Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street Television

- So let's be honest.

American home cooks for well over a century and a half have massacred vegetable side dishes.

It's a form of homicide.

So let's figure out some better ways to handle vegetables.

So first of all, we'll do sweet potato casserole.

We'll take some inspiration from the French.

They make something called a tian, which is the name of the casserole dish; very thin slices of winter squash, hazelnuts, and butter-- absolutely delicious.

Cauliflower is the worst vegetable I ever had, other than okra in my childhood.

We're gonna oven roast it, make it crispy, and add to it a nice tahini yogurt sauce.

And finally, carrots.

Again, I had nothing but overcooked carrots until I was about ten.

We're gonna use a little bit of Moroccan inspiration and use a little bit of cumin and lemon and honey-- so please stay tuned as we take a fresh look, and hopefully a better look, at vegetable side dishes.

- Funding for this series was provided by the following: - I cannot stand sweet potato casserole.

It's one of the few things in the world I really, really detest; long story going way back to my childhood.

But I do really like that element of a touch of sweet, a touch of sort of bitterness from a little bit of charring.

So this butternut squash dish does all of that in a really sophisticated, very simple way.

When I'm preparing butternut squash, the first thing I'm gonna do is cut off the top and bottom end, and then I'm gonna peel it.

And you want to make sure your peeler is sharp, so I'm just gonna push it down into the counter.

The kitchen towel keeps it from sliding around.

Just take these beautiful pieces off.

Make sure I'm getting all of it.

Discard that peel.

Now, if you look at a squash, it's sort of two very different shapes.

We have a tidy cylinder, and then we have that bulb end.

I'm gonna cut that in half right at that bulb section.

Gonna use a little force there to get through.

I'm gonna stand it on its end, and I'm gonna cut that section in half.

And I can cut that in half, too.

So now we've reduced that squash down to these really, really geometric shapes.

And then we have to deal with all those seeds in that cavity.

So I'm gonna grab my bowl here, And you want to use a sharp edge spoon, and it comes right out.

And you do want to make sure to get all the seeds and guts out.

So now we have our pieces of squash that are now very flat, they're gonna be very stable.

They're not gonna slide around our work surface.

And we're gonna cut these into eighth-inch thick slices.

We're gonna hold it tight.

We're gonna use our fingernails and our fingers to sort of wrap around and anchor it.

And then we have that sort of safety guard right there.

And that's gonna help gauge how thick each slice is gonna be.

If they're too thick, they're not gonna cook evenly.

So we do want to make sure they're as even as possible.

This looks like a ton of squash, right?

This is about a two, two and a half pound butternut squash.

How are we gonna fit it into this baking dish?

Well, we're gonna squeeze it in, we're gonna shingle everything out like fallen dominoes and we will get them all in there.

We can start at the edges and then we will work our way in.

We put about a tablespoon of softened butter in this dish and that will help hold the outer layers up the pie plate.

If you don't have a pie plate, or if you have a nice serving dish that is about eight to nine inches across, it'll work beautifully.

As you put the slices in, do think about how it's gonna look once it bakes down.

So I do try and be as tidy as I can.

We've just about gotten all those pieces in.

Now comes the tasty bit.

We're gonna make this flavored butter.

So we have four tablespoons of melted salted butter.

The salted butter is important because we're only adding a quarter-teaspoon of kosher salt and a quarter-teaspoon black pepper.

If you are using unsalted butter, I would probably double that salt because it's a lot of squash in there.

We have two tablespoons of sherry vinegar, and then we've got one and a half tablespoons honey.

Then we have two teaspoons of chopped fresh thyme.

And then finally, my favorite ingredient perhaps of all time, Aleppo pepper, works beautifully with the flavor of the squash.

That's about three-quarter teaspoon.

Now we're gonna drizzle half of this mix over our squash before it goes in the oven.

And that should be about it.

Now we're gonna wrap it.

We've wrapped up the squash tight.

We're gonna cook it in a 450-degree oven until we can poke through that squash with a skewer with very little resistance.

At that point, we're gonna pull off the foil and roast it for another 20 minutes or so until it's beginning to brown.

So our tian is in for about 20 minutes to help dry it out and start the browning process.

And we're gonna finish off our topping here.

So remember, we use that butter mixture to moisten the squash as it roasts and add some flavor.

And we're gonna add about a quarter-cup of chopped hazelnuts.

Now, a lot of times you can find hazelnuts blanched with the skins already removed.

If you can't, you can only find raw hazelnuts, then you need to toast them to remove those skin.

When you're toasting hazelnuts, do it in the oven about 325 degrees.

Takes about ten, 15 minutes, and you'll have beautifully toasted hazelnuts.

Let them cool.

And what happens is that nut sort of contracts a bit from the skin, and that skin gets very dry and papery.

And then you can either wrap them in a towel and just rub them back and forth, and it loosens the skin right off.

Or sometimes I'll even just rub them back and forth with my hands, and the skins come right off.

And when I'm cutting nuts, I'm gonna use my hand to sort of corral those.

And we're just gonna cut down.

And I'm always gonna use that middle finger to protect my fingertips.

So we're gonna go ahead and really mix those hazelnuts well into the butter and honey mixture.

Okay, it's been 20 minutes.

Let's go ahead.

And we're gonna pull our squash out.

Oh, it's beautiful.

So we roasted it for 40 minutes covered, to really soften that squash.

Then we pulled the foil.

We've cooked it for another 20 minutes, and now we're gonna dress it with this mixture.

So sprinkle it evenly.

Get it down into those layers.

So we're gonna slide this back into the oven for another ten, 15 minutes until everything is really browned.

The nuts are starting to crisp, and we're getting sort of this browned, maybe even a little bit charred and a little bit bitter that really helps balance all that sweet flavor.

And there we go.

It's a beautiful thing.

To me, this is the perfect replacement for that marshmallow-covered sweet potato casserole.

I'm gonna say it; this is what I want, not that.

So I'm gonna jump in here and grab a big bite for myself.

And you get those beautiful, beautiful layers.

It's really good.

Everything ties together.

It's not sticky sweet, there's a lot of dimension to it.

You have the vinegar, that little bit of chili.

It's not spicy.

It's just enough ping.

Just enough zip to cut through the sweetness of that squash.

This blows that sweet potato casserole out of the water.

- It's the holidays.

We all want something snappy and bright and green on the table, so we often make green beans; the problem is, very often those snappy, bright green dreams become soggy, army green disappointments.

But we have a template that will allow you to choose the green vegetable of your choice and make good on those dreams.

Make them come true with a beautifully-charred, but still snappy, crisp texture.

So, I'm gonna make green beans today, but it could be asparagus, brussels sprouts, broccoli.

Choose your green vegetable of choice.

Regardless of your green vegetable, you start with about a tablespoon of olive oil in a 12-inch skillet; you can also use a cast iron.

And you want to heat this up until the oil's really hot.

So just smoking.

While the oil's heating up, let's talk about how you can make this fit your menu.

So later in this episode, Chris is gonna make a Moroccan glazed carrot dish.

It has cumin seeds in it.

Keeping one flavor that acts as sort of a through line across a menu can really elevate your holidays.

So in this instance, I'm using the cumin to match Chris's carrots.

But if you really like fennel, or it's an herb, it's the parsley or the sage.

Thinking about having it pop up more than once throughout the menu will make it feel really coordinated and special, at this very special time of the year.

I'm just beginning to see a little bit of smoke, so I'm gonna go ahead and add my green beans.

(sizzling) Nice sizzle.

And I'm gonna make a little hole in the middle and add in two teaspoons of cumin seeds and let them toast a little before I toss everything up.

Also, not stirring ensures that the part of the green bean that's touching the pan will develop some char.

I can smell my cumin.

Give these a stir.

The char, to me, makes me think about surface area.

So if I were to choose something like a Brussels sprout, I'd want to cut it so that I had a nice flat surface.

That will develop good char.

And then later, we'll cook it through with the steaming.

Same with broccoli; I wouldn't want perfect little florets.

I'd want to sort of cut through the florets so that I have a flat surface.

Okay, I see a tiny bit of char starting to develop.

I'm gonna get the cumin seeds moving around and then try and layer them out more or less in a single layer to develop a deeper char on this next side.

And then we'll move on to the next step and we're done.

What's great is you can see that even though I am developing char on my green beans, my spices aren't burning.

That's because I'm stirring enough.

But also the liquid from the green beans is keeping the pan cool enough to protect the spices, which burn so quickly, but hot enough to char the green beans, which are less sensitive.

All right, so I see a nice speckle of char throughout.

They're still too firm, right?

They're still al dente.

See, look at this nice.

Nice char here.

We're gonna turn our pot down a little, and all you do is put in three tablespoons to a quarter-cup of water.

And put a lid on.

Many of us are familiar with two-step cooking, from grilling or making a steak.

Vegetables can also benefit from two types of cooking.

We have dry heat for the char, and wet heat to make sure we cook them all the way through to that nice, crisp, snappy texture.

So these are bright green, and I'm going to remove the lid.

I can see that they're softer and I'm just gonna let the water cook off while they finish cooking.

But you can see how vibrant they are.

This is nothing like those army-green green beans of casserole fame.

As the water cooks off, remember we started with olive oil.

That olive oil is gonna cling to every green bean with the cumin and make a lovely sauce with the lemon juice we're gonna add at the end.

So I like to dress the parsley right in the pan so that it gets evenly distributed.

I leave a little out for garnish.

If you're using cast iron, you don't want to put the lemon juice straight into the pan.

Put it in a bowl; citrus is another way that you can customize this to your table.

You can use lime, lemon, any citrus.

These are gorgeous.

And they're still snappy.

I'm gonna taste one for texture.

Not a mushy green bean in sight.

Tiny, tiny bit al dente, but perfectly cooked through, so they're sweet.

Beautiful char, the lemon and the cumin.

I just want Chris's glazed carrots next to them.

And don't waste all this delicious stuff in the pan.

Get a spatula.

And a nice final sprinkle of parsley.

So our sear and steam technique really is the cook's best friend.

at the holidays.

The vegetables are great at room temperature, they're great hot, they don't take up any oven space, but best of all, they provide that crisp, fresh crunch that you want next to all the rich and beautiful dishes you're also serving at the holidays.

- There's a Lebanese fried cauliflower dish called arnabit mekle that we love the texture of.

Crispy on the outside, creamy on the inside.

Now this texture is generally accomplished by deep frying the cauliflower in a pot of oil.

But there can be some real pitfalls with deep frying cauliflower such as if the florets are not of uniform size, if the oil temperature isn't kept at a steady place, not to mention the large amount of oil needed to fill a pot.

Any of these can lead to soggy, disappointing florets.

So here at Milk Street, with a little bit of pantry science, we have found we can get great results by cooking the cauliflower in a hot oven.

Now, cornstarch is generally thought of as just a thickener, but it has a lot of different uses as a starch.

Now, of the two main starch molecules in cornstarch, it's the amylose that's giving us the magic that we're looking for today.

Amylose is really fantastic at absorbing excess moisture.

Less moisture on the surface promotes extra caramelization and deep browning.

And here at Milk Street, we're also known for bringing a lot of flavor.

So the first thing we're going to do with this cornstarch is add a spice blend to it.

We have cumin and coriander.

We also have some curry powder and of course we have some salt and pepper as well.

And this is ready to go for when we need it.

And now we will focus on the cauliflower.

First thing we'll do is get rid of these leaves here, which is also part of the stalk.

Then we'll cut right down and cut the base of that stalk off.

Flat side down, cut it straight in half, right down the middle.

So let's talk about the size of the florets.

You want them somewhat uniform, about one-inch in width.

You also want to have a good bit of flat surface area.

Take the knife and just cut right down the edge of the core there and pull away the florets.

Now then break them apart.

Larger is better, because if you have, like, a two-inch wide floret, you can cut it in half and then you get a nice, flat surface out of that two-inch big piece.

And as we cut these, we'll just add them to our bowl.

Now we have our nice bowl of cut cauliflower.

We have here about a half a cup of oil.

You want a neutral oil such as canola oil or grapeseed oil.

You want to encourage the oil to seep down inside those branches in between the florets.

Then we will sprinkle over the cornstarch mixture.

Remember, this has all the flavor, the spices in it, the salt and pepper, the oil is absorbing the cornstarch, and the spices is creating a coating now.

Now it's almost like a really thick batter on the florets.

And this is what you want.

The oven is already preheated to 475 degrees.

You want it nice, hot and ready to go before you coat the cauliflower.

Just pour this out.

No oil or anything is needed because it's all on the cauliflower already.

Spread it out.

Place them so that the flat surfaces are facing down on the pan.

The flatter the surface, the more browning you're going to get.

And that's what we want to start happening right away.

Now, they'll go into the 475-degree oven for about 15 minutes.

At that point, the underside will be nicely browned.

Then we'll flip them over, give them another 15 or 20 minutes, and that's it, they're done.

The nice thing about doing it this way, as well is that the entire batch of cauliflower is done in one go, which is what makes it ideal for a holiday meal.

See you in 15.

Been 15 minutes.

Now let's flip these over.

Oh, that's nice.

They've just started to brown on the bottom.

This is what we want.

These go back into the hot oven for about 15 to 20 minutes until they have finished browning.

And during that time, we'll make our tahini yogurt sauce.

You know, that cauliflower is delicious just as it is.

There's a lot of flavor in the coating we put on it, but a sauce with it just kind of takes it over the top.

And this tahini yogurt sauce is really fantastic.

Okay, so we have about a cup of yogurt here, and to that we will add a little bit of tahini, a little lemon juice.

A pinch of salt.

Stir that together.

That's nice.

Then we have one clove of garlic that will grate right into the bowl.

And finally, this is fresh mint.

Chop the mint once everything else is mixed together, and then stir it right in.

And that'll help keep the color bright and fresh green.

I'll just straighten up here.

It's almost time to check on the cauliflower, and then we'll be ready to put all this together.

It's actually sizzling on the sheet tray.

Oh, that is beautiful.

There we go.

Now, for a holiday meal, you would obviously put all of this onto a really nice platter, take it right to the table, but right now I'm just going to taste some for myself.

Just dollop a little sauce on the side.

If tahini yogurt isn't the type of sauce you like, you could always go with a really nice mango chutney, prepared or homemade, either way.

Or a mayonnaise aioli or really any kind of sauce you like.

And a little bit of sliced scallion adds a really nice crunch.

And some sliced lemon wedges give just that little hit of acid at the very end.

First, I'm going to taste one plain.

I heard the crunch when my fork went in.

Mm.

Just like promised.

Crunchy on the outside, creamy on the inside, it's not soggy, it's not fatty.

It's just right.

Now that you know the surprise science of cornstarch, cauliflower is just one vegetable you could do this with: carrots, parsnips, broccoli, cubes of butternut squash.

Potatoes are fabulous like this.

So whether it's the holidays or just a weekday family meal, this is a fabulous technique to use for roasted vegetables when you're looking for a little bit of crunch and an extra creamy center.

- I've got a couple of ideas to up your game when it comes to the mashed potato side dish for your holidays this year.

So I'll start with our recipe for milk-simmered mashed potatoes.

This is the easiest and most delicious mashed potato you'll ever try.

So it starts with cubed up Yukon gold potatoes and milk.

That's it-- bring this to a simmer.

This is a great place to add garlic.

By the time the potatoes are done, the garlic will also be super soft that you can mash it up right with the potato.

These are fresh bay leaves.

You can put one or two into the milk.

Potatoes and bay are match made in heaven.

So now we have bay and garlic mashed potatoes with no effort whatsoever.

So once these come to a boil, just turn the heat down, keep cooking, stir them pretty often because milk can scorch on the pan and cook until the potatoes are falling apart.

That takes about 30 or 40 minutes.

Once they're cooked down, I'll just remove that bay leaf, season them with a little salt.

I like white pepper in mashed potatoes because then you don't have all those little specks in there.

Mash away.

That garlic clove is nice and soft.

That will mash up in there and flavor these potatoes beautifully.

Second way to really dress up a very humble dish are mashed potatoes topped with a tarka.

Tarka, of course, is a technique in which we bloom spices or heat spices in fat.

In my case, it's mashed potatoes, it's the holidays, we're going for butter.

Just put about four tablespoons of butter into a skillet and get that melted.

And then at this point, sky's the limit.

You can use any kind of dried spice you like.

I happen to love mustard seeds and caraway together.

So I'll melt the butter.

I'll sprinkle some of the mustard seeds and caraway in there and cook them just until they begin to pop and become very aromatic.

So once those mustard seeds start to pop in that hot butter, I will shut off the heat.

Now, I also like to add one more touch here, and that's a little Aleppo pepper.

You find it a lot in Turkish dishes.

This will give it a beautiful flavor, but will also color our tarka mildly.

It'll be beautiful poured over our mashed potatoes.

So there you go, you don't have to settle for boring old mashed potatoes.

You can elevate it to something very, very special for your holiday table.

- So today we're not doing a recipe so much as we're doing an idea; sort of a master recipe.

You know, traveling around the world, people often treat their vegetables very simply.

I was in Emilia-Romagna a couple years ago and they had some asparagus and they threw it over a wood fire on a grill.

Little salt, that was about it.

It was delicious.

The problem is when people treat vegetables simply in other countries, they're often dealing with vegetables that actually have a lot of flavor.

So we're going to start with supermarket carrots, which sometimes have some flavor, but they're not super flavorful.

We're going to do something I call braise and glaze.

And you can use this with lots of vegetables.

You start in a skillet and you actually cook with a fair amount of water.

Then you take the top off when the vegetable is close to being done and you let that water evaporate.

And what's left in the pan, you have some spices, some sugar, honey, glazes the root vegetable, great flavor at the end.

Easy way to cook it.

One pan, simple.

So we have a couple pounds of carrots and we're gonna cut them like this so we have angles, more surface area.

So in terms of buying carrots, for a while, I thought if I bought them with the tops on, that means they were better-- they weren't.

I do stay away from the big thick ones.

They don't have as much flavor.

So I would just buy medium-sized carrots.

That seems to be the best bet.

So, skillet, so what are we gonna put in the skillet?

We're gonna start with some olive oil, few tablespoons, not particularly well measured, about three tablespoons.

Get the heat on here.

A little honey, a little sweetness is good, 'cause it helps glaze later on when we take the top off.

Cumin ground.

And we're using some garlic now and towards the end we'll use a little bit more, little pepper.

So we're gonna cook that down just for a minute or two to get it started.

This is also much faster than roasting.

If you did carrots in the oven, it would be 40 or 45 minutes.

This takes about ten or 12 minutes total.

So we're just going to get the garlic slightly browned.

You start to smell, obviously, the cumin.

So now in go the carrots.

And a cup and a quarter of water.

A little salt.

Bring that up to a nice simmer.

And we're going to simmer this just until it's tender; eight minutes, eight to ten minutes.

Okay, so these should be tender now, but we want to get rid of the excess moisture, so we're going to add the other bit of garlic, like clove and a half.

And we're just going to cook this for a couple minutes until we get a nice glaze.

Start to hear a little sizzle.

You know, cooking-- I've said this a million times-- but cooking is also about the ears.

I know that when I'm doing a sofrito, like onion or peppers or whatever, I can tell by just listening if they're cooking at the right rate.

You know, you're getting that loud noise, it's too hot.

If it's a little quiet, it's too low.

Okay, I think we've got rid of all that excess water.

We got a nice glaze.

It's nice and shiny.

We're going to take the power off.

Then I'm going to add a little lemon juice, a little chilies.

So let that sit about ten minutes and we'll finish it off with some parsley and we'll be done.

You can toss the parsley with the carrots if you like.

I don't like to do that.

I like it on top because it looks nicer.

The only other thing I know about cooking is (chuckling): put oil on it before you serve it because it always makes everything better.

If you have a little coarse sea salt or something like that, it's also nice just at the end.

I just put a little sprinkle on the top.

So this looks great, it only took about 15 minutes.

Adds a ton of flavor.

And my kids will look at that and go like, what's all that green stuff on top?

Hold the Parsley for my six-year-old.

So if you want to take this and turn this into sort of a Julia Child master recipe, here's the formula.

Two pounds of carrots or root vegetables, cup and a quarter water, little sweetener, braise and glaze.

Really simple way to take something from the supermarket and ramp up the flavor in about 15 minutes.

So if you want to get this recipe, Moroccan spice glazed carrots, and all the recipes from this season of Milk Street, just go to MilkStreetTV.com.

Recipes and episodes from this season of Milk Street are available at MilkStreetTV.com, along with shopping lists, printer-ready recipes, and step-by-step videos.

Access our content anytime to change the way you cook.

- The new Milk Street Cookbook is now available and includes every recipe from our TV show.

From Vietnamese chicken salad and tiramisu to easy-stretch pizza dough and Austrian apple strudel, the new Milk Street Cookbook offers bolder, fresher, simpler recipes.

Order your copy of the Milk Street Cookbook for $29.95, 40% less than the cover price.

Call 855-MILK-177 or order online.

- Funding for this series was provided by the following.