Shelley Wiseman
Contributor
Shelley Wiseman has been teaching people to cook since 1990 when she first opened La Place, a French-style cooking school in Mexico City. Her career began in New York City, cooking at illustrious restaurants Le Plaisir and Le Cherche Midi. Having fallen in love with French cookery, Wiseman then moved to France to hone her craft.
After years of cooking and teaching, Wiseman joined Gourmet as a food and travel editor, where she spent 12 years developing recipes for home cooks. In 2014, Wiseman joined fellow Gourmet alum Ian Knauer as co-owner of The Farm Cooking School. She now owns and operates Shelley’s Table, hosting cooking classes and curating culinary adventures for food-focused travelers.
Wiseman is the author or co-author of several cookbooks, including Just Tacos, The Mexican Gourmet, and The Farm Cooking School, Recipes and Techniques to Celebrate the Seasons. When she’s not cooking, she spends her time painting watercolors, hosting dinners with friends, and traveling as often as possible.
Chorizo Corn Bread Stuffing
This corn bread stuffing is a stroke of genius. It's so easy, you'll be making it far more often than once a year for Thanksgiving! Shelley Wiseman, author of Just Tacos, knows a thing or two about corn—and not just in tortillas—and she decided to skip the process of drying the cubes of corn bread in the oven. That alone is a huge time-saver. To enliven the corn bread, she balances the flavor punch of chorizo with the sweetness of onions and corn kernels. When it comes time to bake it in a dish (not inside the turkey), she forgoes the old process of covering the stuffing—which allows steam to soften the dried bread—because the bread isn't dry. She simply bakes it uncovered, so that the top gets golden with crispy brown edges, while the interior stays moist.
Pear and Cranberry Cobbler with Citrus-Infused Custard Sauce
A cobbler is the easiest way to get to something similar to a pie—meltingly tender and juicy fruit with a crusty topping—without having to make, roll out, and crimp pie dough. Biscuit dough, in general, is easy and fast to assemble, but the cream dough below is a real cinch because you don't even have to blend butter into the flour mixture; you just pour in heavy cream and stir, then pat it out with your hands. A round cutter is your default shape but feel free to rummage through your cookie cutter collection for something fun, such as a leaf or diamond.
Tacos with Pork in Green Sauce (Tacos de cerdo en salsa verde)
The acidity of the tomatillos beautifully balances the fat of the pork shoulder, so when serving the tacos there is no need for lime wedges. The onion and additional cilantro provide crunch and fragrance.
Fried Avocado Tacos (Tacos de aguacate rebosado)
Frying avocadoes may seem as strange to you as they did to me until I tasted them at Puntarena in Mexico City. They are a delight, so give them a try!
Asparagus Goat Cheese Bruschetta with Porcini Vinaigrette
Dried porcini give this vinaigrette a huge boost of flavor and marry beautifully with the asparagus and goat cheese for a spring-like first course. Serve this dish with sharp knives (like steak knives) so the toast and asparagus cut easily. For more seasonal recipes, download the free Gourmet Live app and stay tuned to the Gourmet Live blog for the latest updates.
Peruvian Grilled Chicken
This iconic regional dish incorporates soy sauce, evidence of the strong influence of the Japanese and Chinese communities in Peru. The intensely flavored marinade, bright with lime juice and zesty with garlic, deeply seasons the meat, and the grill gives it a beautiful sear. We've provided a range for the portion size, because while some home cooks may be content with a quarter chicken per person, many Peruvian restaurants and takeout places serve each customer a half chicken (even here in the States, where chickens tend to be on the large side).
Warm Frisée-Lardon Salade with Poached Eggs in Red-Wine Sauce
(Salade Tiede aux Oeufs en Meurette)
Two grand bistro classics meet here: the frisée aux lardons salad with a poached egg, and oeufs en meurette (poached eggs in a red-wine sauce). Frisée, with its slightly bitter flavor and sturdy but delicate texture, stands up beautifully to the rich, concentrated sauce and the warm poached egg.
Chocolate Hazelnut Cookies
Let's just say that finding yourself alone in a room with a plate of these cookies and a tall glass of milk would be very, very dangerous. The trifecta of chocolate, hazelnuts, and rum is irresistible. Decorating the cutouts with royal icing adds a festive touch.
Dulce de Leche Half-Moons
Known as pepitorias, these tasty caramel-filled wafer "tacos" embellished with toasted pumpkin seeds are a regular offering at Mexican markets and sweets shops, especially in the city of Puebla, which is famous for so many confections. The wafers are traditionally brightly colored, but we chose to stick with a more seasonal white-and-gold motif. Since tinted edible wafer paper is hard to come by in the United States, we used precut white Back-Oblaten, imported from Germany, and we explain how to color them. Painting them with food coloring or water softens them enough to fold around the caramel.
Glittering Lemon Sandwich Cookies
Our love of lemon grows exponentially at the sight of these delightful melt-in-your-mouth sandwich cookies. It perfumes the tiny treats, which are put together with an easy icing that zings with zest and fresh lemon juice. Rolling them in brightly colored sanding sugar makes them sparkle like vintage Christmas ornaments.
Coconut Oatmeal Lace Cookies
An upscale hybrid of antipodean ANZAC biscuits and chocolate digestives from Britain, these crisp cookies are positively elegant. They were an unexpected favorite in our test kitchen, with cooks and editors descending in droves when the cookies warm, nutty aroma filled the air.
Mini Churros
These Mexican treats taste best when they are freshly fried (though we have given you some prep-ahead options), so make them when friends and family are gathered around for the holidays. Once the churros are made, everyone can get in on the action, dipping them in a choice of sugars and/or an easy warm chocolate sauce.
Orange Pistachio Crescents
Inspired by the Persian fried-turnover cookies called ghotab, food editor Shelley Wiseman used a simple dough to enfold fragrant candied orange peel and pistachios. Her method for candying the peel is very straightforward, and the results—tender and fresh-tasting—are so much better than the store-bought stuff. The flaky baked pastry, generously coated with confectioners sugar, pairs nicely with the chewy-crunchy filling within.
Almond Brown-Sugar Cookies
With their simple, homespun charm, these icebox cookies are just the nibble you'll want to have on hand as you do your Christmas gift wrapping. The thinner you can slice the dough, the crisper the cookies will be, so we freeze the dough for a bit (after chilling it in the fridge) before slicing. Plus, it will be much easier to cut through the almonds and get nice, neat rounds.
Ham Persillade with Mustard Potato Salad and Mashed Peas
Transform your picnic into un pique-nique to remember with this elegant arrangement of tangy potato salad, peas gently mashed with marjoram, and salty ham softly set in parsleyed gelatin.
Shrimp with Salsa, Avocado, and Chips
This is the sort of food that seems too messy for a picnic. But a jar captures the juicy flavors of a Mexican shrimp cocktail.