This Thanksgiving Side Is Perfect for Vegetarians and Control Freaks Alike
For a reason I’m still not totally sure of, I decided to host 20 of my closest friends at my apartment for Friendsgiving.
And cook everything myself.
Being the oldest child, being a stubborn taurus, and working at a food magazine all probably had something to do with it. Not only did I have four dishes to cook, but three vegetarians to please, a VERY tiny oven to manage, and no dishwasher to speak of. So when I saw Molly Baz’s new recipe for glazed shallots with chile and thyme, I knew I had to make these sweet and saucy, extremely hands-off, and totally make-ahead-able flavor bombs.
The awesome thing about this recipe is that the shallots get all glazy and wonderful by spending A LOT of time in the oven. Which meant while they were doing their thing, I could chop celery and crush almonds for Josh McFadden’s celery salad, and wash all of the inevitable dishes piling up in my sink. (Again, no dishwasher.)
To begin, I peeled enough shallots for a sprint to the bathroom for a quick cry sesh. (It wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without one, TBH.) Then, I added butter to a skillet* (*Dutch oven because I didn’t have a free skillet with everything else cluttered on the stove) and let the shallots bathe in butter until they browned a bit. I added a few sprigs of thyme, red wine vinegar, water, sugar, and pepper. My local grocery store didn’t have red chiles, so I frantically texted Molly Baz (the benefits of working at said food magazine above) about what to replace them with: fresh jalapeño or dried serrano (since that’s what I had in my house). “Fresh jal! Or use dried red pepper flake,” she quickly responded. TYSM Moll, TYSM. I ended up using 2 tbsp of red pepper flakes, which was way too much and made the dish REAL spicy. Word of advice: use more like...1 tablespoon! But again, the magic of being able to control this dish is also controlling the spice level.
Then you pop that warm shallot kiddie pool into the oven for about 45 minutes. After the liquid reduced to a sticky glaze and the shallots got all tender and soft, I took them out and transferred them to a glass baking dish. I did this because I needed my Dutch oven to cook in, and because I knew I could gently reheat the shallots in the oven in the baking dish, and then serve them right from there. I know, I’m literally a genius. I also may or may not have had a note on my phone that broke down my cooking times, as well as cooking vessels minute by minute. I looked like this:
Anyways, these were a breeze to make, didn’t dirty an insane amount of dishes, and accommodated my veg pals. I plan on making them on days that aren’t just Thanksgiving, and will probably assign them to a friend to make next year, when we do Friendsgiving potluck style instead.
Get the Recipe:
Glazed Shallots with Chile and Thyme
