The big book of sides : more than 450 recipes for the best vegetables, grains, salads, breads, sauces, and more

39 Pages·2014·0.42 MB·English

by  Rodgers

Copyright © 2014 by Rick Rodgers All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Random
House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.
BALLANTINE and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rodgers, Rick.
The big book of sides : more than 450 recipes for the best vegetables, grains, salads, breads, sauces, and more /
Rick Rodgers.
pages cm
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-345-54818-4
eBook ISBN 978-0-34554819-1
1. Cooking (Vegetables) 2. Side dishes (Cooking) I. Title.
TX801.R68 2014
641.6′5—dc23 2014028382
Photography by Ben Fink www.ballantinebooks.com
v3.1
CONTENTS
Introduction
Getting It to the Table
Eat Your Vegetables
From the Root Cellar
A Hill of Beans
Righteous Rice and Great Grains
The Side Salad Bowl
Pasta and Friends
The Bread Basket
Pickles, Relishes, and Sauces
Acknowledgments
About the Author
INTRODUCTION
When a cook decides on a main course, the meal is only half planned. What about
the side dishes? After all, what is a burger without fries? Or barbecue without
coleslaw, baked beans, or macaroni and cheese (or all three)? Thanksgiving is a
parade of side dishes to go with the turkey: sweet potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce,
mashed potatoes, stuffing, and more. But when the cook needs to go beyond these
iconic matches, it is easy to draw a blank.
The Big Book of Sides was written to help you choose luscious additions to the
main course. This exhaustive cookbook gives the humble side dish its due,
elevating it to its proper, important place on the menu. Vegetables of all kinds,
pasta dishes, beans, grains, home-baked rolls and savory quick breads, side salads
and dressing, sauces, even easy pickles...they are here.
I have been collecting side dish recipes for many years. When I was a caterer, I
had an international clientele, and I had to be proficient in many different
cuisines. For a holiday meal, when the wife was Irish and the husband was Jewish, I
had to cook up a meal that satisfied both sides of the family. (I am thinking of my
clients, actors Anne Meara and Jerry Stiller, for whom I cooked many meals, and
of the holidays where I had to make both colcannon and potato kugel.) Birthday
dinners for kids, special meals to impress the boss, backyard cookouts with
barbecued ribs, Easter feasts, Passover seders...I cooked them all and kept notes.
In addition to my own cookbooks, I often work with chefs to help them create
their books. I’ve worked with celebrity chefs in New York and Chicago, including
one of the best-known Chinese restaurants in Manhattan, bakers all over the
country, Mexican and Latino restaurants, and more. These excursions into various
cuisines and cooking techniques have also informed my cooking, and I have been
sure to include a wide variety of ethnic dishes in this collection. And many of my
cookbook author colleagues have contributed their recipes.
I come from a family that gives parties at the drop of a hat. It’s a large group
(my great-grandmother had nine children, and most of them had large families),
and it seemed as if there was a birthday party or holiday dinner every weekend. My
great-aunts had an unspoken competition for the title of best cook in the family,
so I grew up with a never-ending array of side dish classics like potato salads,
coleslaws, baked beans, tossed green salads, garlic bread, and more. You didn’t
need to be a professional chef to figure out that side dishes could make the meal.
Many of these beloved family heirloom recipes are included in this book.
All of this experience comes in handy when working with the ever-changing
culinary scene. You have to move fast to keep up with the latest ingredients at the
market, and many foods that were once esoteric have mainstreamed. This is
especially true of produce—some of my favorite recipes were created when an
unusual vegetable showed up in my weekly summer CSA delivery. One week, it was
kohlrabi, and by the time I had cooked it all, I had a new appreciation for this
humble green knob. While I have been sure to offer recipes for classic side dishes,
you will find plenty of new favorites, as well.
The Big Book of Sides reflects how I cook at home for my daily meals. My
personal cooking style is to produce the most amount of flavor with the least
effort. If the main course is complicated, the side dishes should be less so. This
isn’t just a question of time or expense. In my opinion, a menu can be ruined if
there are too many bold flavors on the plate competing for attention. For everyday
cooking, when we are all racing against the clock, it is important to have a
repertoire of simple, flavorful side dishes. Along with the actual formula for each
recipe, I’ve added appropriate tips to guide you to success every time. But when
you need a showstopper for a company meal (say, a caramelized onion tarte Tatin
or a luxurious butternut squash and leek gratin), you’ll find them here, too.
My main goal with The Big Book of Sides is to make the book useful for everyone,
whether you are an experienced cook or a beginner. After the title and yield
amount, every recipe has basic information to help you decide, at a glance, if this
is the one for a specific dish or occasion.
Serve with: This lists the most common main courses that you might want
to serve with this side dish. I’ve matched these according to my experience.
Prep Time: I have estimated the time needed to prepare the ingredients with
average kitchen skills. If you are quick with a knife, you will spend less time
getting the ingredients ready. I have also included other timing estimates,
such as rising times for dough, refrigeration, or marinating.
Cooking Time: In this section, I have added up the minutes required to
cook the dish, and rounded them up to the nearest increment of five to allow
some leeway. Because of variables (starting with cooking skill levels, which
include how fast you can chop an onion or mince herbs), prep and cooking
times are never accurate to the minute, and are only provided as an “at-a-
glance” general aid.
Make Ahead: Especially when preparing a large menu for entertaining,
make-ahead suggestions can be helpful. If the dish or some components can
be made ahead, it states so under this heading. More detailed instructions
can be found in the recipe. If a recipe is not complicated and best when
served right after making, I do not provide the make-ahead tip. That doesn’t
mean you can’t warm up the leftovers for another meal.
Categories: I have designated a wide range of occasions and cooking styles
that, in my opinion, apply to the recipe.
Weeknight Suppers: An uncomplicated side dish that usually takes a
relatively short time to prepare and cook for a busy weeknight.
Family Favorite: Food that is guaranteed to be a hit with kids.
Holiday Feasts: Recipes that are specific to holidays, including summer
cookouts.
Company Fare: These side dishes are sure to impress dinner guests, and
usually require a bit more time and effort.
Buffet Dish: Recipes for a buffet menu (taking into consideration if they are
easy to serve and eat without a knife), or “covered dishes” that are easy to
transport to potlucks and the like.
Retro Recipe: Nostalgic side dish recipes that may be part of the American
culinary experience, even if they include a can of condensed soup.
Cooking Classic: An essential recipe that should be in every cook’s
repertoire.
Vegetarian: These are meatless sides, some of which are hearty enough to
serve as main courses. For a complete list of the vegetarian dishes that can
double as sides and main courses. There are gluten-free and vegan options
within this category, but I do not list them separately.
So, whether you are planning a holiday meal for a crowd, or you need to fill out
the menu for a weeknight supper from a lone bag of carrots in the refrigerator,
you will never be stumped for a side dish again.
Rick Rodgers
GETTING IT TO THE TABLE
Cooking Methods
The most obvious way to vary your side dishes begins with the choice of
ingredients. But choosing one cooking technique over another will also change
things up. For example, roasting will add sweet, caramelized notes, while steaming
retains the food’s natural characteristics, and braising creates an interchange of
flavors between the food and the cooking liquid. Most of these techniques refer to
vegetables because they are the stars of the side dish menu.
Cooking methods are separated into two large categories: moist heat and dry
heat. Moist-heat methods (boiling, simmering, blanching, steaming, braising, and
pan-roasting) require liquids, including water and steam, to cook the food. Dry-
heat methods (sautéing, stir-frying, roasting, baking, grilling, and deep-frying) do
not use water as their cooking element, and the heat source does the work.
Moist-Heat Cooking Methods Boiling, Simmering, and Blanching
Boiling cooks the food in strongly bubbling hot water (with a
temperature of 212°F at sea level, although you won’t need a
thermometer!). This technique does a relatively fast job of
softening tough vegetables, so it is one of the most common
methods for root vegetables, corn, and the like, and boiling also
does a great job of brightening the food’s color. Its main
drawback is that nutrients can be leached into the cooking water.
Simmering uses water heated to a slightly lower temperature than boiling to
create smaller bubbles for a more delicate cooking method for tender ingredients.
Blanching is a technique that partially cooks the food by boiling it briefly, and
then finishes the cooking later with a second method, usually sautéing.
To cook by boiling, simmering, or blanching, fill a large saucepan or pot from
one-half to two-thirds full with cold water. (The jury is out on whether you can use
hot tap water to save time, because some experts believe that old hot-water pipes