Side Dish Recipes & Ideas

We ate this pasta twice last weekend—at both dinner parties. It’s not healthy. It’s soaked in butter. Delicious, toasted, slightly sweet brown butter with little bits of sage fried up in that buttery bath. Save it for the holidays, when you’re splurging on calories. Or, hey, eat it twice in one weekend like we did…We weren’t really adept at browning butter and took a completely uneducated stab at it. Guess what?

We tore through these sweet potatoes before we had the chance to take much of a picture, so we’ll have to describe them instead.These are the easiest things. So much flavor for so little work. We caramelized onions slowly in butter and olive oil (hands off, really – they cook themselves) then browned sweet potatoes and garlic. We let them steam until soft, then added some ginger and paprika for flavor.

Still thinking about what to serve on Halloween tomorrow? How about this? Dorie Greenspan calls it a “recipe in progress.” We call it yum…This dish certainly has a wow factor—a whole pumpkin stuffed with bread, cheese, garlic, and heavy cream, baked until creamy and bubbly. We frequently see small pumpkins that are stuffed and served individually, but with this one, everyone slices or digs in to the same big gourd.Dorie admits that the measurements are rough.

A pipérade is a Basque dish made with tomatoes, peppers, Bayonne ham, and piment d’espeletteThis dish is very quick and versatile, and hearty. I think Aida Mollenkamp’s recipe here is closest to the most authentic style.

We have a trustworthy method for making sweet and spicy acorn squash, but there’s one downside: it’s slow. So we perked up when we saw this alternate method from Alicia and Summer at Bread & Honey.They used a Martha Stewart recipe – such a simple formula, really – and sliced the acorn squash before baking. They dotted each slice with butter, brown sugar, salt and pepper, and then put them in the oven.

Escarole appeared in my Mystery Box last week, setting me up for one of my favorite situations: discovering something new to work with in the kitchen. I’ve heard of escarole and have even eaten it in restaraunts, but for some reason, I’ve never been moved to cook with it. That, it appears, is about to change.Escarole is considered a endive, making it a member of the daisy family. It’s high in fiber and rich in vitamins, especially A and K.

Dana’s post last week on cavalo nero kale reminded me that we’re in ribollita season. Ribollita is a simple, earthy Tuscan soup made from whatever vegetable scraps and stale bread is on hand, and is eaten in the fall and winter months.The word “ribollita” means “reboiled” and is used to refer to this soup because it requires a lot of cooking to get the right flavor and texture. It’s very hearty and filling, and keeps you warm in the winter.

We’re heading into kale season and I couldn’t be happier.  Kale provides everything you want and need in food:  it’s nutritious, delicious, easy to prepare, affordable and readily available well into the frost season. Indeed, those of you who live in frost areas are really in luck because a good frost can deepen and sweeten the flavor of kale and other winter vegetables.

I don’t know about you, but in my neck of the woods Armenian cucumbers are a rare, seasonal treat so whenever I spy them in my Mystery Box, I start to get a little happier. Long and skinny, with natural two-toned green stripes, these ‘cucumbers’ are technically a variety of melon and can usually be found in farmer’s markets or, if you’re lucky, in your CSA.

We’re not exactly going to win a medal for figuring this one out, but still. We’ve eaten this simple, creamy, peppery dish several times at Cafe Gitane in New York City (for breakfast as well as an appetizer at dinner) and finally made it at home…We don’t know the restaurant’s exact preparation, but the bread is always a thick, nutty whole grain and there’s a kicker — a big sprinkling of red pepper flakes over the top of the mashed-up avocado.

Looking for a new way to enjoy this sweet and earthy vegetable, a friend suggested we try pickling! Now that we’ve tried it, we may just need a jar of pickled beets on-hand 24/7 to satisfy our craving.Read our review of Alton Brown’s recipe for pickled beets after the jump…For our first venture into pickling, we wanted a simple, straightforward recipe that we could potentially use as a base for future variations. Alton Brown’s recipe from his Beet It!

One of the newer vendors at the Hollywood and Santa Monica farmers’ markets is Carlsbad Aquafarm. Hailing from the Agua Hedionda Lagoon outside San Diego, the family-run business provides farm-raised, sustainably-harvested oysters, mussels, clams, and abalone. (The business was interviewed on Good Food earlier this year.) Being a vegetarian, I must admit I had been passing the stand by, until I discovered that they also carry fresh seaweed.

Every summer, we anxiously await the arrival of squash blossoms so we can make one of our favorite dishes: fried squash blossoms.It’s a little time-consuming to prepare as you have to carefully remove the pistil from the center of the flower without ripping the delicate petals, but the work involved is worth it. I first had fried squash blossoms when I lived in Italy. In Italy, they’re usually dipped in batter and fried, and then served with salt and pepper.

My mystery box offered up several Little Gems lettuces last week, a most pleasant event indeed! We featuredLittle Gems look like tiny versions of Romaine lettuce, with a crisp, crunchy texture and a sweet flavor. My favorite way to serve them couldn’t be easier: simply cut in half and drizzled with a nice lemon-shallot vinaigrette. Occasionally, I’ll sprinkle on some thinly sliced radish or a few capers, but mostly I let them shine straight up.

With the weather turning warmer, we find ourselves turning to lighter meals and nibbles. Healthy dips and spreads such as muhammara are finding their way onto our plates more often in recent weeks.Another benefit of dips and spreads is they can be used as a substitute for less-healthy toppings such as butter, cream, hollandaise sauces, and other high-fat sauces and accompaniments. Try using hummus in place of mayonnaise in a sandwich, or experiment with covering a grilled steak with guacamole.

Remember when we contemplated the first meal cooked in our new apartmentWe love steaming artichokes and pulling off the leaves one by one to scrape between our teeth. But other than that, we rarely cook big, baseball-sized artichokes. So we loved the way this recipe highlighted their beautiful, floral shape, with stuffing tucked in every layer, ready to be scooped up with the leaves.There is one warning to this recipe. It is full of anchovies.

For years, we’ve been trying to duplicate the kind of tofu we’re served at Chinese restaurants. Finally, we think we’re on the right track.The secret is dredging the chunks of cut tofu in cornstarch and then sauteing them separately from the veggies. This method yields springy tofu with a pleasantly chewy interior, a nice contrast to the crunchy snow peas and the tangy flavors in the sauce.

This is not a combination we would have thought of on our own.We recently enjoyed a cheese plate at a restaurant, where a hard goat cheese was paired with a tomato garnish. At first, we asked the bartender who served us if he could swap the tomatoes with something else (the figs looked good), but he insisted. And when we tasted them, we realized there was something different going on.

These might look like Easter eggs, but actually they’re a traditional treat for Passover. We asked NYC caterer and culinary consultant Sierra Spingarn to share the family recipe for Huevos Haminados.Since observant Jews refrain from doing work on the Sabbath, they employ techniques for slow-cooked foods that can be started Friday afternoon, and still be hot on their table. This year, as Passover begins on Saturday night, these techniques will come in especially handy.

Pilaf makes a quick and elegant side dish to almost any meal. You can buy pilaf mixes at the grocery store, but we think it’s just as easy–or easier–to make it yourself and then fancy it up with whatever veggies and seasonings you like!The basic method for pilaf is not all that different from making regular rice. The main difference is that when you make pilaf, you saute the grains of rice before adding the liquid.

At the Alemany Farmer’s Market right now we’re seeing a lot of cardoons in season. Cardoons are closely related to – and taste very much like – artichokes. Why is this vegetable not well-known, then?Cardoons are high-maintenance vegetables. They look like very large hearts of celery, but have thorns in the stalks, so handle with care. The stalks are not solid like celery, and are semi-hollow and stringy.

Frisée means curly in French, and its tightly wound bitter leaves are crunchy, springy, and delicately bitter. They’re also a delicious winter salad base with an unusual winter fruit…Frisée isn’t exactly in season, sure – we admit that. But we found big bags of it at Trader Joe’s and were longing for greens. You may also be able to find it grown in local greenhouses, and soon it will be fully in season in the north and east.

We chopped everything into even pieces, drizzled some olive oil over with herbs and salt and roasted. See the results below!Confetti Potatoes and Pearl Onionsserves 2-4 as a side About two pounds mixed baby potatoesAbout one pound pearl onionsKosher saltBlack pepperOlive oil 4 sprigs of rosemary4-6 sprigs of thyme Heat the oven to 400°F. Cut the potatoes into quarters – just a little larger than the onions. Cut the top off each onion, then slice in half and shuck away the skin.

Let’s stand up for the baby pattypan. The baby pattypan has its own unique crown shape and an olive-oil like flavor that cries out for attention. While baby pattypans can work in recipes created for zucchini or yellow summer squash, we’ve been hunting all summer for recipes that were created just for the little pattypans. Isn’t it a shame to slice them up when their shape is so perfect on the plate? Until this weekend, we hadn’t had much luck in our recipe hunt.

Confit is an old French word for a classic method of food preservation. It simply means food that has been slowly cooked in salt and oil for long-term preservation. Duck confit is a famous example, but vegetables – especially garlic – are often used. This version is an easy, hands-off recipe for a tart, flavorful confit of fennel, lemon, and garlic. It’s sweet and mellow with notes of bright bitterness from the lemon.

We have a new favourite way to cook and eat asparagus. We love those tiny, thinner-than-pencil-thin asparagus spears, and yet when we sauté them we often find we misjudge the timing and they get mushy. We like crisp, tender spears, with just enough of a snap and yet not crunchy raw. The easiest way to get this texture is to blanch them, and this is also so quick. Method below… Don’t try this with really thick spears – use the thinnest, freshest ones you can find.

Lemon, rosemary, capers, goat cheese – they taste like summer to us, and they all go into this fresh, tangy pasta. We especially love the fried capers – one of our favorite ways to dress up a dish. It’s easy to make them; just fry drained capers in a little olive oil until they open like tiny buds, with layers of crisp, delicate petals standing out from the juicy center. This can be served as a hot dish or as a warm pasta salad.

These potatoes are a homestyle recipe – full of dairy and fat and other very, very good things. They are comfort food at its finest, with cubed potatoes boiled till just tender and then baked with all sorts of creamy cheese until soft and bubbling. They also come together faster than you might think, and they last for days in the fridge – if you can keep them around that long!

Braising ribbons of cabbage in butter and wine steams away the sharp, sometimes bitter flavor of raw cabbage, leaving an entirely new vegetable. It’s soft, sweet and juicy – a warm, delicate vegetable for a winter’s evening. Dusted with fresh Parmesan it’s even better.

They do take a bit of work, although that can be cut down by using pre-made dumpling wraps. But it’s a relaxing sort of work – chopping, mixing, and wrapping. They smell wonderful, too; the aroma of ginger, scallions and sesame filled my kitchen and I could hardly wait for them to be done! Step-by-step pictures below… This was my first time making this sort of dumpling, as you can probably tell from my awkward wrapping.

Acorn squash is tremendously good for you, and when roasted it has a velvety, luxurious texture that lends itself to both spicy and sweet flavors. Fortunately, there are two halves to a squash, so I dust one with curry powder for a spicy dinner and the other with small mounds of brown sugar for a sweet dessert.I am giving measurements here, but obviously this is the most flexible sort of recipe. Adjust to your taste.

For example, last weekend I needed a vegetarian dish to round out a meal. I had some garlic that needed to be used up, so I roasted it and mashed it to a paste with roasted acorn squash. With a little ricotta this made a delicious filling inside the crisp, flaky strudel. There was the sweet, pungent taste of garlic, and the earthy flavors of squash and sage, with a little crunch from toasted pinenuts.

Like so many vegetables, cauliflower is one of those that is available year round but few realize that there is indeed a season for it. Cauliflower season runs from October through April but it’s at its best starting in December. Look for compact, dense heads without any discolorization. To store, place in a plastic bag and put in the refrigerator, where it should keep for about a week.

With Thanksgiving coming up soon, I’m sure a lot of us are on the search for interesting recipes for side dishes to accompany our birds.A mash of some sort is a natural to partner for a thick slice of roasted turkey.

Everything’s better roasted. Ok that’s a sweeping statement, but I almost always default to roasting when it comes to vegetables. It concentrates their flavors, caramelizes their sugars and produces interesting textural contrasts. Basically, it enhances everything that is already great about vegetables.Broccoli has been an exception up until recently. It’s really quite lovely blanched then sautéed, but I felt like cooking it differently the other night.

Columbus may have come searching for gold, but what he found was a wealth of new foods. Before Europeans arrived in the New World they had never tasted peppers, chocolate, tomatoes or the culinary gold of maize – staple of the Native American diet. Imagine Indian curries without peppers, pasta without tomatoes, or Paris without chocolate!This recipe is adapted from one that Gourmet ran last summer, with a tangy lime butter sauce over lightly cooked corn and herbs.