Much to the surprise of many I meet, my formative years were spent in a suburb just outside of Dallas. I am often greeted with “But you don’t have an accent” and “Did you ride a horse to school?”. I will assure you that, while Texas is indeed a very foreign-feeling place to yuppie-fied hipster city folk like myself, it’s not as backwater as you’d think. Plano is actually a very flat, boring suburb with a bizarre 50-50 mix of shiny over-the-top malls and crumbling shopping centers.

 

As such, good food is kinda hard to find in Plano. Most restaurants are soulless chains, and those that are independent look like soulless chains. Lots of neon, insane decorating schemes, giant vinyl-covered menus, you get the idea. When I come to visit my folks, who a few years ago moved back to Plano after a stint in Washington state, I pretty much bank on never going out, unless it’s for Korean at one of the local Asian markets, or my own mother’s reliably effing-delicious Korean dishes.

 

 

And while my mom’s a fantastic Korean cook (I’ve not yet met a dish hailing from that tiny country that matched the quality of her variations), her take on classical and American food is decidedly less homespun. Growing up, there was a lot of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, Shake ‘N Bake, and more Tuna Helper than a picky seafood-resistant child (such as myself) could handle. Thanksgiving, in my home, always meant a parched turkey, gummy mashed potatoes, Stouffer’s stuffing, and that awful jellied purple stuff claiming to be “cranberry sauce”. No disrespect to my mother, who labored alone for days to provide us with a giant spread befitting the great American tradition. But I think it’s pretty typical in a lot households to regard Thanksgiving as that holiday where you make the same stuff every year, lots of it, and in the interest of stress-reduction and time, you head to prepared box mixes and button-popping turkeys and shrug your shoulders when the turkey turns out dry–after all, that’s how turkey just is, isn’t it?

 

 

Never one to succumb to such illogical culinary rules of the American culture, I endeavored to make the entire meal–from scratch–and prove that Thanksgiving isn’t a meal you feel obligated to say you enjoy, but one that you actually do. It was me now, alone in the kitchen, cooking for eight (no one but my mom really understood why I cared so much). It was hard. I got really sweaty. But my goals, though lofty–a somewhat-juicy turkey with a burnished-gold skin, creamy mashed potatoes, a cranberry sauce that required at least some jaw movement to digest, and a three-in-one dessert that screamed “Thanksgiving! Wooo!” but wasn’t cloying–were satisfyingly, deliciously, triumphantly attained.

 

If I do say so myself.

 

 

 

Pumpkin Cheesecake with Pecan-Praline Topping

Katherine Beto, Braeburn (Originally appeared in Food & Wine, November 2008)

 

CHEESECAKE

One 15-ounce can pumpkin puree (1 3/4 cups)
8 whole graham crackers, broken
1/2 cup pecans (2 ounces)
1 tablespoon light brown sugar
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, plus more for greasing the pan
1 1/2 cups cream cheese (14 ounces), at room temperature
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
5 large eggs, at room temperature
1 cup heavy cream, at room temperature
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
Pecan Praline Topping (below) and whipped cream, for serving

1. Set a rack over a baking sheet and line the rack with 2 layers of paper towels. Spread the pumpkin puree over the paper towels and let drain for 2 hours, until the puree is fairly dry.

2. Preheat the oven to 500°. Butter the bottom and side of a 9-inch springform pan. In a food processor, pulse the graham crackers until finely ground. Add the pecans and brown sugar and pulse until finely ground. Add the melted butter and pulse just until incorporated. Press the crumbs onto the bottom of the prepared pan. Bake the crust for about 8 minutes, just until it is fragrant and lightly browned. Let the crust cool completely. (Note: I found that in my oven the crust nearly burned at 7 minutes–I recommend checking at 4 to see how it’s coming along).

3. In the bowl of a standing electric mixer fitted with the paddle, beat the cream cheese until it is very smooth. In a small bowl, whisk the sugar with the salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and allspice. With the machine on, add the spiced sugar to the cream cheese and beat until creamy, scraping the bottom and side of the bowl. Carefully add the drained pumpkin puree and beat until smooth. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well and scraping down the bowl between each addition. Beat in the heavy cream, lemon juice and vanilla until the cheesecake mixture is smooth.

4. Pour the cheesecake mixture over the cooled crust and bake for 12 minutes. Lower the oven temperature to 225° and bake the cheesecake for about 3 hours, until an instant-read thermometer inserted in the center registers 150°; the center will be very jiggly but not liquidy. Let the cheesecake cool on a rack, then cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

5. Run a hot knife around the cheesecake and loosen the springform ring. Carefully remove the ring and transfer the cake to a plate. Using a warm knife, cut the cake into wedges and serve with the Pecan Praline Topping and whipped cream.

 

PECAN PRALINE TOPPING

1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups pecans (8 ounces)

1. Preheat the oven to 350°. In a large saucepan, combine the butter and brown sugar and cook over moderate heat, stirring, until smooth. Stir in the heavy cream and salt and bring to a boil. Simmer just until slightly thickened, about 3 minutes. Let the caramel cool.

2. Spread the pecans on a rimmed baking sheet and toast for about 8 minutes, until they are lightly browned and fragrant. Transfer the pecans to a work surface and let them cool. Coarsely chop the nuts, stir them into the cooled caramel and serve.