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Kemp Minifie head shot - Bon Appétit

Kemp Minifie

Kemp Minifie is a top-level food editor, writer, and recipe developer for premier national food and travel magazines, special interest publications, websites, and blogs. Minifie spent 32 years working in all aspects of food at Gourmet, as well as two years working on the Special Editions of Gourmet and gourmet.com. Minifie is a graduate of Ecole de Cuisine La Varenne in Paris and over the years has studied with Madhur Jaffrey, Nina Simonds, Diana Kennedy, Giuliano Bugialli, and Susana Trilling, to name a few.

Recipes

Green Goddess Dressing

Green Goddess Dressing is a perfect example of the magic of anchovies—they amplify and deepen the herbal flavors in this sauce without ever announcing their presence. For more recipes and tips, see our Homemade Salad Dressing Primer.
Recipes

Simple Lemon Vinaigrette

Lemon dressings often incorporate other flavors, such as herbs, garlic, and anchovy, but sometimes a simple lemon vinaigrette is all you want.
Recipes

The Burger Lover's Burger

Grinding your own meat gives you total control over your burger. It frees you to select the cut of beef you want and lets you decide how finely or coarsely to grind. The chuck top blade has all the right characteristics for a do-it-yourself burger that's got everything going for it: It's beefy, juicy, and tender when cooked to medium (160°F). To further enhance the meat's juiciness and flavor, we recommend dry-brining the steaks overnight before you grind them. See the Cook's Note below for what to do if you don't have a meat grinder and for more about the chuck top blade as well as tips for cooking burgers, see our complete Burger Primer.
Recipes

Chocolate-Dipped Crème de Menthe Marshmallows

If these minty, chocolate-dipped marshmallows remind you of a certain popular candy, you're right—we had them in mind, because they're one of our favorites. But we're also very fond of this chewy, lighter-than-air incarnation.

For a more traditional take on marshmallows, see our recipe for Homemade Marshmallows . And see Make Your Own Marshmallows for additional recipes and tips.
Recipes

Pink Grapefruit Marshmallows

Fans of candied grapefruit peel will love the chewy bits of candied zest in these marshmallows.

For a more traditional take on marshmallows, see our recipe for Homemade Marshmallows . And see Make Your Own Marshmallows for additional recipes and tips.
Recipes

Lemon Marshmallows

If you love lemon candy that has some honest pucker to it, these are for you. There's nothing wimpy about them.

For a more traditional take on marshmallows, see our recipe for Homemade Marshmallows . And see Make Your Own Marshmallows for additional recipes and tips.
Recipes

Chocolate-Dipped Salted Caramel Marshmallows

The ongoing love affair with salted caramel is here to stay because it's so darn good. A quick dip in chocolate, along with a tiny sprinkle of sea salt, can only make these modern marshmallows that much more enticing.

For a more traditional take on marshmallows, see our recipe for Homemade Marshmallows . And see Make Your Own Marshmallows for additional recipes and tips.
Recipes

Korean Buffalo Wings

Buffalo-style chicken wings have long ruled the roost, but there's a spicy new upstart poised to challenge their spot at the top of the game-day menu: Korean wings.

With their balance of salty, sweet, and spicy, Korean wings are packed with delicious flavor, but they also come with a lengthy ingredient shopping list. By fusing the best elements and techniques from Korean and Buffalo-style wings, we've come up with a dynamite wing that's—dare we say it?—better than the sum of its parts.

In this version, the iconic Frank's RedHot Original sauce (which can still be slathered as liberally as you wish) is balanced by the sweet-and-sour tang of rice vinegar and soy sauce. Gone is the hefty dose of butter; instead, a very light coating of rice flour keeps the wings super-crispy, even a day later.
Recipes

Pink Peppermint Swirl Marshmallows

Nothing smacks of the holidays quite like one of these peppermint marshmallows melting in a cup of hot chocolate!
Recipes

Brussels Sprout Slaw

The miniature scale of Brussels sprouts makes them the perfect choice for a finely shredded lemony slaw to top the sliders . The freshness of the sprouts along with the little hit of acid in the dressing helps balance the rich flavor of the barbecue turkey.
Recipes

Shredded Kale Salad with Turkey Skin Cracklings

For all those who can't wait to nibble at the skin when the turkey comes out of the oven, these cracklings are for you. You won't believe how insanely delicious they are as the star of this salad. Don't be surprised if you start buying turkey thighs on a regular basis, just to make cracklings.
Recipes

Brown Turkey Stock

A spectacular gravy begins with pan drippings, but the true flavor base comes from a good stock. The real selling point of this stock is that you can make it way in advance of Thanksgiving. And any leftovers of the stock will enhance the soups and sauces that follow the big feast.
Recipes

Chipotle Barbecue Pulled Turkey Drumstick Sliders With Brussels Sprout Slaw

Turkey drumsticks do not take kindly to the dry heat of an oven, which causes the meat to tighten up around the bone and tendons. But treat those same drumsticks to a long, slow, moist braise in barbecue sauce, and the meat falls off the bones, revealing tough tendons so numerous, you won't believe it.
Recipes

Agave-Glazed Turkey Breast with Sherry Gravy

Agave nectar, a product of the agave plant better known as the source of tequila, blends beautifully with Old World Spanish sherry for a gentle sweet-and-sour glaze and luscious gravy. Because agave nectar has a low glycemic index, it's the new darling of the health-conscious crowd who are trying to lower their sugar intake. Although making the brown turkey stock for the gravy is an extra step, it can be done weeks ahead and frozen, and it's the secret behind a truly memorable gravy.
Recipes

Garlic-Chile Grilled Turkey Thighs

When stripped of their skin and bones, turkey thighs can look a bit, well, naked. But once they're slathered with a spice paste pungent with garlic, chili powder, and cumin, and then grilled, you'll think you're eating the most tender turkey steak ever, cooked well done, of course. And that, right there, is the beauty of turkey thighs: They can handle the heat, and even if the thermometer goes beyond the ideal of 170°F, the thigh meat will still be juicy and delicious.
Recipes

Lemony Green Beans and Peas

The play of shapes and shades of green in this vegetable combo takes the humdrum out of these supermarket standbys. Lemon zest adds just the right zip of citrus, but unlike a squeeze of fresh lemon juice, it won't turn the greens an unappealing khaki shade.

Editors' Note: Kemp Minifie reimagined the foil tray frozen dinner for Gourmet Live. Her updated menu includes: meatloaf made from grass-fed beef, scalloped potatoes, lemony green veggies, and your new favorite brownies for dessert.
Recipes

Best Friends Forever Brownies

After sampling hundreds of brownies in the Gourmet magazine test kitchens, along with baking countless more at home (my first was from the cult classic Betty Crocker's Cook Book for Boys and Girls), I feel qualified to declare my pride in this brownie. It's old-fashioned in its use of unsweetened chocolate, yet the addition of cocoa takes it to the deeper, darker chocolate place we crave these days.

Not everyone loves nuts in their brownie, but without them, brownies seem more like dense squares of chocolate cake. When you do the done test, the toothpick comes out clean—no dilemmas over the moistness of the crumbs clinging to the pick—yet when you cut the brownies into pieces, you'll slice through the requisite thin crust to reveal super-moist and fudgy goodness.

Editors' Note: Kemp Minifie reimagined the foil tray frozen dinner for Gourmet Live. Her updated menu includes: meatloaf made from grass-fed beef, scalloped potatoes, lemony green veggies, and your new favorite brownies for dessert.
Recipes

Golden Scalloped Potatoes

Think of this as a streamlined and guilt-free version of scalloped potatoes. It's a toss-and-dump dish, in which I toss sliced potatoes with a little melted butter, dump them in a dish, then cover them with milk—healthier than heavy cream—that I've thickened slightly with a bit of flour (the flour keeps the milk from separating). The cheese topping is optional; with or without it, in less than an hour you will be rewarded with lusciously creamy potatoes along with that all-important browned crust.

Editors' Note: Kemp Minifie reimagined the foil tray frozen dinner for Gourmet Live. Her updated menu includes: meatloaf made from grass-fed beef, scalloped potatoes, lemony green veggies, and your new favorite brownies for dessert.