Make Ahead

Start this at least one day before serving.

Cooking a pot of rice is much easier than tearing up and toasting bread for stuffing. Assembling the side dish a day ahead saves time, too.

The flavors of gravlax are used in a new and different way here. (For safety's sake, buy only the best-quality frozen fish, which may need to be ordered ahead.)

This rich, custard-like stuffing is also a great main-course option for vegetarians at the Thanksgiving table; it would be nice with a salad for brunch or lunch, too.

Dallas chef Kent Rathbun created this fabulous dessert for Epicurious's Wine.Dine.Donate program.

Roasting the turkey and vegetables before simmering them results in a dark stock that takes you more than halfway to a rich brown gravy. The recipe yields enough for the gravy and then some, but you'll be happy to have the extra when it comes time to make soup.

This simple sauce is delicious drizzled over the poppy-seed sweet bread or the rum raisin apple pie.

This simple yet sophisticated relish has depth and tang that store-bought cranberry sauce just can't match.

Adding the cranberries in three stages, along with crumbled nuts, results in a wonderful conserve with layers of texture and flavor. The turbinado sugar imparts subtle caramel undertones.

In this version of cassoulet, garlic-crumb topping is served on the side. Rather than acting as a thickener, the crumbs give our brothy version of the dish a crisp layer of texture.

This refreshing treat, from Mridula Baljekar, author of Indian Cooking Without Fat (Metro Books), is a cool finish to spicy dishes.

These tiny birds, stuffed with creamy goat cheese, make fun yet elegant turkey stand-ins. Since the quail are small and there's not much meat on each one, plan on serving guests two to three per person, and encourage them to chew the meat off the bones rather than trying to cut it off with a knife and fork.

Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are from Ted Allen's The Food You Want to Eat. For Allen's tips on throwing a Thanksgiving party, click here. The intent with this dish was an entrée — an entrée not just appropriate for vegetarians, but for vegans. But in the context of Thanksgiving, it serves either as a wonderful companion to turkey (or as that too-rare dish at the American dinner party: a hearty, bona-fide vegetarian option). You can assemble it ahead and refrigerate. (If you do, bake it at 350°F for 45 to 50 minutes instead of the below instructions.)

Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are from Ted Allen's The Food You Want to Eat. For Allen's tips on throwing a Thanksgiving party, click here. I can't have cocktail hour without great, fresh olives — and
I don't mean the rubbery, tasteless black ones from a can.
I mean the real deal: kalamatas, niçoises, gaetas, picholines— the more variety, the better. Most good supermarkets these days feature an olive bar—that is, a variety of loose olives available in bulk. And that is a very, very good thing. Some of these places include among the selection a batch of olives that have been seasoned with herbs and other flavors, too. But it's more fun to do it yourself; you can buy different kinds of olives (be sure to get different sizes and colors, which looks great in the bowl), select the flavors you like the best — say, thyme, cayenne, garlic, grapefruit zest, whatever — and you can control the spiciness. You'll have a great collection of olives for your next impromptu get together, or an excellent addition to an antipasto platter. And they're almost no work at all to make. When you serve, remember to put out a small dish so guests have some place to put the pits.

Inspired by one of the most popular desserts of the '70s, as immortalized by Wolfgang Puck when he was at Ma Maison.

White bread is perfect for bread pudding—as long as it's hand-formed and (preferably) unsliced, like the old-fashioned white here.