It can be tough to get creative with food during the fall. Some of your favorite ingredients aren’t in their peak production season and summer favorites like barbecue cookouts or cooler, refreshing meals just don’t taste the same.

But if you’re looking to expand your culinary horizons while incorporating fall flavors, I’ve got you covered. Here is my guide to a day’s worth of fall meals you’ll never get tired of.

Smoked salmon benedict on a buttermilk biscuit

One of my favorite breakfast meals is a simple, savory bagel with smoked salmon and cream cheese. So with this dish, I decided to recreate that by finding a way to mimic the texture of the cream cheese on the bagel while still highlighting the smoky flavor of the salmon.

And in order to mimic the same flavors with a fall twist, I decided to feature some earthy sides. And what better way than to feature it on an eggs benedict — with a little twist.

I chose to use a buttermilk biscuit because it adds a small hint of sweetness that the standard English muffin can’t achieve. I made my biscuits from scratch using a recipe from one of my favorite hometown restaurants, but most store bought doughs should suffice.

I decided to pair the benedicts with my own home fry recipe, made from pee wee marble potatoes, which also adds a nice bit of color to the plate. For one serving, you’ll want to use three or four of these potatoes and slice them about an eighth of an inch thick using a mandoline slicer.

From there, place the sliced potatoes in a mixing bowl and coat with half a teaspoon each of salt and black pepper as well as two cloves of chopped garlic and a few pieces of rosemary without the stems. Once tossed, place in a pan over medium-high heat and cook until golden brown and crispy on the outside, stirring occasionally.

The next addition to this dish is a sauteed vegetable salad consisting of red bell peppers, maitake mushrooms and spinach. Not much seasoning other than salt and pepper needs to be added since the umami notes of the mushrooms really make this come together.

For this you’ll need half a diced red pepper with the seeds removed, a roughly chopped cup of maitake mushrooms and about one and a half cups of baby spinach. Add the peppers and mushrooms to a pan over medium-high heat, cook until lightly browned and then reduce the heat to medium. After about six more minutes, add the spinach and let it wilt down all until the water has been cooked out of it.

Instead of a traditional hollandaise, I opted for an avocado crema to drizzle over the eggs. For this, it’s best to use a blender to incorporate all your ingredients. First split two avocados in half. Peel and pit them before adding them to the blender. Then add one and a half tablespoons of creme fraiche, the juice of half a lime, a clove of garlic, half a bunch of cilantro leaves and a teaspoon of both salt and black pepper. If it comes out too thick for your liking, go ahead and add some milk or any creamer you may have until it reaches your desired consistency.

Chicken club sandwich

The blending of contrasting flavors is one of my favorite things about food, and physically being able to layer them on top of each other brings all of that together in one bite. That’s what is happening with a classic chicken club sandwich. Its two halves are two sandwich quarters stacked on top of one another, not only maximizing the size of your bite, but the amount of flavor that you can get out of each serving.

A chicken club is not only the perfect fall gathering treat, but it’s also a rewarding guilty pleasure you can enjoy. It all starts with your bread of choice. White bread is the standard option, but I like to elevate it with toasted slices of Texas toast, which is essentially baked white bread coated with butter and herbs. I brush my sliced bread with unsalted butter and then add minced garlic and parsley and a little bit of salt and pepper. Leave in the oven at 375 degrees for about 12 minutes or until golden brown and crispy.

Set two slices of bacon per serving on a parchment lined baking sheet and bake for 12 minutes at 375 degrees or until crispy. Make sure to flip the tray halfway through to ensure even cooking.

For the chicken, you have two options. You can roast your chicken breast at 350 degrees for 25 minutes for a juicier flavor, or you can grill it (if you have one) for a bit more smokiness. Either way, slice the chicken into one-inch wide strips when cooked and rested.

The last thing to prepare is the honey mustard. I know it’s not the most traditional, but honey mustard and chicken is one of my favorite flavor combinations, and it’s easy to prepare. Just whisk together half a cup each of dijon mustard, honey and mayonnaise until fully combined.

To assemble the sandwich, spread the honey mustard on each slice of toast and place a small slice of iceberg lettuce and heirloom tomato on top. Then add your slices of bacon, the chicken strips and another set of lettuce and tomato before adding the final slice of toast. To stack it, slice the full sandwich diagonally in half, then diagonally into quarters, and using toothpicks, place one quarter on top of the other to create the two “halves” of your sandwich.

Megan Thompson | Digital Design Director

Prosciutto-walnut braised cod

This one takes time, as does any good broth, but you’ll thank yourself once it’s done. The smokiness of the prosciutto and the nuttiness of the toasted walnuts add a necessary complement to a more flaky, white fish like cod.

Before starting the broth, set your oven to 400 degrees and place two cups of roughly chopped walnuts on a parchment lined baking sheet. Let it toast for about eight minutes or until the walnuts have browned significantly. Don’t let them burn!

While the nuts are toasting, start cooking off your prosciutto. In a large pot set over medium-high heat, drizzle enough canola oil to coat the bottom of it and once hot, add one pack (around six pieces) of prosciutto. Let that cook until browned and remove from the pot, setting it aside on paper towels. By this point the walnuts should be toasted.

Immediately add some roughly chopped onions, carrots, celery bunch — one of each — and three cloves of garlic. Let that cook for about five minutes before setting aside. While the pot is still hot, deglaze the pan with half a cup of white wine or some seafood broth and add the cooked prosciutto, vegetables and walnuts. Then add one bunch of parsley, a bay leaf, one rosemary sprig, four sage leaves, a quarter cup of black peppercorns, two tablespoons of kosher salt and the zest of a lemon. Let that simmer over medium-high heat for about 90 seconds before adding four cups of water and increase the heat to high.

Once the broth begins to boil, reduce the heat to medium and let the broth simmer, stirring occasionally for the next hour to 90 minutes. The longer you let it cook the more the water reduces and the more flavor you’ll achieve.

In the meantime, quarter your pee wee potatoes. Roughly chop your maitake mushrooms after removing their stems and slice four to six strands of asparagus — depending on girth — in diagonal pieces. You’ll add that to the broth once it is complete and strained.

Once the liquid has acquired a significant amount of color and its taste resembles the flavor of every ingredient in the pot, go ahead and strain it into a different — ideally smaller — pot, reserving about about three quarters of a cup of the broth to serve per serving. Now you can add the vegetables and the fish together and let it cook over medium heat — the broth should be at a light simmer. Cook until the fish is flaky. At that point, the vegetables should be cooked through as well.

Remove the fish first and set aside to rest. Strain out the rest of the vegetables and move to a separate plate. To plate, add your vegetables to the bowl first and then place the fish on top. Pour the reserved broth around everything in the bowl. Top it off with a few thinly sliced chives and minced capers, and the soup that acts as a subtle sauce is ready to serve.

Published on September 15, 2022 at 12:06 am

Contact Alex: ahcirino@syr.edu