I’m still relatively new to NYC. I moved here in January 2021 and though it hasn’t even been two years of being here, I feel like 5 years’ worth of life has passed. A few different jobs, career pivots, love interests, incredible memories, and a ton of new friends that I have been lucky enough to meet.
This city is a treasure trove of invaluable life lessons. Small ones like navigating the trains and re-learning how to not be dependent on your own car for the first time in your adult life. To more nuanced ones like how to slow down and cultivate meaningful friendships in a city where everyone seems to be moving at 100 miles an hour.
I often tell friends who don’t live here that NYC feels like a massive living organism. The city feels alive. The streets and subways are the arteries that pump people through and into different homes, scenes, subcultures, and spaces. You’re constantly rubbing shoulders with strangers on the train. Constantly meeting new people at bars and parties. Constantly seeing familiar faces at different events and scenes until one breaks the ice and introduces themselves, opening the door to a potential new friend.
The parties, the bars, and the events out here are plentiful. Running around from spot to spot is exhausting, yet as an extremely extroverted social person, I live for it. The possibility that you’ll meet someone who will one day change your life by just being in it is something I am always mindful of.
But for me, an acquaintance becomes a friend when a meal comes into the picture. When I invite someone over or vice versa for a meal to break bread is when I feel like we’re taking our friendship to the next stage. An invitation to someone’s home will always be sacred. A sign of vulnerability and open arms. A subtle signal that says “I welcome you into my home because I want you in my life”. I live for home meals with friends, new or old.
Here, the seasons are distinct. The weather controls the greater organism which is NYC. In the summer, everyone is outside. Parks are full of people, block parties pop off every weekend, bike rides through Brooklyn are blissful, and ferries to the beaches are packed; the city is alive and bustling. As it gets colder, everyone (who is usually exhausted from a busy summer) starts to slow down. Park hangs get a little too wet and cold. Beaches are shelved for next summer. And the house dinner parties start popping off. I love it. I love a house party, getting wine drunk at a friend’s house over dinner, and doing cozy cute shit. I’m here for it.
With all that said, Thanksgiving is already around the corner and it is honestly never too early to start thinking about holiday dinner parties. This year I got to partner with some friends over at Graza to make a few recipes and do a dinner party. They’ve partnered with several food and kitchen good brands to push for Friendsgiving to become a national holiday, so this was a fun one to do.
Quick disclaimer, I was paid to develop and execute the recipes, but this is not a paid ad. Use whatever olive oil you want. Personally, I do love Graza’s olive oil and definitely co-sign it so there’s that.
Got three recipes below.
5 Spice pork loin roast with a fish sauce caramel sauce (bc no one really fw turkey anyways).
Green beans with a shallot confit vinaigrette.
Mala butternut squash with burrata cheese and an herb salad.
Graza Friendsgiving Recipes
5 Spice Pork Loin Roast
For 8
Total time: 24-48 hours
Active time: 3 hours
Ingredients:
6-7 pounds bone-in pork loin, ask the butcher for it to be “frenched”.
5T Kosher salt
3T unsalted butter
4T Graza Sizzle
5 Spice blend
6 Whole star anise pods
1 Cinnamon stick
2T Fennel seeds
2T Szechuan peppercorns
1T Whole cloves
Fish sauce caramel sauce
1C sugar
1/2C Fish sauce
1/4C Graza Sizzle
½ Yellow onion, thinly sliced
6 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
3T unsalted butter
1 Bunch of chives
Drizzle Olive oil
Maldon salt
Instructions:
For the Pork loin roast
Take your pork loin and place onto a wire rack.
Salt every part of the pork loin generously.
Place into the refrigerator and let it dry-brine for up to two days.
When you’re ready to cook, set your oven to 250F
Take your 5-spice blend and generously cover the loin.
When your oven is ready, place into the oven and let it cook for 2 hours, or until the internal temperature hits 140F.
As the roast is cooking, take a small bowl and melt the butter in a microwave.
Mix in the Sizzle and any remaining 5-spice blend.
Use this to baste the roast every 30 minutes.
After 2 hours, take the roast out. Let it rest for 30 minutes. Make sure to cover it with tin foil.
Bump the oven temperature up to 500F as the roast rests.
Once the roast has rested, cover the bones with tin foil to keep them from scorching, then place the roast back into the oven for about 10-15 minutes.
You want to make sure the exterior of the roast gets a nice crispy brown color.
Once the roast is done, take it out of the oven and let it rest at room-temperature for 20 minutes.
For the 5-spice blend
Take all the spices and gently toast them on a pan over medium heat.
Once they are toasted, let them cool on a separate plate.
Once cooled, place all the spices into a strong blender or spice grinder and turn the spices into a powder.
Fish Sauce Caramel Sauce
Total time: 45 minutes - 1 hour
Makes roughly 2 cups of sauce.
Put the sugar into a heavy-bottomed pot.
Melt the sugar over medium heat. As the sugar melts make sure to move the pot around to make sure the sugar melts evenly.
Once the sugar melts, let it cook until the caramel takes on an amber-brown color.
Gently place the onions and garlic into the caramelized sugar.
Be careful with this step. The moment the onions and garlic hit the caramel, the hot sugar will immediately expand.
The onions will release their water content and will make the sauce much more watery.
Let this cook down for about 15 minutes over medium-high heat.
Once the onions have cooked down and the sauce has been reduced, add the fish sauce and Sizzle olive oil.
Stir well and let this reduce for another 15 minutes.
Once the sauce has reduced enough to coat the back of a spoon with a very loose caramel texture, pull it off the heat and have it ready for when dinner is served.
Right before serving, bring the sauce back up to a simmer and emulsify the butter into the sauce to smooth out the sauce.
Plate up:
Once the pork has rested, slice the pork using the bones as a serving reference. Cut in between the bones.
Place them onto a serving platter and lather the caramel sauce over the roast.
Finish by garnishing with thinly sliced chives, a light drizzle of Drizzle olive oil, and a generous pinch of Maldon salt.
Green beans with Confit Shallot Vinaigrette
For 8
Total time: 30 minutes for the beans. 2 hours for the shallot confit vinaigrette.
Ingredients:
2 Pounds of green beans
3 cloves of garlic
2 lemons
Salt and pepper to taste
1C of parsley, thinly sliced
For the shallot confit
1 Pound of shallots
2 Sprigs of thyme
2-3C of Sizzle olive oil
2T sherry vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste
Instruction:
For the shallot confit:
Brunoise or finely dice the shallots.
Put them into a small pot and pour in Sizzle until the shallots are barely covered.
Bring the pot up to a low simmer on low-medium heat. Once at a simmer, drop the temperature to low, add the thyme sprigs, and let it slowly cook for 2.5-3 hours.
Once the shallots are fully cooked through and tender, set it aside until you’re ready to cook the green beans.
When you’re ready to sauté the green beans, add the sherry vinegar, salt, and black pepper into the shallot confit.
For the green beans
Wash the beans and peel off any stems.
Bring a large pot of salted water to a rolling boil on high heat to blanch the green beans.
Have a large bowl of ice water on the side for an ice bath once the green beans are blanched.
Gently place a large handful of green beans into the boiling water for about 30-45 seconds. They should turn into a darker green color and test one before pulling them out. They should still be crisp but have a little bit of give. You don’t want to over cook them because they will be sautéd later.
Once they are blanched, move the green beans into an ice bath.
Wait for the blanching pot to come back to a boil before starting the next batch.
Work in batches to make sure that the beans cook evenly.
Once all the beans are blanched and cooled down, strain them and you can store them in the fridge.
When you’re ready to sauté the beans, get a large sauté pan and place onto high heat.
Add a tablespoon of Sizzle olive oil to the hot pan.
Place a large handful of the blanched green beans into the pan and sauté on high heat.
Add a generous pinch of salt as you sauté the green beans.
You want this to be a hard and quick cook on high heat. You want to gently sear and get a little browning onto the green beans. If your heat is not high enough, your beans will start to seep out water and you will lose the crunch.
Once your beans have been sautéed, add a couple teaspoons of lemon juice into the pan with the beans.
Once you mix the lemon juice in, place your sautéed green beans into a large bowl or place.
Plate up:
Once the beans are in a bowl or plate, generously spoon the shallot confit vinaigrette over the beans (try to scoop more of the shallots than the oil), lemon zest, and thinly sliced parsley on top of the green beans.
Repeat these steps until you’ve cooked through all your green beans.
Serve immediately.
Mala Butternut Squash with Burrata and an Herb Salad
Serves 8
Total time: 1 hour
Ingredients:
2 Butternut squash
2 Burrata balls
Sizzle Olive oil
Mala Spice Blend
4T Szechuan Peppercorns
4T Szechuan chili pepper flakes
2T whole cumin seeds
2T whole fennel seeds
2T whole coriander seed
2t kosher salt
2t sesame seeds
1t MSG (optional)
Herb salad
1C mint
1C cilantro
1C thai basil
3T Drizzle olive oil
1T lemon juice
1t kosher salt
Instructions:
For the mala spice blend:
Take all your spices and lightly toast them in a sauté pan.
Once they are toasted and fragrant, put them into a plate and let them cool.
Once cooled, place the spices into a strong blender or spice grinder and make into a powder.
For the Butternut squash:
Preheat your oven to 400F
As your oven is preheating, peel the butternut squash, remove the seeds, and lather them with Sizzle olive oil.
Once they are covered in Sizzle, sprinkle the mala spice blend until both sides of the squash are covered.
Sprinkle on another 2 tablespoons of salt as well.
Put your butternut squash on a baking sheet and roast them in the oven for 40 minutes.
At 40 minutes, check to see if the squash is fully cooked. A fork should easily slide into the butternut squash, but they should not be too tender either.
Once they are cooked, pull them out and let them rest.
You can do this before you cook your pork and let them sit at room temperature until you are ready to serve.
Throw them into the oven as your pork is finishing up at 500F to get them back up to a warm temperature.
When you are ready to serve, slice the butternut squash into ½ inch slices. Try to keep the shape of the squash intact for the final plate-up.
Get the herbs for the salad and roughly chop them. Put all the herbs in a small mixing bowl and mix with the Drizzle, salt, and lemon juice.
Plate up:
Place your butternut squash on a serving dish and place one-half of the burrata cheese into the pocket that once held the butternut squash seeds.
Scatter the herb salad on top of the squash, drizzle the plate with Drizzle olive oil and serve.
Thanks for taking the time to read the substack today! I’ll be posting videos of the actual dinner and plating of the dishes on my Instagram if you want to see more.
Shout out and thanks to Graza for bringing me onto a fun project, Material Kitchen for letting me play with a lot of fun tools for the dinner, and Shuang and Sarah for capturing the photos and videos for the dinner!
If you get to make any of these dishes let me know what you think and share this post with the homies.
All love,
Edmond
You are one of my favorite food writers, it feels like a fresh of breath air in a world that’s over saturated. Thanks for sharing!