Several of you have asked me to recommend and provide recipes for side dishes to go with the more main courses I've posted. So here you go.
Often, just a green salad and some bread will finish a meal nicely, especially with a stew like my recipes for Beef Stew, Italian Stew with Chicken and Sausage and even Beef Bourguignon, previously posted. I've also provided a recipe for my favorite vinaigrette. If you want a more complex salad, consult your refrigerator for stray bits of celery or carrots or green, red or yellow peppers. Chop these up and toss them in the salad. You can even go so far as to make a more complex salad your main course. Use your imagination, knowing that whatever you might put in a sandwich you can put in a salad: cheese, ham, leftover turkey or chicken, etc.
The traditional (supposedly) well-rounded meal contains protein, a carbohydrate and a green vegetable. If your main course contains a carb, like pasta, you only need some green vegetable to have a traditional meal. My favorite green vegetables are three: asparagus, broccoli and green beans. I've already provided a recipe for Asparagus with Ginger Dressing but you could pitch the complicated dressing and just follow the instructions I've provided for cooking the asparagus, my favorite way, by boiling it for a few minutes in water (or a combination of water and white wine) and then dressing it with a little melted butter. With broccoli and green beans, I wash and trim the broccoli into manageable flowerettes and cut the stem ends off the green beans. Then I toss the vegetable in some madly boiling water, for only a few minutes, maybe two. Then I plunge the beans or broccoli into a bath of ice water to both stop the cooking and seal the nice green color. I like my vegetables a little crisp (much better than limp) so I don't cook them long. From the bath, I dry the vegetables thoroughly and if I'm preparing ahead, I hold the veggies in a plastic bag in the refrigerator until I'm ready to proceed. When ready to finish the dish, heat some olive oil in a skillet and add several smashed cloves of garlic. Let that cook for a minute or two but don't brown the garlic. When burned, garlic becomes bitter. Some cooks would leave the garlic in but I usually take it out at this point. Then toss the reserved broccoli or green beans into the hot oil just long enough to reheat them and flavor them with the garlic oil already in the skillet. You can also use a few red pepper flakes in the oil/garlic mixture if you want your vegetables to have a little bite. After you've removed the vegetables from the garlic oil, they should go right to the table, especially broccoli, which can cool very quickly. If you want to flavor the green beans, add a little Dijon mustard to the oil, or use butter instead of the oil (in that case, I wouldn't use the garlic). You can also cook your vegetables - asparagus, broccoli or green beans - in the oven. Just put the raw veggies on a baking sheet and toss them with olive oil (add a little Parmesan cheese if you like) and bake them in the oven at about 400 degrees for a few minutes, or until the Parmesan has melted. And don't forget frozen peas. They're really easy, flash frozen at just the right time and prepared with the instructions on the package. If you want to experiment, cook the peas in chicken broth instead of water or throw a little chopped mint into the pot.
For carbohydrates, I like to use potatoes, especially those little red ones. I toss them with some olive oil, salt and pepper and some herb, like thyme or rosemary, and roast them in a 400 degree oven for about 40 minutes. I usually cut the potatoes in half but if you want them to cook faster, cut them into quarters. You can test for doneness by sticking a fork into the potato. If the fork goes in easily, the potatoes are done. If you want them to be crisp, turn the potatoes over when they're about half cooked.
In the time of my childhood, almost all mothers cooked their vegetables in water until they were grey and limp. They stirred them with butter, and maybe a little cream, and served them. All the nice vitamins got tossed out with the water. So learn to blanch your vegetables (cooking them only a short time) first and them stir them into whatever other ingredients appeal to you. Better the vegetables should be a little undercooked than limp and grey.
These are my standard side dishes. In the future I'll provide some more complicated side dishes but this should help for a start. Stay tuned.
Often, just a green salad and some bread will finish a meal nicely, especially with a stew like my recipes for Beef Stew, Italian Stew with Chicken and Sausage and even Beef Bourguignon, previously posted. I've also provided a recipe for my favorite vinaigrette. If you want a more complex salad, consult your refrigerator for stray bits of celery or carrots or green, red or yellow peppers. Chop these up and toss them in the salad. You can even go so far as to make a more complex salad your main course. Use your imagination, knowing that whatever you might put in a sandwich you can put in a salad: cheese, ham, leftover turkey or chicken, etc.
The traditional (supposedly) well-rounded meal contains protein, a carbohydrate and a green vegetable. If your main course contains a carb, like pasta, you only need some green vegetable to have a traditional meal. My favorite green vegetables are three: asparagus, broccoli and green beans. I've already provided a recipe for Asparagus with Ginger Dressing but you could pitch the complicated dressing and just follow the instructions I've provided for cooking the asparagus, my favorite way, by boiling it for a few minutes in water (or a combination of water and white wine) and then dressing it with a little melted butter. With broccoli and green beans, I wash and trim the broccoli into manageable flowerettes and cut the stem ends off the green beans. Then I toss the vegetable in some madly boiling water, for only a few minutes, maybe two. Then I plunge the beans or broccoli into a bath of ice water to both stop the cooking and seal the nice green color. I like my vegetables a little crisp (much better than limp) so I don't cook them long. From the bath, I dry the vegetables thoroughly and if I'm preparing ahead, I hold the veggies in a plastic bag in the refrigerator until I'm ready to proceed. When ready to finish the dish, heat some olive oil in a skillet and add several smashed cloves of garlic. Let that cook for a minute or two but don't brown the garlic. When burned, garlic becomes bitter. Some cooks would leave the garlic in but I usually take it out at this point. Then toss the reserved broccoli or green beans into the hot oil just long enough to reheat them and flavor them with the garlic oil already in the skillet. You can also use a few red pepper flakes in the oil/garlic mixture if you want your vegetables to have a little bite. After you've removed the vegetables from the garlic oil, they should go right to the table, especially broccoli, which can cool very quickly. If you want to flavor the green beans, add a little Dijon mustard to the oil, or use butter instead of the oil (in that case, I wouldn't use the garlic). You can also cook your vegetables - asparagus, broccoli or green beans - in the oven. Just put the raw veggies on a baking sheet and toss them with olive oil (add a little Parmesan cheese if you like) and bake them in the oven at about 400 degrees for a few minutes, or until the Parmesan has melted. And don't forget frozen peas. They're really easy, flash frozen at just the right time and prepared with the instructions on the package. If you want to experiment, cook the peas in chicken broth instead of water or throw a little chopped mint into the pot.
For carbohydrates, I like to use potatoes, especially those little red ones. I toss them with some olive oil, salt and pepper and some herb, like thyme or rosemary, and roast them in a 400 degree oven for about 40 minutes. I usually cut the potatoes in half but if you want them to cook faster, cut them into quarters. You can test for doneness by sticking a fork into the potato. If the fork goes in easily, the potatoes are done. If you want them to be crisp, turn the potatoes over when they're about half cooked.
In the time of my childhood, almost all mothers cooked their vegetables in water until they were grey and limp. They stirred them with butter, and maybe a little cream, and served them. All the nice vitamins got tossed out with the water. So learn to blanch your vegetables (cooking them only a short time) first and them stir them into whatever other ingredients appeal to you. Better the vegetables should be a little undercooked than limp and grey.
These are my standard side dishes. In the future I'll provide some more complicated side dishes but this should help for a start. Stay tuned.
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