6 posts tagged “side dish”
I have some sad news. This will be the first year since its inception in 2001 that I will not be hosting our annual Christmukkah party, renowned for the extremely boozelicious egg nog and the scrumptious potato latkes. That baby I alluded to in my last post (4 1/2 months ago!) has arrived and is keeping me too busy to make 100 latkes and several gallons of egg nog, much less post regularly on this blog. It's all I can do to keep up with posting photos on our baby blog, and I regularly get crabby emails from my mother-in-law that I have been slacking in that department as well!
So my holiday gift to you this year is, instead of a party I am passing on my well-honed recipe for the famous latkes. They weren't always this good mind you. I have made many a latke that was burned on the edges, soggy, or fell apart the instant you tried to pick it up. But after literally years of trial and error, last year I found the holy grail. The recipe for latkes that are flavorful, pretty, crispy on the outside, steamy and soft on the inside, hold together well in the pan and can be frozen and reheated and not fall apart and still STAY CRISPY!!
The freezing and reheating part is essential for me. The first year I made latkes for our party, I just mixed up all the batter ahead of time and thought I would just fry them up as the party began. Well, that was completely unrealistic. It takes a surprisingly long time to brown a latke properly, and even with all 4 burners going on the stove, I could only cook about 12-14 latkes at a time. I spent almost the whole party in the kitchen, distractedly mumbling conversation with the guests who meandered in and out trying gamely to help. The next year, the mother of one of my piano students told me she always made hers ahead of time for her Hanukkah party, placing the fried latkes on a baking sheet on the porch to freeze and then tossing them into ziplocs in the freezer until party day. GENIUS! But it still took me a while to refine the recipe until I was perfectly happy with it. And here, I now bestow on you, the final version, a miracle of potatoes and oil:
Robin's Perfect Potato Latkes
Ingredients:
2 lbs russet potatoes - this is the starchiest variety of potato.
1/2 cup grated onion
4 scallions, finely chopped
2 large eggs,
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 cup flour
plenty of pure olive oil (not extra virgin) or peanut oil (I like to do half and half)
Instructions:
Grate
potatoes by hand, (do not use cuisinart, the shreds will be too big and will take forever to cook through). As you go, empty gratings
into a large bowl of cold water. This keeps the potato shreds from
discoloring.
Drain potato gratings, reserving white sludgey stuff that remains in the bottom of the bowl (important trick). This is potato starch and it will help your latkes hold together.
Spin the gratings in a salad spinner until most of the excess liquid is removed. Mix with the grated onion and wrap a the mixture in an absorbent dish towel about a cup at a time and squeeze to remove any more excess moisture.
Combine the eggs, scallions and salt in a bowl. Beat lightly, then pour mixture into the reserved potato starch and stir until blended. Add to potato-onion-scallion mixture and mix well, sprinkling in the 1/4 cup flour a bit at a time.
Put a large, heavy bottomed non-stick or cast iron skillet over high heat. Add oil until it is about 1/4 to 1/2 inch deep. When the oil seems hot, test by dropping a smidgen of latke mixture into the pan and see if it sizzles.
If it does, spoon 2 tablespoons-worth of latke mixture into the skillet. Flatten with a fork until the latke is about 3 inches across. Repeat until there are 4 latkes in the pan. Do not be tempted to put too many latkes in the pan or they will reduce the temperature of the oil and take forever to cook. (Alternately, you can do one tablespoon's worth per latke if you want little cocktail party-sized latkes - these will be about 2 inches in diameter when flattened and you can cook 5 in a large frying pan.) Reduce heat to medium high and cook until undersides are browned, about 5 minutes. Turn latkes over and cook until undersides are browned, about 5 minutes more. Transfer to a baking sheet lined with paper towels.
If you are making them to serve immediately, keep the baking sheet in a warm oven so the latkes stay hot. If you are making them for later, put the baking sheet in the freezer (or outside if it's cold enough and you're not worried about animals stealing your latkes!) and when all the latkes are frozen, transfer them to a ziploc and keep in the freezer until ready to serve. Reheat in a 350-degree oven for about 10 minutes or until sizzling.
Makes about 25 latkes, or 40 cocktail-sized latkes. Serve warm, with applesauce or sour cream. (I like to top mine with sour cream and caviar!)
I've been test driving some Thanksgiving recipes lately. Most of them are for dining with a big group, as that's how most of us spend the holiday. In fact, it's how I myself will be spending the holiday, in New York with all my in-laws and my mom. But for the test drives it was just me and Jon eating, so I wanted to make a small enough amount that we wouldn't be eating leftovers until actual Thanksgiving.
One dish I wanted to try out was the Bacon-Sage-Caramelized Onion-Apple Stuffing from The New Best Recipe. But we're going to be cooking the turkey unstuffed this year, so I needed to practice the outside the bird version of stuffing, which when you think about it shouldn't really even be called stuffing, since it's not stuffing anything. My dad's family calls it "dressing." In fact almost everything except the turkey and mashed potatoes was called "dressing" at my grandparents' house. Cranberry dressing (that cranberry jelly that retains the shape of the can). Oyster dressing (non-stuffed stuffing, with oysters in it). Regular dressing (without oysters). The only thing that "dressing" did not refer to was salad dressing, because they didn't serve salad on Thanksgiving.. But there were things that were called salad, even though they were not. Like jello molds made of lime jello, pineapples and cottage cheese.
I don't think I'll be adopting that particular Morgan family tradition, but I will go ahead and use the d-word for my downsized bread casserole. This recipe turned out absolutely delicious. As they say on Iron Chef, anything with bacon is pretty much guaranteed to be good. And caramelized onions are one of my other go-to flourishes that I try to sneak into every recipe, so it was bound to be good. A new Thanksgiving favorite. Now I only hope my in-laws will like it as much as Jon and I did!
Bacon-Sage-Caramelized Onion-Apple Dressing
Adapted from The New Best Recipe
Ingredients:
4 slices hearty white bread, left out overnight to stale (or toasted for 25 minutes in a 300 degree oven) and diced into 1/2 inch cubes.
3 slices bacon, cut crosswise into 1/4-inch strips
2 medium onions, sliced thin
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 Granny Smith apple, peeled, cored, and cut into 1/2-inch cubes (about 2 cups)
pinch of ground black pepper
2 Tablespoons cup fresh parsley leaves, chopped fine
1 Tablespoon fresh sage leaves, cut into thin strips
1/2 cup low sodium chicken broth
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 Tablespoon butter, plus more for greasing pan.
Instructions:
Cook the bacon in a large skillet or Dutch oven over medium heat until crisp and browned, about 12 minutes. Remove the bacon with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels. Discard all but 1 tablespoon of the rendered fat.
Increase the heat to medium-high and add the onions and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Cook the onions unil golden in color, making sure to stir occasionally and scrape the sides and bottom of the pan, about 20 minutes. Reduce the heat to medium and continue to cook, stirring more often to prevent burning, until the oinions are deep golden brown, another 5 minutes. Add the apples and cook 5 minutes. Transfer the contents to a bowl.
Add the pepper, parsley, and sage to the bowl and mix to combine. Add the bread cubes.
Whisk the egg together with the broth in a small bowl. Pour the mixture over the bread cubes. Gently toss to distribute the ingredients evenly.
Transfer the mixture to a well-buttered small casserole or baking pan. Dot with pats of butter. Cover with a piece of foil that has been smeared with butter. Bake in a 350-degree oven for 15 minutes, remove the foil, and
continue to bake until a golden brown crust forms, about 15 minutes longer.
Serves 2
My husband loves coleslaw. I mean, he LOVES coleslaw. He loves it the way some people love french fries, or chocolate, or their firstborn child. His family serves coleslaw as part of their traditional Thanksgiving menu. And at almost all other notable family gatherings. Cousin's graduation party? Coleslaw. Brother's engagement party? Coleslaw. We even served coleslaw at our wedding. OK, no we didn't. But we did have it at the rehearsal dinner!
Superbears Coleslaw
Ingredients:
- 1 head of cabbage (I like to use half a head of green cabbage and half a head of red, but that's just for looks really. If you don't have a household with the capacity to consume 2 cabbages worth of coleslaw in a week like I do, you can just stick with one color of cabbage.)
- 1 bunch of collard greens, washed and dried thoroughly.
- 4 scallions
- 7 Tablespoons red wine vinegar
- 7 Tablespoons mayonnaise
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
Finely chop the scallions and put them in a medium size mixing bowl. Add the vinegar, mayonnaise, salt, and cayenne pepper and stir to blend. Set aside.
Remove the stems from the collard greens and the outer leaves from the cabbage. Shred the cabbage and the collard greens with the slicer attachment in a food processor and combine in a large bowl.
Pour dressing over shredded greens. With your hands, turn the coleslaw in the dressing until the entire batch is evenly coated. (There may be not be much room in the bowl to maneuver at first, but as the coleslaw is tossed it will reduce in volume by about a third.)
Cover the bowl with saran wrap and refrigerate overnight.
Serves 8 superstitious Chicago Bears fans
Did you know I'm responsible for an internet sensation? Well, I am. (If something that became very popular on a private internet message board can qualify as a sensation, that is.)
After you go through with planning a wedding you are left with this surplus of project energy and no project to work on. Some turn to scrapbooking. Some take up sewing or antiqueing. Some buy a house or have a baby. Me, I channelled my nesting instinct into the kitchen.
Apparently I'm not the only one, because the Cooking forum is one of the most popular ones on that non-wedding message board. Among the dozens of discussions on cooking, there are threads about cookbooks, kitchen equipment, holiday menus, party food, crockpot cooking, packing your lunch, two virtual cooking workshops, and my favorite, "What's for Dinner." On What's for Dinner, people just write about what they're planning on making for dinner, and share recipes. It's a great inspiration for those of us who tend to fall back on a few old favorites, especially on hurried week nights. It's also where I started an internet sensation.
It
all started with a quest for healthier macaroni and cheese. I had
somehow come across the idea of adding butternut squash to mac and
cheese in order to cut fat and up the fiber and vitamins of this homey
favorite. I couldn't remember where I had seen the recipe, so I tried
googling it and came across this great foodie blog, my madeleine.
Well, the recipe she detailed was far from healthy, with a whopping 10 tablespoons of butter and a pound of cheese. But it did have extra vitamins and fiber, right? At any rate I'm a sucker for the salty/sweet combo, and butternut squash and cheddar cheese fit that bill perfectly. I gave the recipe a try, and it was without a doubt the best, yummiest mac and cheese I had tasted in my life. The cheese sauce is the CHEESIEST ever. The roasted squash is caramely and nutty and sweet. The topping is nice and crispy and golden without being dried out or leathery. And it has a nice, dense texture that holds together well when you serve it.
Butternut Squash Mac and Cheese
Ingredients
- 1 butternut squash
- 1 pound elbow macaroni - I use Barilla whole-grain macaroni (the yellow box)
- 5 Tablespoons butter
- 1/2 cup flour
- 2 cups milk
- 1 Tablespoon Dijon mustard
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
- 1/8 teaspoon of cayenne pepper
- 1 pound shredded medium sharp cheddar (about 4 cups)
- 1 3/4 cups chicken or vegetable stock
- 1 slice of bread (I use rye bread because that's what we usually have around, but any kind will do.)
Instructions
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
Slice squash in half and discard seeds. Place, cut side down, on a baking sheet and roast for 1 hour until very tender.
While squash is cooking, make breadcrumbs by putting 1 slice of bread in the food processor and pulsing until it creates fine breadcrumbs. Set aside.
When squash has cooled, peel skin off and discard. Puree squash in food processor until it has a smooth consistency. Set aside.
Bring a large pot of water to boil. Salt generously. Boil pasta to al dente - about 6 minutes. Drain pasta and set aside.
Melt 4 Tablespoons butter (set aside 1 Tablespoon) and slowly stir in 1/2 c flour to form a paste.
Off heat, SLOWLY whisk in 2 cups of milk. Return to medium low heat until sauce fully blends and thickens.
Add pureed squash to the thickened sauce.
Add mustard, salt, nutmeg, and cayenne pepper. Stir in 3 cups of cheese (set aside 1 cup for the topping) and 1 3/4 cups of stock, alternating cheese and stock by cupfuls. Taste sauce, adjust seasonings if needed.
Combine pasta, squash and cheese sauce in a large bowl, toss to coat evenly. Transfer mixture to an oven-safe dish.
Melt the remaining Tablespoon of butter and blend with remaining cup of cheese and the breadcrumbs to form topping. Sprinkle mixture over the macaroni.
Place macaroni under the broiler until topping is nicely browned - about 2-4 minutes. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.
Rutabaga. Rutabaga, rutabaga, rutabaga. Fun to say, but are they fun to eat? Before I made this dish, I had only tried rutabaga once before, and I found it bland and peppery in an unappealing way. And I usually like root vegetables, even turnips, which are supposed to have a similar taste.
After my success with the cheesy turnip gratin, I decided to give rutabagas another try.
Clearly, my usual root veggie method - just roasting with olive oil and salt - wasn't going to cut it, as that was what I had tried before and didn't like. So I searched the internet for a new plan.
There are a lot of strange birds on the internet, if you haven't noticed. My go-to recipe site, epicurious.com, had several recipes for rutabaga. They even had several recipes for mashed rutabaga. Such a popular preparation must mean it's a good one, so I set about trying to find which recipe was the best. Thank goodness for those epicurious commenters, who rate every recipe on a 4-fork scale, and leave notes about what improvements they made.
One commenter, who calls himself "chef boyami," was particularly ebullient about his adaptation:
This recipe became the base for the Parr Rutabaga Royale. If you make this dish with my variation, I believe you would rate this a "4 fork" also. Prepare yourselves for the root that no longer needs to beg to make it to the table.
and then went on to outline a recipe that adds pureed sauerkraut, and nutmeg, ginger, cayenne pepper, and heavy cream to the original recipe (which was just boiled rutabagas mashed with butter).
The next commenter was like, "Is that a joke?" but then other people said it was actually great so I decided to try it. I adapted his recipe as follows:
Spicy Mashed Rutabagas
Jon, a total kraut lover, agreed. While I was cooking, he said the smell of the food gave him "emotional wood." I know they say the way to man's heart is through his stomach, but I never realized it was so literal! (Though to be honest, it may have been the smell of the pork he was noticing... um, this is starting to sound dirtier and dirtier so I better just end here.) Let's just say the dish was a success.
Ever since I was a kid I have always wanted to eat turnips and cheese.
When I was little my mom enrolled my brother in this Scholastic Book of the Month club. One of the books they sent him was about this old couple who didn't have much money but they grew turnips and all they ate all winter was turnips and cheese. I know it was supposed to seem like a terrible hardship, but it always made me feel hungry for turnips and cheese.
UPDATE: My mom read this blog and tracked down the book and sent me a copy! (Awww, ain't she sweet!) It's called "Socks for Supper" by Jack Kent. Turns out the couple only ate turnips all winter until they began trading socks for cheese with a dairy-farming couple down the road.
Anyway, despite the genius of Jack Kent, you just don't find those two ingredients paired together too often. My cousin Jorie always thought it was weird when we'd make rosemary roasted turnips for dinner and then afterwards I'd be snacking on a slice of cheddar. But I couldn't help it! The taste of those turnips made me long for cheese - it was like fries & ketchup, bananas & peanut butter, pie & whipped cream. Two great tastes that taste great together.
So finally, I invented/adapted from other sources the following recipe:
Cheesy Turnip Gratin
Ingredients:
1 pound white turnips (about 4 medium)
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 cup grated Gruyère (about 4 ounces)
1/3 cup heavy cream
1/3 cup milk
Instructions:
Put on a pot of salted water to boil. Preheat oven to 350° F and butter a gratin dish.
Peel turnips and cut into 1/8-inch-thick slices. Cook turnips in boiling salted water until crisp-tender, 2 to 3 minutes, and transfer with slotted spoon to colander. Drain turnips and pat dry between paper towels. (Turnips may be cooked 1 day ahead and chilled, covered.)
In gratin dish arrange one third of the turnips and sprinkle with 1/2 tablespoon flour, 1/3 cup Gruyère, and salt and pepper to taste. Repeat for a second layer.
Arrange remaining turnips over cheese and pour cream and milk over vegetables, top with remaining 1/3 cup cheese
Bake in middle of oven, covered, 30 minutes. Uncover gratin and bake until bubbling and golden, about 30 minutes more. (If it's not golden enough for you, you can add a couple minutes under the broiler at the end.)
Serves one hungry couple.
Finally, satisfaction! My turnip and cheese quest was completed!
We ate it with leftover chicken and rice, and a nice salad. Jon said it was one of my best efforts in the kitchen to date.
