Rocket Beans - Soaring into the Side Dish Stratosphere

Over the last few years, Arugula has gone from rare and exotic, to common and mainstream. Bags of baby arugula line almost every lettuce case in the country, and it appears on restaurant menus with such frequency one could make the case it's over-used.

Another, infinitely cooler, name for arugula is Rocket. My sources deep within the European foodie subculture report that this is the term most commonly used. That's where this lovely, and extremely easy bean side dish gets its name.

While rocket is a wonderful green for salads, I really enjoy using it as an herb in hot dishes like this one. The secret is a very, very brief cooking so it keeps its fresh spicy flavor, and bright color.

This makes a great side dish for so many main courses, and in the video you'll see it next to a maple-brined pork loin that I'll be airing soon. By the way, don't let the bacon fat in this recipe scare you. Believe me, it's way more afraid of you than you are of it. Enjoy!



4 strips bacon, sliced
1 tbsp olive oil
salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste
15 oz jar or can butter beans, drained and rinsed
3 cloves garlic, minced
large handful arugula, chopped
1/2 lemon, juiced

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Waiting for the Recovery with Oven-Fried Onion Rings

There are many theories floating around these days about what signs will accurately indicate a turn-around in the economy; things like housing starts, interest rates, and commodity futures. But, I'm going with the O.R.C.I., the onion ring consumption index.

My theory has it that the higher the frequency of onion rings ordered, the better the economy is doing - and more importantly, the better people are feeling. You just don't order onion rings any old time, mainly because they're a side dish you have to pay extra for. You have to take a moment for some self-negotiation before ordering onion rings.In those few seconds of contemplation, much is revealed. Can you afford it? Does your current mood and situation warrant this crisp indulgence? Onion rings are also ordered when good things have happened; you order them after you get a raise, after a hole-in-one, after a new high bowling score. Happy people spend more money.

I will continue to monitor the national O.R.C.I. for you, and will be sure to let you know when these tough times are over, but until then here's a video recipe for making onion rings at home.

I don't really deep-fry at home, and neither do most people, so when I find a recipe that does a reasonably good job at producing something close, I jump on it quick. This onion recipe is easy, low-fat, and if you use the recommended Panko breadcrumbs, produces a light and crisp onion ring. Enjoy!



Ingredients:
2 egg whites
2 tbsp milk
pinch of cayenne
1 yellow onion, sliced, separated into 1/2-in thick rings
1/2 cup flour, seasoned w/ salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste
3 to 4 cups Panko, Japanese-style breadcrumbs
vegetable oil spray

View the complete recipe

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Side Dish Stagnation? Spicy Tomato Rice to the Rescue!

This short and fascinating video recipe for spicy tomato rice will hopefully add a very nice, all-purpose side dish to your repertoire. Believe it or not, Chefs have a much tougher time coming up with starchy side dishes for meals than they do with the main items. Is this an issue for you as well?

This is probably due to the fact that new recipes for main courses seem almost infinite. At last count there were 2,769,241 ways to cook a chicken. By the way, while I typed that last sentence, 793 new ways to cook chicken were just invented.

Side dishes are another story. I do about five or six variations on mashed potatoes and that's it. Seems you can only do so many things to make it interesting before you run out of ideas. Kind of like Survivor. So, don't underestimate the importance of adding a new side dish to your arsenal.

This Spanish rice-inspired spicy tomato rice recipe is super easy to make, and is always a crowd-pleaser. When was the last time you had Spanish rice? The last time you went to Spain? That time you went to that Mexican place for that thing with those guys? If you can't recall, then it's time to watch this video and get busy. Enjoy!




Ingredients:
1 tbsp of butter
2 cups of white, long-grain rice
1/3 cup diced jalapenos
1/3 cup diced green onions
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 tsp chili powder or paprika
1/2 tsp chipotle and/or cayenne
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/4 cups chicken stock
1/2 cup of tomato sauce


Do you have a rice cooking phobia? You're not alone! You may want to watch my How to Make Perfect White Rice video recipe.




* Please help support free video recipes, and visit my new sponsor, MOZO Shoes. Find out why chefs (like me) are buzzing about their great shoes!

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Pecan and Apricot Sourdough Bread Stuffing - All Stuffings are Dressings, but All Dressings aren't Stuffings

Sorry about that S.A.T. flashback. It's not easy to post dressing recipes this time of year, because of the annoying fact that they have two names - dressing and stuffing. They're the same recipe, except stuffing gets cooked in the turkey, and dressing bakes in a casserole dish separately.

I fear that if I call it a Pecan and Apricot Stuffing, then someone searching for a delicious dressing recipe won't find it, and visa versa. I tend to go with stuffing since dressing is also something we put on salads, and that adds another level of confusion. Thus concludes my stuffing and/or dressing rant.

By the way, I'm going to repost this video recipe in July and remind you that dressing/stuffing is a great and easy side dish, and there is no reason to only eat it at holiday meals. Think of all the stale bread that goes in the trash in an average year. I estimate it to be about 570 pounds per person (this is just a guess and could be a little off). Enjoy…and not just at Thanksgiving!

*Please help support free video recipes, and visit my new sponsor, MOZO Shoes. Find out why chefs (like me) are buzzing about their great shoes!



Ingredients:
1 loaf (1 pound) sourdough bread
1/2 stick (1/4 cup) butter
1 cup diced onions
1 cup diced celery
2 cups chicken broth
1 teaspoon rubbed sage
1 teaspoon herb de provence (or other dry herb blend)
4 oz dried apricots, diced
1 cup toasted pecan halves, chopped
1 egg, beaten
salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste

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Cauliflower Thursday!!

There were a couple comments on the Beef Merlot recipe about using cauliflower, instead of potatoes, for a side dish. I remembered doing a mashed cauliflower video recipe a while ago, so I thought I would post it. When I went to grab it, I realized that it was actually mashed with potatoes, but it's better than nothing, so here you go.

I've also posted my other cauliflower video recipes below. If you want to read the original post, click on the link provided. Warning, some are really old, and were filmed/ edited with my original equipment. Enjoy!

Potato and Cauliflower Mash [read post]



Atlantic City-Style Butter Roasted Cauliflower [read post]




Cream of Cauliflower with Fried Oysters and Chervil [read post]



Cauliflower Spaghetti “Aglio Olio” [read post]



Photo (c) Flickr user Sophiea

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Roasted Golden Beet and Arugula Salad with Pecans and Goat Cheese – This One's for the Haters

No, I don't love beets. Who does? In fact, I used to hate them. For most of us, hearing the words, "beet salad" brings memories of canned, pickled beets sitting untouched on our school lunch trays. This roasted beet and arugula salad tastes as good as it looks, which is pretty damn good, if I do say so myself. Sorry there is no video (yet), but I wanted to share this recipe ASAP. I may film it the next time I make it, which will probably be very soon.

This is a just a great, healthy, spring salad. The real secret is roasting the beets, which intensifies the sweet, earthy flavors. Another trick is using these beautiful golden beets which will not remind you of those "other" beets from years past. This salad is hearty enough to serve as a main course, but also works perfectly as a side dish. Enjoy!

Click here to go to the written recipe on my American Foods site.

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Green Bean and Blue Cheese Gratin - Don't Even Try to Count the Calories

The holidays are when we get to do things we deny ourselves the rest of the year. We give and get gifts we can't afford. We get drunk and tell relatives and friends what we really think of them. And, we eat things so rich, decadent, and delicious that we would never think of making other times of the year. Here's one of those I recently produced for About.com.

This amazingly delicious Green Bean and Blue Cheese Gratin video recipe is such a great combination of flavors. I had this dish at a restaurant in San Francisco called Bruno's and it was love at first bite. Green bean gratins and casseroles are nothing new around the holidays, but the addition of the tangy blue cheese makes for a very memorable side dish. Sure it's rich and loaded with butter-fat, but who cares? Did you hear what Aunt Edna just said about you!? Enjoy.
Click here for the transcript and ingredients.

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Exotically Delicious 5-Spice Carrots - And, Gratuitous Gong Sound Effects!

I've had a lot of requests lately for easy, but different, vegetable side dishes. So, today's video recipe is an extremely easy, yet unusual, carrot side dish using one of my favorite "secret" ingredients; Chinese 5-spice. This spice mix was invented literally thousands of years ago, and is suppose to season food in perfect balance with the five elementary flavors of Chinese cuisine (and all cuisines for that matter); sweet, sour, bitter, salty and savory.

The most common blend is equal parts ground cinnamon, star anise, fennel, cloves, and pepper. Some versions also use ground ginger and other spices. In fact, as you'll see (and hear…warning: gratuitous sound effects ahead) in the video clip when I looked at my 5-spice bottle's ingredient list I got 7 spices! It had the usual five, but I also got ginger and licorice. I actually could have called it 8-spice, but I only counted the two peppers as one ingredient in the clip. Seven is my lucky number, so that's what I went with.

To me, roasted carrots are so far superior in flavor and texture to the usual boiled or steamed versions. The dry roasting intensifies the sugars and when combined with the Chinese 5, 7, or 8 spice mix, the results are quite delicious. This is the perfect holiday veggie side dish. If you watched the Cider-braised brisket video recipe, you saw these luscious carrots surrounding the bowl. Enjoy!

Ingredients:
6-8 large carrots
2 tbl vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon Chinese 5-spice
salt to taste

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Sweet Corn, Shiitake Mushroom and Arugula Sauté – Why does it taste like truffles?

Before I get into this recipe, and how it came to be, we have to talk about a somewhat shocking ingredient choice I made. Yes, in the middle of summer, I filmed an amazingly delicious sweet corn recipe…and used frozen corn! I already had the shiitake mushrooms and arugula for this dish, and was just about to go out and get some delicious fresh, just picked, sweet corn at the local produce market when I made the mistake of opening the freezer.

There it was, a bag a sweet corn. It had been in there for a while, so I was sure it was freezer-burned and I would just chuck it out and go. Unfortunately, I checked it and it was fine. Damn. I thought I better taste it; it’s probably not sweet. It was really sweet. Damn. So I decided to be a good, frugal Chef and use it for this recipe. The good news for you is this was so delicious with frozen corn, I can only imagine how incredible it’s going to be with freshly shucked corn!

I had this combo as a side vegetable recently and found it a very interesting combination of flavors. The earthy mushrooms, sweet corn, and slightly bitter Arugula mixed wonderfully together. In fact, as I enjoyed it with some grilled chicken, I kept smelling and tasting truffles. There was something about these three ingredients that combined to produce a truffle like flavor profile. Maybe my molecular gastronomy friends can explain why this was.

I realize that shiitake and truffles are both fungi, but it was more than that. In any case, it was really good, and I’m sure you are going to enjoy this simple and tasty vegetable dish. You vegetarians can add vegetable stock instead of chicken of course. On the other end of the spectrum, you omnivores may want to think about starting this with a little bit of bacon, before adding the mushrooms. Either way, enjoy!



Ingredients:
2 cups fresh corn
2 cups sliced fresh shiitake mushrooms
large handful of arugula
1 clove garlic
1 cup chicken or vegetable stock
1 tbl olive oil
1/2 tsp butter
salt and pepper to taste

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Lime and Chipotle Glazed Sweet Potatoes – Wham, Bam, it’s not a Yam??

OK, let’s clear up a bit of culinary confusion. In the produce department of your local grocery store, they sell both sweet potatoes and yams. The fact is they are all actually sweet potatoes. Some varieties of sweet potatoes, like Beauregard and Garnet, are often marketed as “yams.” So, in the clip when I say that you can use sweet potatoes or yams, what I’m really saying is you can use any variety of sweet potato available for this recipe. True yams are native to Africa and Asia and are rarely, if ever, seen in our markets.

This simple roasted sweet potato video recipe is a perfect side dish to all those great, grilled classics you’ll be cooking up this summer. I’m sure you already know how much better for you the good old sweet potato is than the regular russet. Not only are they much higher in fiber, complex carbohydrates, protein and vitamins, but they also taste good. It’s a win win. I hope you’ve got your silicon baking mat ready, as it makes this recipe a snap as you’ll see in the video. Of course, you can really spice these up with a bit more Chipotle than I used, but the tablespoon I put in gives it just the right kick, plus that wonderful, slightly smoky flavor. By the way, the lime Chipotle mixture we create to start the dish is actually an example of a Citronette, which we explored in another recipe clip. If you haven’t seen that one, I’ve linked it in so you can check it out. Enjoy!



Ingredients:
3 sweet potatoes
1 large juicy lime
1 tbl Chipotle chili powder
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp olive oil
*Note: we baked for 30 min at 375F, then tossed in the remaining lime mixture, and then finished at 450F for another 10-15 minutes until tender and nicely glazed.

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Three Corn Polenta – An old Italian classic gets “freshened-up”

In today’s clip I'm going to use corn in three different ways. I’m going to use it dried and ground, which of course is the Polenta part. I’m also going to use fresh corn, but cooked two different ways. Part of the fresh corn will be sautéed and cooked into the polenta, and the remainder will be added at the last minute so it stays relatively crisp and fresh tasting. Now, if all this sounds too complicated, as you’ll see from the clip, it’s actually an extremely simple dish. The final result may remind some of you of creamed corn, but this is significantly lower in fat and calories, as it has only a small amount of butter and no cream, flour, etc. The “creaminess” comes from the properly cooked polenta and plain old water.

When I first began my career as a cook in San Francisco, polenta wasn’t a common starch in non-Italian restaurants, as it is today. I remember talking with a Chef about an upcoming menu on which he was thinking of using polenta as the side dish. I asked him what exactly polenta was and he told me an Italian ground corn meal. I asked him if he was talking about “Polanda.” He said no, and that he had never heard of polanda. I told him it was also an Italian ground corn meal that I had eaten many times growing up. I remember calling my Mom and telling her we were going to serve something called polenta at the restaurant. I asked her if she had ever heard of this similar sounding dish. She laughed and said that they were the same things! She explained that “pol-an-da” was just our family’s mispronunciation of the actual name polenta. I was pretty embarrassed to say the least. Come to find out, my family had mispronounced and/or Americanized many Italian terms (mostly curse words), which I won’t go into now, but needless to say, from that point on, I’ve always checked! Enjoy!



Ingredients:
1/2 cup polenta
2 1/2 cups water
salt and pepper to taste
2 tsp butter
1 tsp olive oil
3 ears fresh corn (about 1 1/2 cups)

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Stuffed Summer Squash with Goat Cheese and Romesco – Our least terrible test yet!

Well, the new microphone is hooked up and I think the sound is better. The intros and endings of these test clips still need a lot of work, and I just realized that I need to go out and pick up a digital camera for the still shots. Other than that, I think I’m starting to figure this new stuff out.

This has always been one of my favorite summer side-veggie dishes. Any summer squash you can cut in half will work. Anyone that has, or knows someone that has, a vegetable garden really needs to try this dish! I mean, what the hell are you going to do with all those squash? The completely irregular green starburst squash you see in this video were not the best choice to do a demo with since they are hard to slice in half evenly, but hey, if it works with these, it will work with any squash as I said.

The deep, rich flavor of the romesco mingling with the sweet blandness of the squash combined with the creamy tang of the warm goat cheese makes this dish a summer classic. Don’t serve too hot! This dish shines best served warm or at room temp. If you’ve never tried romesco, this is the dish to taste it in. It’s a medium-spicy, “pesto-like” sauce made from roasted red peppers, garlic, almonds, anchovy and other spices. We use it a lot in summer, as it is the perfect instant sauce for any grilled meat, fish or vegetables. One of these days I’ll show you how to make your own romesco, but for now you should be able find it at most high-end grocery stores. If you can’t find or make it, any flavorful sauce will work; salsa, roasted red pepper relish, olive tapenade, etc. Enjoy!



Ingredients:
3 small summer squash
6 tbl goat cheese
3 tbl romesco sauce
3 tbl olive oil
2 tbl plain bread crumbs
salt and pepper to taste

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