X

Side Dishes

A Summer Salad from Paris

Several years ago Cory Van Horn sent me this photo along with an e-mail saying “I made your ‘Summer Salad from Paris’. . . . This recipe is delicious! I loved how all the flavors scream summer.” You can find more of his work at www.culinarycory.com. Janis Adler is my…

More


Grilled Radicchio Salad

I’m not a big fan of radicchio – it’s very bitter. Grill it, though, and you’re talking about a different animal entirely, something mellow and almost sweet. Topped with a little balsamic vinegar, grilled radicchio makes a wonderful warm salad. Serves 4 Ingredients 1/4 c. pine nuts, optional 2 heads…

More


Easy Fresh Cranberry Sauce

1/2 cup water 1/2 cup fresh orange, tangerine, or clementine juice 3/4 to 1 cup sugar or to taste 12-ounce bag fresh or frozen cranberries (3 cups) 1 teaspoon freshly grated orange rind Bring water, orange juice, and sugar to a boil, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Add cranberries and…

More


Chinese Fried Eggplant with Pine Nuts

This recipe was featured in a travel story on Taipei written by Fred Ferretti and published by Gourmet in January 1993. Served at a hotel called the Imperial Palace, this dish was tested and fine-tuned by Fred’s wife, Eileen Yin-Fei Lo, one of my favorite cookbook authors and Chinese cooking…

More


Warm Cabbage with Bacon and Gorgonzola

This is a wonderful wintertime side dish and a great way to glorify the humble cabbage. It would go well with lean grilled sausages (lean because this is a relatively heavy side dish), pork chops, or my Blasted Chicken (Sara Moulton Cooks at Home, page 66) 6 thick slices bacon,…

More


Quick Sautéed Shredded Brussels Sprouts with Pancetta and Balsamic Vinegar

  Photo by Jessica Leibowitz When I first started doing “Cooking Live” in 1996, Sue Fenniger and Mary Sue Milliken were co-hosting the Food Network’s “Two Hot Tamales.” I had been a fan of these talented chefs ever since I ate at one of their restaurants in the late eighties,…

More


Southern Braised Mustard Greens with Ham

These are good old-fashioned mustard greens, cooked slow and low with a ham hock. It is a great make-ahead dish for a crowd, and it nicely rounds out a buffet. You can make the same recipe using kale or collard greens or mix up all three. Me, I prefer the…

More


Southwestern Sweet Potato Sauté

Discovering the grating disk on my food processor many years ago was a eureka moment for me—ten minutes later I was grating and then sautéing every vegetable I could put my hands on. Talk about convenient! Baking a whole sweet potato takes about an hour, but sautéing the grated potato…

More


Creamed Spinach with Crispy Shallots

Creamed spinach was one of those special-occasion side dishes my mom served up as kids. Although she usually worked with frozen spinach, which is fine, it’s even better using fresh spinach. The richest and most luxurious way to make this recipe is with—surprise—heavy cream. But because I like a lot…

More


Mom’s Brushed Eggplant

Growing up, we ate our fair share of frozen vegetables: corn, peas, French green beans with toasted almonds (fancy!), the dreaded limas, etc. But every so often my mom would step out and experiment with fresh vegetables. She made a mean vinaigrette, and we always kept a jar of this…

More


Ruthie’s Summer Camp Zucchini

When my daughter Ruthie was six, she started attending “summer camp,” which was actually extended day care based out of the house of a teacher she’d come to know and love. There were only four kids in the camp and they did all sorts of fun things. Of course I…

More


Mexican-style Street Corn

Grilled corn slathered with mayo and coated in grated cheese is a well-loved staple of Mexican street fare. Several years ago Gourmet magazine ran a recipe for this tradition using shredded cotija, a crumbly aged-cured Mexican cheese. At the time, it occurred to me that it might be a hit…

More


Cream Biscuits

This is a recipe I developed while working in the Gourmet magazine test kitchen. It is so easy and versatile that I use it as the basis for any biscuit-related recipe I make. See Apricot Scones (p 302) and Biscuit Sticky Buns (p 303) in Sara Moulton Cooks at Home,…

More


Sauerkraut with Caraway Seeds

Two 14 1/2 ounce cans sauerkraut, drained 1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar 1/3 cup cider vinegar 2 tablespoons caraway seeds 2 tablespoons unsalted butter 3 medium onions, finely chopped Serves 8 to 12 Combine the sauerkraut in a large saucepan with the sugar, vinegar, caraway seeds, and 2 cups…

More


Provençal Tomatoes

Nothing beats fresh tomatoes in season. Usually I just slice them, salt them, drain them, and eat them straight up with avocado and basil and a drizzle of olive oil. (My sister-in-law Janis introduced me to this perfect lunch one summer vacation.) But even perfection gets boring after a while,…

More


Couscous Tabbouleh

Here’s a wonderfully refreshing summer salad that can take the place of potato salad or pasta salad at a backyard barbecue. The classic tabbouleh, a Middle Eastern salad is made with bulgur (cracked wheat) not couscous. But I prefer this version, which is based on a recipe developed many years…

More


Spring Spaetzle

Soon after I started making spaetzle as a side dish at home on a regular basis, it occurred to me that you could dress up and sauce this German pasta much as you would any other fresh pasta—an inspiration that automatically promoted spaetzle from a side dish to an entrée.…

More


Shredded Root Vegetable Latkes

Here is my latest recipe for latkes from Sara Moulton’s Everyday Family Dinners. Sometimes in the fall I buy a bunch of root vegetables for a particular recipe and fail to use them all up.  Suddenly there’s a lone parsnip or turnip hanging out in my vegetable drawer.  How to…

More


Creamy Baked Polenta

I have recently been getting a lot of requests for this recipe from Sara’s Secrets for Weeknight Meals. The cornmeal mush known as polenta, one of the national dishes of Italy, emerged in its original form as the field ration of the Roman soldier. Although pulmentum was made of millet…

More


Butter-steamed Broccoli with Soy

One of the first restaurants I worked in was Cybele’s in Boston’s Faneuil Hall. We were on a very tight budget, so instead of making 1 or 2 special vegetables for each dish we would serve a one size fits all starch and vegetable and plop them on every plate.…

More


Homemade Pan Gravy

I always get lots of questions about making gravy, so I thought no matter what meat or poultry you are cooking, this recipe would come in handy when you head for the kitchen. I recommend making 1/2 cup gravy per person. You need that much gravy to pour over everything, and…

More


Fried Green Tomatoes with Ranch Dressing and Yellow Cherry Tomato Salad

Tomato lovers, it doesn’t get much better than this. In this easy summer time recipe from Sara Moulton Cooks at Home you start with a base of breaded and fried green tomato slices, top it off with a little salad of cherry tomatoes, and spoon on some homemade ranch dressing. Done. Just…

More


“Good Morning America” Breads

Hope you had a chance to see me make bread on Good Morning America. Bread baking is one of America’s original do-it-yourself projects and you’ll be surprised to find out how easy it is with my no-fuss recipes.  The rewards are double; you will save money and have a delicious loaf…

More


"Good Morning America" Breads

Hope you had a chance to see me make bread on Good Morning America. Bread baking is one of America’s original do-it-yourself projects and you’ll be surprised to find out how easy it is with my no-fuss recipes.  The rewards are double; you will save money and have a delicious loaf…

More