cut her finger off."
The Bird: "I like deep frying a turkey. First and foremost, you're locking in all the flavors. But you're also turning what could be a four- to six-hour process into 45 minutes. There's certainly a finesse to maintaining the temperature of super hot fat - it can be obscenely dangerous. But with a large enough pot and some space, you're fine. I inject it with marinades - Paul Prudhomme has awesome marinades - and brine it overnight. Then I use a really neutral oil like canola or corn. Peanut is great, but it's twice as expensive."
The Sides: "Fresh cranberries. I implore all Americans to get away from canned cranberries, a ridiculous and foul leftover from the Depression era. To the cranberries, I'll add a sherry vinegar and water, equal parts, sugar to taste, then add fresh lemon zest, thyme and fresh peppercorn. It takes five minutes prep and an hour on the stove, and everything else pales in comparison.
My other favorite is the jujubes from Korean markets. Chop them up, husk them off their seed, add bread crumbs and finish it with a dark chicken or turkey stock. I would take the neck off the turkey and use that stock to roast off vegetables, make the stock for the dressing and finish my gravy."
The Dessert: "Pumpkin always, and for that, I would use a can. That's one of the few things a can works for. I'd take all those pies - apple, pumpkin, pecan, and all with Ciao Bella vanilla gelato, the greatest creation of all time."
Church & State is at 1855 Industrial St., (213) 405-1434.
page 10, 11/17/2008
© Los Angeles Downtown News. Reprinting items retrieved from the archives are for personal use only. They may not be reproduced or retransmitted without permission of the Los Angeles Downtown News. If you would like to re-distribute anything from the Los Angeles Downtown News Archives, please call our permissions department at (213) 481-1448.
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