Family Dinner with JP

Just in time for Thanksgiving, I present a delightful side dish, seasonal and non-traditional. Straight from the pages of Bon Appetit (webpages, whatever), as suggested by Justin, these crusty carrots present a ton of kick and a real heartiness lacking in your mundane side salad or "really, brussel sprouts AGAIN?" Aside from the harissa paste, which can be easily located in your hummus aisle, nearly everything else in this recipe is likely already in your cabinet! The tricks to this recipe: do not be afraid to let the carrots get a dark crust, and learn to embrace the heat. What may at first glance appear to be burnt parts are in fact a deliberate charring of the smokey spices in this dish, creating the caramelized crust that gives the carrots their bite. And dive in to the harissa yogurt! While the harissa paste certainly kicks the spice level up on its own, the balance of the yogurt and citrus provides a wonderful taste experience, peaking and cooling down your mouth...

Look at that picture above. As a friend noted, perhaps the best selling point of this recipe is that this is a crusty fish recipe with no added breading. This recipe comes straight out of the Thomas Keller Ad Hoc cookbook, a wonderful coffee table style cookbook with beautiful photographs to accompany the aspirational recipes. Which is not to say the recipes are difficult to make, so much as difficult on the wallet. The first time I tried this recipe was years ago, when Josh made it for me for a fancy lunch. I readily admit that when I saw how much oil he used in the pan, I kind of scrunched my face at him. There must have been half an inch of cooking oil! Was he trying to deep fry this thing? Clearly mistakes had been made ... how much wine had we all been drinking? But no, Josh was correct, the instructions were correct, and, despite the wine (or perhaps because of it), the fish ended up amazing! By cooking the hearty halibut in a deeper amount of oil, a thick crusty bottom for...