By TARA PARKER-POPE
Laura Morton for The New York Times
Alice Waters
In many Thanksgiving side dishes, it can be tough to recognize the original vegetable. Can you find green beans in that casserole buried under the mushroom soup and crispy onions? Would you like a little sweet potato with your brown sugar and marshmallows?
Chef Alice Waters, who promotes cooking with seasonal, local foods, notes that the real flavors of some favorite Thanksgiving foods get lost in the cooking. “I never liked brussels sprouts and squash — usually overcooked, often with too much cream or butter,” she notes.
This year, as part of the Eat Well Vegetarian Thanksgiving series, Ms. Waters offers recipes for preparing squash, brussels sprouts and chard so that “they taste as they are.” The brussels sprouts recipe is a new dish, while the other two are taken from Ms. Waters’s cookbook “The Art of Simple Food.”
“Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday,” she said. “I always spend it with friends, and vegetarian or not, everyone feels comfortable at the table. I always think less is more and prefer simple side dishes.”
Roasted Butternut Squash
1 small butternut squash, cut into 1/4-inch slices
Salt
Extra-virgin olive oil
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place squash on a baking sheet, sprinkle with salt, drizzle with oil and toss well, spreading pieces of squash on the sheet in a single layer.
2. Bake in oven for 1 1/2 hours, until soft and nicely browned and caramelized.
Brussels Sprouts With Ginger and Mustard Seeds
5 tablespoons light olive oil
1 pound brussels sprouts, trimmed until all leaves are torn off
Salt
2 tablespoons chopped ginger
2 tablespoons mustard seeds
1 teaspoon hot red pepper
1 lime
1. Heat sauté pan over high heat. Add oil and brussels sprout leaves, and season with salt.
2. Toss and brown until tender. Add ginger, mustard seeds and hot red pepper. Toss and cook for a minute more. Simmer until completely tender, 1 to 3 minutes.
3. Add the juice of half a lime. Taste and adjust salt and lime. Serve.
Chard With Parmesan
1 bunch of chard
3 tablespoons butter
1 handful freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1. Pull the leaves from the ribs of one or more bunches of chard. Discard the ribs (or save them for another dish) and wash the leaves.
2. Cook leaves until tender in abundant salted boiling water, 4 minutes or so. Drain the leaves, cool, squeeze out most of their excess water, and chop coarse.
3. For every bunch of chard, melt 3 tablespoons butter in a heavy pan over heat. Add the chopped chard and salt to taste. Heat through, and for each bunch of chard stir in a generous handful of freshly grated Parmesan cheese. Remove from heat and serve.
source: nytimes.com
In many Thanksgiving side dishes, it can be tough to recognize the original vegetable. Can you find green beans in that casserole buried under the mushroom soup and crispy onions? Would you like a little sweet potato with your brown sugar and marshmallows?
