For chef Christopher Gross, Thanksgiving starts with Grandma’s homemade noodles

MARK BRODIE: Sam, it is very exciting, at least for me, Thanksgiving is just a few weeks away. Do you have a favorite dish on the Thanksgiving table?

SAM DINGMAN: I will join you in that excitement. I’m going to say it’s a tie between two kinds of pie: my sister-in-law’s apple pie and my brother’s pumpkin pie.

BRODIE: Tough to go wrong with either of those. I mean, everything is my favorite, but pie is certainly toward the top of the list of favorites.

DINGMAN: And it’s always a day where you can just have all the pie.

BRODIE: Yes.

DINGMAN: Well, since this is a holiday all about food, we here at The Show wondered: How do some of the Valley’s top chefs approach Thanksgiving? And what are their favorite dishes?

BRODIE: Our cohost Lauren Gilger got a hold of some of them to find out. First up: Chef Christopher Gross, the chef of Christopher’s at Wrigley Mansion.

Full conversation

CHRISTOPHER GROSS: Back in the Midwest, we would all gather, my uncle’s side of the family, and then my family. And at a very early age, till I was about 13, I wouldn’t eat really anything. Everything plain, no sauces, no condiments, zero vegetables almost. And so Thanksgiving, there’d probably be, I don’t know, 12 or more of us at my grandmother’s house.

And the only thing I would eat is the white meat from the turkey. That’s it. And the noodles that she made all the time.

LAUREN GILGER: Tell us about that noodle dish. How do you make it?

GROSS: So it’s pretty easy. It’s just you put flour, and you just start putting a couple eggs and then the rest is egg yolks, and you make a pasta dough, and then you roll it out fairly thick, maybe like a quarter-inch or a little less thick, and dust it heavily with flour while you’re rolling it. Like too much flour, you would think.

And then you roll it like a cinnamon roll or, you know, like a roll. And then you cut it into, I don’t know, quarter-inch or more strips. So it’s like, it’s heavy, thick. And then you let sit for an hour, and then you don’t dust the flour off of it, really.

And you throw it into chicken stock and cook it. It kind of makes a little sauce around it, and it’s kind of like a dumpling, almost sort of.

GILGER: Yeah.

GROSS: Yeah. I wouldn’t eat mashed potatoes, the beets. I wouldn’t eat dressing.

GILGER: So that’s interesting on a couple levels. One, I’m. I’m struck by the fact that a chef like you didn’t eat anything adventurous until he was 13. But also, I mean, noodles are not like a super traditional Thanksgiving dish in my mind. Where did that come from in your family?

GROSS: Maybe because of the Germanic background. Maybe it’s like a spaetzle or, like thick spaetzle, though. So I don’t know where — I never asked. All I know is my mother continued carrying on the tradition when she had Thanksgiving. And then I carried on when I used to cook Thanksgiving.

GILGER: So that’s a very kind of homegrown recipe for you, your grandmother’s noodles. But what about when you think about Thanksgiving in a restaurant, maybe yours or in others? I mean, this is a holiday all about that meal. How do you interpret Thanksgiving dinner today?

GROSS: Well, you know, I really never did hardly. And I never worked really any place too much to celebrate Thanksgiving. Being in more of a French restaurant, that was the day we were closed and didn’t cook.

But I remember working for a French restaurant when I came back to the United States, and the chef goes, "OK, we’re open for Thanksgiving. So you know how to do all that?"

And I go, "Actually, I don’t."

GILGER: "So you know how to do all that."

GROSS: What are we doing? I go, you know, I can roast a turkey. Probably have to look up stuffing. I never made stuffing. I mean, I know how to do it, of course, now. And I like it a lot. I do different variations of traditional dishes when I do have to cook.

GILGER: OK, so tell us about some of those. What are your favorites that if you have to cook a Thanksgiving meal, you’ll make these days?

GROSS: Well, I’ll do the what I call noodles and roast the turkey and make the sauce. And a girlfriend I had for, I don’t know like 15 years, big family and everything, and I would do the turkey. And one year I did it, and I wasn’t ever allowed to do it again.

GILGER: What happened?

GROSS: Well, her mother — really wonderful lady — she liked to roast the turkey as well, and I would help her. But then one year, they said, well, why don’t you do a version of the vacuum pack cooking, sous vide?

GILGER: Yeah.

GROSS: So I did it. I did sort of a fast version, where I took the the meat off the bone and I seared it and did all that stuff, and then I sous vided it and the legs as well. And then I chopped up all the bones and made of stock and everything, and after it was all cooked, slice it and put on plattering.

Well, anyway, everyone liked it, and they weren’t eating hers, and there was a little sad face, and I was never allowed to do it again.

GILGER: A little bit of a rivalry. I guess that tends to happen. What do you make of the Thanksgiving meal? Like the traditional meal with the turkey and the stuffing and the mashed potatoes, the cranberry relish, etc.

Like, is this something you think is a dish that should exist in any other way?

GROSS: No, not really. I mean, I think the most variations you see is what’s in the stuffing. And that, too. You know, there’s always the, the talk about if you stuff the turkey, make sure you make it well done, you know, so it’s a food safety issue about that interior temperature and the juices going into it if it’s not completely cooked.

And by doing that, I kind of believe that you’re going to overcook the heck out of the turkey itself. So, no, I don’t really cook stuffing inside the bird. I do get all the juices and everything, and that’s what I use to make the stuffing with. So I’ll usually take some of the meat off the bones, so I have the bones to make the stock.

The stock to make the stuffing. All that good stuff, the caramelized stuff and juices on the bottom of the pan into that stuffing.

GILGER: OK, so final question for you, chef. I mean, lots of people cooking on Thanksgiving, and the meal matters more than it usually does this day.

What’s your biggest piece of advice for folks who are trying to do a Thanksgiving dinner and just not screw it up?

GROSS: Well, do a lot of planning. Do as much stuff as you can ahead of time so you’re not relegated to just being in the kitchen and cooking for everyone, and then then going out and sitting when most everyone’s done or the pressure of it.

So, you know, roast the turkey off a little early. You can keep it warm, you know, within an hour or so. Get that stuffing done ahead of time. If there’s vegetables, I’ll say, like, cook your vegetables. If it was like French green beans, we used to have that. Or green beans, I would cook them till they’re tender, shock them in ice water, and then I would put them in a pan with butter and sauteed shallots and stuff.

Do that the day before, and then just pop them back into the oven to heat them up. Don’t try to do everything at once. You can buy turkey bones or something like that, or just use chicken. You can make part of the base sauce a day ahead of time and then deglaze that pan where it roasted or however you cooked it to get more flavor out of it.

Do as much as you can ahead of time that some of the stuff you can reheat without degrading the quality and flavor of the food.

GILGER: You’re making me hungry. All right, chef Christopher Gross joining us with his take on Thanksgiving. Chris, thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate it.

GROSS: Well, thanks for thinking of me. We appreciate it.

Recipe: Rustic egg noodles simmered in chicken stock that naturally thickens into a rich gravy

Ingredients

• 2 large egg yolks
• 1 whole large egg
• 2 cups all-purpose flour — 240 g
• 1 tsp kosher salt — 5 g
• Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• Additional flour for dusting
• Chicken stock (enough to fully cover the noodles) — approx. 1–1.5 L

Method

 1. Make the Dough
In a bowl, combine the egg yolks, whole egg, flour (2 cups / 240 g), salt (1 tsp / 5 g), and pepper.
Mix until it forms a medium-firm dough.
Knead briefly (1–2 minutes) until smooth.
Rest the dough 5–10 minutes

2. Roll the Dough
Lightly flour your work surface.
Roll the dough out to a little over 1/8 inch — 3–5 mm thick.
Dust the rolled sheet generously with flour.

3. Cut the Noodles
With the dough rolled out flat, dust the entire surface with flour.
Roll the sheet up into a loose pinwheel spiral (like a jelly roll).
Slice the spiral into ¼–½ inch — 6–12 mm strips.
Unroll and fluff the noodles with more flour to prevent sticking.
Let the noodles dry on the counter for 30 minutes.

4. Cook the Noodles
Bring enough chicken stock (approx. 1–1.5 L) to a gentle simmer to fully cover the noodles.
Add noodles and cook until tender, stirring occasionally
– about 8–12 minutes.
The stock will naturally thicken into a gravy-like sauce as the noodles cook.
Season with salt and plenty of freshly ground black pepper (extra black pepper recommended).

To Serve
Serve warm with extra fresh black pepper. Perfect with roast chicken, turkey, or any comforting family-style meal.