Side Dishes

Swiss chard, a member of the beet family, is cultivated for its extremely nutritious leaves rather than its bulbous root. The many varieties of chard are often distinguished by the color of the stem. All are delicious and especially nice when a mix of colors are represented in a pan of sauteed chard. You’ll find names such as “bright lights” or “rainbow” on bunches of chard in the market. Once home, soak them in a bowl of water; the leaves can be quite sandy and need more than a simple dunk.

There are a few versions of spinach gratin in Provence (there it is called a tian). This one is all about spinach – no eggs or cheese, just spinach and lots of garlic, a bit of flour to absorb moisture and hold everything together, and bread crumbs to make the top nice and crisp.

My curry guru, Raghavan Iyer, author of “660 Curries,” describes paneer, the firm Indian cheese, as “fresh, firm and chewy” and “not unlike a block of extra-firm tofu,” and says you can substitute tofu for it in a pinch. I’ve taken him at his word and used tofu instead of cheese in this classic Indian dish.

For our pan-roasted asparagus recipe, we wanted a simple stovetop cooking method that would deliver crisp, evenly browned spears without the fuss of having to rotate each spear individually. Along with the oil and asparagus, we added just a little butter to the skillet and covered the pan so that the water evaporating from the butter began steaming the asparagus, providing enough additional moisture to finish cooking the spears to a bright green, crisp-tender stage.

Look for nutritional yeast at health food stores and some grocery stores. It’s adds a cheesy and nutty flavor to many dishes. It’s optional in this recipe. To make your own bread crumbs, tear firm, fresh bread into pieces and whirl in a food processor or blender until crumbs form.

Cutting the carrots in our recipe into identically sized batons gave us evenly cooked results with the best browning. Precooking the carrots right on the baking sheet kept their moisture in and minimized withering. We buttered and seasoned the carrots, tightly covered the baking sheet with aluminum foil, and cooked them in a very hot oven. When the carrots were tender, we slid the uncovered baking sheet back into the oven and roasted them until the moisture had burned off and the roasted carrots took on nut-brown caramelized streaks.  

Our recipe for Braised Brussels Sprouts with Bacon and Pecans combines the assertive flavor of the vegetable with smoky bacon and bittersweet pecans. We braised the Brussels sprouts until just tender by partially covering them with broth, then simmering them until they were easily pierced with a knife. Smoky bacon, sweet pecans, aromatic shallots, and garlic were the perfect complements to the braised Brussels sprouts. 

In search of a green bean recipe that would breathe life into out-of-season vegetables, we discovered that roasting in a 450-degree oven with only a handful of ingredients transformed aged specimens into deeply caramelized, full-flavored beans. 

At the beginning of the semester, this was one of the things I made when my housemates and I sat down for dinner together. The Brussels sprouts at the market looked particularly appealing that day, and we had some bread sitting around. Panzanella is a traditional Italian dish made with stale bread, tomatoes, and olive oil. This version, made with Aleppo pepper (a fruity, not-too-too-spicy chili from Syria) can work as a vegetarian main course.