Local chefs pay homage to dear family members with these traditional recipes to bring to your own holiday table.

MARTHA’S MOM’S NUT TARTLETS
From Martha Ryan, chef-owner at Martha’s Leelanau Table in Suttons Bay 
(Makes about 20)

Ingredients
For pastry:
½ cup butter
3 ounces cream cheese
1 ¼ cup flour

For filling:
¾ cup dark brown sugar
1 egg
¼ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon melted butter
½ teaspoon vanilla
1 cup chopped pecans

Procedure
For pastry: Cream butter and cream cheese. Add in flour until just blended. Place a small amount of pastry in small muffin tins and shape into shell — it should make about 20.

For filling: Beat sugar and egg. Add and mix in all remaining ingredients. Spoon filling into the shells and bake at 350 degrees for 25 min or until lightly browned.

UNCLE GREG’S EGG BAKE
From Adam McMarlin, owner/chef of Wren in Suttons Bay
(Serves about 6)

Ingredients
5–6 English muffins
1 pound breakfast sausage (Uncle Greg uses commercially made sausage that comes in a plastic tube, but if you have a butcher shop that makes its own sausage (like Maxbauer or Burritt’s in Traverse City), feel free to get it there — mild or hot Italian sausage works well, too.
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 medium onion, diced
8 ounces shredded sharp or mild cheddar cheese
10 eggs
½ cup milk
salt and pepper to taste

Procedure
Spray or butter a 13x9x2-inch baking dish. Roughly tear up English muffins and line bottom of baking dish with them.

Sauté sausage until no longer pink, breaking it up with a spatula as you go. When fully cooked, drain sausage (reserve fat) and allow to cool. When cool, spread a layer of sausage over the English muffins. 

Dice and sauté the bell pepper and onion in some of the reserved fat. Drain, allow to cool, and then layer over the sausage. Layer the shredded cheese over the veggies.

Whisk the eggs well with milk and season with salt and pepper. Pour eggs carefully over the mixture in the baking dish. Cover the baking dish with aluminum foil and refrigerate overnight.

Take the baking dish out in the morning and sit at room temperature for 45 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Bake, covered, for 50 minutes, removing the foil for the last 10 minutes. 

HERB ROASTED PRIME RIB
From Chef Guillaume Hazaël-Massieux, chef/owner of Restaurant La Bécasse in Burdickville
(Serves 4)

Ingredients
4-pound standing prime rib, bone-in
Salt and pepper, to taste 
½ pound butter, at room temperature
2 tablespoons chopped garlic
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme
1 tablespoon crushed coriander seeds
1 tablespoon chopped parsley

Procedure
Remove prime rib from the refrigerator and let stand at room temperature for 30 minutes to an hour. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Mix butter, garlic, thyme, coriander, and parsley together. Season the meat, then coat with the herb butter.

Place meat on a rack in a roasting pan, bone side down, and roast on the middle rack of the oven, basting with herb butter every 5-10 minutes, for approximately 45 minutes, or until cooked to your taste — medium rare is recommended (about 125-130 degrees on an instant-read meat thermometer). Then, leaving the meat on the same oven rack, turn on the broiler and broil for 10-15 minutes to crisp the outside of the prime rib and caramelize the meat. 

Remove meat from oven and allow it to rest for about 5 minutes before carving. 

Find the full stories behind each of these recipes here.

Photos: Chefs Martha Ryan, Adam Marlin, Guillaume Hazaël-Massieux