Archive for the ‘Savory Side Dishes and Salads’ Category
Brussel sprouts are one of those vegetables that have a reputation of being difficult to like. The leafy green vegetables look like miniature cabbages – mostly because they are related to cabbages – with a mild, cabbage like flavor. They can be prepared in a number of different ways, but the best way to prepare them, without a doubt, is to roast them in the oven until they’re crispy. Oven-roasted brussel sprouts have mild, slightly nutty flavor and a good balance of tender interior and crisp exterior. Served with a little salt or a little Parmesan cheese, they can be delicious. In fact, they’re good enough to make you wonder how they got a reputation of being difficult to like.
They can be even more delicious when you introduce a little browned butter to the equation. Roasted Brussel Sprouts with Browned Butter are one of my favorite ways to prep these vegetables. I split the brussel sprouts down the center and roast them, cut side down, on a baking sheet until they’re crispy. While they cook, I prepare a little browned butter on the stove top and simply toss the roasted brussel sprouts in the butter before seasoning and serving them. The browned butter adds a wonderful toasted flavor to the sprouts and makes them taste much more complex than they would on their own.
I like to buy my brussel sprouts on the stalks, partly because those huge stalks look cool and partly because I feel that the sprouts are fresher when they’re still attached to the stem. Choose brussel sprouts that are small, with tightly wrapped leaves and no discoloration. These will be milder and more tender than larger brussel sprouts (although those are perfectly good roasted, too). This recipe can be adapted to any amount of sprouts, whether you’re serving them as a Thanksgiving dish or simply making them as a side for a dinner for two.
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I have a soft spot for jellied cranberry sauce as a Thanksgiving side dish, as that was a favorite of mine when I was a kid, but these days I am much more likely to make my own cranberry sauce with fresh berries to serve as a holiday side (and that includes Homemade Cranberry Jelly). I like cranberry sauces that the sweet-tart flavor of the cranberries shine through without being overly tart or sour, which can make the cranberry sauce overpower things like turkey and stuffing. This Blood Orange Cranberry Sauce fits the bill nicely. The sauce is made with whole cranberries, freshly squeezed blood orange juice and has whole piece of blood orange in it. The orange adds some extra sweetness to the cranberries while adding a bright, fresh citrus flavor to the sauce.
To make it, you’ll need a bag of fresh or frozen cranberries. Frozen berries will always work well for a sauce, but I typically use fresh berries when my local markets carry them. The berries are cooked with blood orange juice and whole blood orange segments from a supremeed orange. Supreming an orange means that you cut down a whole orange into its most tender segments, removing the peel, pith and the tough “skin” that holds the slices together (tutorial here). By prepping the oranges this way, you get very tender pieces of fruit to add to your sauce.
Blood oranges make a good color match for the cranberries and the juice is slightly sweeter than that of some other types of oranges. That said, you can easily substitute any other type of orange into this recipe if you don’t have blood oranges and still get tasty results.
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Thanksgiving is stuffing season as far as I’m concerned. I occasionally make it during the rest of the year, but I always do several batches around Thanksgiving and between Thanksgiving and Christmas. A basic stuffing (or dressing, if you come from a region where that name is more widely used) is a seasoned bread (or other starch) and vegetable mixture, cooked inside the turkey or in the oven alongside the bird. Like a basic bread pudding recipe, stuffing is almost like a blank slate that you can put your own spin on easily with different breads, vegetables and seasonings.
I’ve done Bacon, Pumpkin and Pecan Stuffings, Caramelized Onion Stuffing, Roasted Garlic Stuffing and Vegetarian Stuffing. This year I’m doing a Browned Butter and Sage Stuffing with Walnuts and Cranberries, where simple ingredients come together to deliver a stuffing with a lot of flavor.
I usually like to use either a relatively plain sandwich bread or a whole grain bread for stuffing. Sandwich bread typically is a blank canvas that allows other flavors to stand out. Whole grain breads add a deep, nutty flavor and can add a lot of dimension and heartiness to stuffing. Since browned butter is an element that I like to use in desserts, I wanted to use a richer and slightly sweeter bread for this particular stuffing to highlight the sweetness of the butter. I used my homemade No Knead Pumpkin Dinner Bread. If you are using that recipe, you’ll need a bit less than 3/4 of the loaf. You can use any bread, but I recommend choosing something slightly rich, such as challah, so that the browned butter has a good base to work with.
The bread cubes are tossed with cooked onions and celery, toasted walnuts and dried cranberries. The mixture is seasoned with fresh sage, then doused with browned butter and chicken stock (vegetable stock or any kind of stock could be used) before being pressed into a casserole dish and baked. The stuffing has a nice crunch from the walnuts, a crisp top and an almost creamy center from the tender bread. And, of course, you get a nice note of browned butter that makes the dish taste rich and complex.
Leftovers go very well in turkey sandwiches, too.
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It is hard to beat a flaky, buttery buttermilk biscuit. They’re quick and easy to make, and ready to eat almost as soon as they come out of the oven. They also take to other flavors very well – and I’m not just talking about the fact that they can easily served with jam at breakfast and alongside chili at dinner. I’m talking about the fact that you can add some fresh herbs, some cheese or even some berries into the dough and get something completely different, yet just as delicious, as the original biscuit.
These Sun Dried Tomato and Feta Biscuits are one of my favorite biscuit variations. They are plain buttermilk biscuits with lots of sun dried tomatoes and chopped up feta cheese in the dough. I like to use the sun dried tomatoes packed in olive oil because they are so moist and flavorful that they really add a lot of character to the biscuits. Feta adds a nice saltiness to the biscuits without making them seem overly cheesy. They’re fantastic with salads and as a side with dinner, and work well both plain and when spread with a bit of butter.
I typically make these as drop biscuits, meaning that I shape them into big rounds in much the same way as I would shape balls of cookie dough (only larger!). It is a quick and easy way to shape these biscuits, especially because the dough is slightly sticky from the sun dried tomatoes and feta cheese. If you prefer a more traditional biscuit look, simply knead the dough a few times on a well-floured surface, roll it out until it is about 1 inch thick and cut rounds using a 2 1/2- or 3-inch biscuit cutter. The baking time doesn’t change – and neither does the biscuit’s delicious flavor.
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Ambrosia is one of those mysterious dishes that would show up at picnics and pot lucks all throughout my childhood, but was rarely seen anywhere else. It was a concoction that incorporated lots of fruit and mini marshmallows in a sweet, creamy sauce. The “sauce” portion usually involved something like sour cream, mayonnaise, Cool Whip or whipped cream. As a kid, I liked that fact that it was sweet and had mini marshmallows in it. Recently, I was at a gathering where someone brought (store bought) ambrosia as a nostalgic treat – and it was actually pretty darn good. I still like those mini marshmallows, after all.
Ambrosia makes a nice change from the usual fruit salad and it’s fun to eat, so I wanted to make a version of it at home that used a healthy, creamy base and lots of fruit. My version starts with plain, Greek-style yogurt. My childhood versions usually included various types of canned fruits and mandarin orange segments. I opted for more tropical fruit in my updated version. I used fresh papaya, mango and pineapple, as well as shredded coconut (canned fruit is still fine, but try to use a brand packed in fruit juice and drain it well before using). I added mini marshmallows and sweetened everything with honey, to taste.
I love all the elements in this dish and, while it actually still makes a great potluck lunch dish, it is also a great alternative to a simple snack of fruit-and-yogurt. I will make a single serving version just for myself, or double this recipe if I’m serving a group. You can vary the fruits according to your tastes or what you have on hand, as well. The salad is better if it sits for at least an hour before serving to let the marshmallows soften and the flavors meld, so make a batch in advance and store it in the refrigerator before serving.
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