Pleasing everyone at the table

With a few simple variations, staple dishes can be transformed for different palates.

By FAYE LEVY, YAKIR LEVY
Honey-glazed carrots (photo credit: YAKIR LEVY)
Honey-glazed carrots
(photo credit: YAKIR LEVY)
Most people would say you can’t please everyone, but in her new book, Dinner Solved!, Katie Workman attempts to do just that. On the book’s cover it says that it has “100 ingenious recipes that make the whole family happy – including you.”
That includes picky eaters, vegetarians and those who don’t like spices.
The key to doing this is what Workman calls The Fork in the Road concept: “At some point in its preparation, a dish can be divided with part of it going one way, part of it going another way, so that everyone ends up happy and eating basically the same thing.”
Workman’s menu at her presentation at Melissa’s Produce illustrated her principle. For an appetizer, there were deviled eggs served four ways: simply sprinkled with smoked paprika; topped with avocado; smoked meat and avocado; or with goat cheese, chives and pepper dice.
One of the most popular dishes was the kale and quinoa salad with dried cherries and fresh herbs (see recipe).
Workman commented that if your children prefer simpler food, you could leave part of the quinoa plain and flavor it only with a little olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper. However, don’t assume that just because a dish is new, children won’t like it, she said. They might surprise you. Even if they don’t want to eat a dish, Workman recommends serving it again without being pushy about it, and mentioned that many nutritionists believe that children need to try a new food about eight to 10 times before they’ll consider it something they like.
If both vegetarians and meat-eaters will be at dinner, Workman might make an Asian-inspired entree, such as lo mein, a noodle dish. To satisfy both, she divides a mixture of pasta and sautéed colorful vegetables with garlic between two skillets, adds cooked chicken cubes to one of them and finishes both versions with a sauce flavored with sherry, soy sauce and sesame oil (see recipe).
She uses a similar method to make a Thai stir-fry, adding sautéed chicken to half the stir-fried vegetables and sautéed tofu to the rest and finishing both with garlic, sliced basil leaves, jalapeño and a simple sauce.
Workman’s formula works with desserts too. Suppose you’d like to make rice pudding with sweet potatoes, raisins and cinnamon, but some in your family prefer their rice pudding white and flavored only with vanilla. Just add cooked sweet potato and the other flavorings to part of the pudding mixture (see recipe), and everyone will be happy.
Faye Levy is the author of the award-winning book, Classic Cooking Techniques.
KALE AND QUINOA SALAD WITH DRIED CHERRIES
Katie Workman noted that this brightly flavored, “seriously nutritious” whole grain salad can be a vegetarian entree, or you can make it into a heartier main course for meat eaters by adding grilled chicken.
“Try to find smaller, tender kale,” she wrote, “since the kale isn’t really cooked, just wilted from the heat of the quinoa.”
You can use spinach instead of kale, and dried cranberries or chopped dried apricots instead of cherries. You can also add chopped olives or shredded or crumbled cheese.
Serves 6 to 8 as a side dish, 3 to 4 as a main course
■ ½ tsp. coarse salt, plus more to taste
■ 1 cup quinoa
■ 1½ cups fresh parsley leaves
■ ¾ cup fresh mint leaves
■ 3 green onions, white and light green parts, cut into 2.5-cm (1-inch) pieces
■ 4 cups tender, small kale, torn and stemmed
■ 1 Tbsp. freshly squeezed lemon juice
■ 2 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil, or more to taste
■ Freshly ground black pepper to taste
■ 1 cup dried cherries
Bring 2 cups water to a boil in a small pot over high heat. Add the salt and stir in the quinoa. Bring to a simmer, reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, covered, until all of water is absorbed, 15 minutes.
To serve this as plain quinoa, see Note below.
Meanwhile, place parsley, mint and green onions in food processor or blender and process until finely chopped. Add kale and pulse until kale is roughly chopped. Transfer mixture to a large serving bowl.
When quinoa is cooked (it will yield about 3 cups), add it to bowl of greens and stir to combine. Drizzle lemon juice and olive oil over it, season with salt and pepper, and toss. Let cool to room temperature. Mix in dried cherries and serve.
Note: To serve some of mixture as plain quinoa, before adding the quinoa to the greens, spoon out some of the plain quinoa, drizzle it with olive oil and sprinkle with lemon juice, salt and pepper. Finish rest of quinoa with the chopped greens and other ingredients of recipe.
HONEY-GLAZED CARROTS
“When you need a little sweetness, when you need a little color on a plate, here’s a no-need-to-think side dish that will make everyone happy,” wrote Workman. You can serve the carrots either lightly glazed and sweetened, or enhanced with soy sauce and orange zest following the variation. If you have leftovers, you can puree them and heat the mixture for a side dish later in the week.
■ 1 Tbsp. canola or vegetable oil
■ 900 gr. (2 pounds) carrots, cut into 2.5-cm (1-inch) pieces
■ 1 cup chicken or vegetable broth, preferably low-sodium, or water
■ ¹⁄3 cup honey
■ 2 Tbsp. red wine vinegar
■ Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
■ 2 Tbsp. unsalted butter or margarine (optional)
Choose a large skillet that has a lid.
Heat oil in the skillet over medium-high heat. Add carrots and cook, stirring occasionally until they just start to brown in spots, 3 minutes.
Add broth, honey and vinegar, and season with salt and pepper. Bring broth to a boil, cover and reduce heat to medium-low. Simmer until carrots are crisp-tender, 10 minutes. Uncover and cook over medium-high heat until carrots are tender and liquid is syrupy, about 7 minutes more. At the end, the carrots should be tender, well glazed, with barely any extra liquid. Stir in butter until melted, check seasonings, and serve hot or warm.
Variation: Honey-orange-soy glazed carrots: Add 1 tablespoon soy sauce with the broth and honey; do not add salt at this point. Add 1 teaspoon finely grated orange zest along with the butter, and at this point taste for salt.
VEGETABLE OR CHICKEN LO MEIN
For this dish, “use whatever vegetables you have around,” wrote Workman.
She recommends broccoli florets, diced kohlrabi, mushrooms and spinach.
“It’s not a make-ahead dish, per se,” she wrote, “but I have heated up leftovers that were stored covered in the fridge up to 4 days later to much happiness.
You can heat the lo mein on the stove over medium heat, or in the microwave.”
Serves 8
■ Coarse salt to taste
■ 450 gr. (1 pound) thin spaghetti
■ 1½ cups vegetable broth, preferably low-sodium
■ ¼ cup dry sherry
■ 2 Tbsp. soy sauce
■ 1 Tbsp. cornstarch
■ 1 tsp. sesame oil
■ 1 tsp. sugar
■ Freshly ground black pepper to taste
■ 2 Tbsp. canola or vegetable oil
■ 2 Tbsp. minced garlic
■ ½ cup thinly sliced celery
■ 1 cup thinly sliced carrots
■ 1 sweet red pepper, stemmed, seeded, thinly sliced, and cut into 2.5-cm (1-inch) pieces
■ 2 cups fresh sugar snap or snow peas
■ 2 cups shredded Chinese cabbage
■ 1 cup fresh bean sprouts (optional)
■ ½ cup drained canned bamboo shoots (optional)
Bring a large pot of water to a boil.
Salt the water generously and add the pasta. Return to a boil and cook according to package directions, stopping 2 minutes or so before pasta is fully cooked. Drain and set aside.
Meanwhile, combine broth, sherry, soy sauce, cornstarch, sesame oil, sugar and black pepper in a small bowl or container. Set sauce aside.
To add chicken, see Note below.
Heat oil in a large skillet or wok over high heat. Add garlic, celery, carrots, sweet pepper and sugar snap peas and cook until everything becomes crisp-tender, 3 minutes.
Mix in pasta and cabbage. Cook, stirring occasionally, until everything is combined and hot and cabbage is a bit wilted, 2 minutes.
Add sauce and toss until noodles are cooked and absorb most of the sauce, and the rest of the sauce is slightly thickened, another 2 minutes or so. Stir in bean sprouts and bamboo shoots.
Note: Chicken Lo Mein: Before cooking the vegetables, cook 450 grams (1 pound) boneless chicken breasts or thighs, diced or cubed, in 1 tablespoon vegetable oil in a skillet until most of the pink is gone. Add the chicken to the pan when you add the sauce, and allow it to finish cooking in the sauce.
(You can make the sauce with chicken broth instead of vegetable broth.)
To make the lo mein half vegetarian and half with meat, make the sauce using vegetable broth. After the cabbage has wilted, transfer half the mixture to another skillet. Then add the partially cooked chicken to one of the pans, divide the sauce between the two pans and continue cooking, dividing remaining ingredients between the two pans.
SWEET POTATO-CINNAMON RICE PUDDING
In some areas of the US, especially the South, “sweet potatoes make regular appearances at the end of the meal... but to many of us it’s a surprise to see them in dessert form,” wrote Workman.
For rice-pudding purists who find that even cinnamon “distracts from the perfect simpleness of plain rice pudding,” she keeps part of the rice pudding mixture white.
Serves 4 to 6
■ 5 to 5½ cups milk, preferably whole milk or reduced fat
■ ¾ cup rice, preferably Arborio or other short grain white rice, although long grain is fine
■ ²⁄3 cup sugar
■ ½ tsp. coarse salt
■ 1 large sweet potato, peeled and cubed (optional)
■ 1 large egg yolk, at room temperature
■ 1½ tsp. pure vanilla extract
■ ½ tsp. ground cinnamon (optional)
■ 1 cup raisins (optional)
Place 5 cups milk, the rice, sugar and salt in a large heavy saucepan and heat over medium-high heat, stirring frequently, until tiny bubbles begin to appear around edges of milk. Gently simmer uncovered over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until rice is tender and milk is mostly absorbed, about 30 minutes. Stir frequently toward the end.
Meanwhile, place sweet potato in a small saucepan with water to cover and bring to simmer over medium-high heat.
Cover and simmer over medium-low heat until sweet potato is tender, about 20 minutes. Drain and puree sweet potato in a food processor or blender with remaining ½ cup milk. Set aside.
Whisk egg yolk with vanilla and ground cinnamon in small bowl. Add ½ cup of warm rice mixture to egg mixture and quickly whisk to combine, then stir egg-rice mixture back into pot of warm rice, stirring constantly until well blended.
Stir in sweet potato, if using.
Simmer pudding over medium-low heat, stirring frequently, until mixture is thick and rice is tender, about 5 minutes more. Stir in raisins, if desired, during last few minutes of cooking.
Transfer to large or individual serving bowls and serve warm, at room temperature, or chilled.
Note: If you want half plain pudding and half sweet potato, use ½ of a sweet potato and ¼ cup milk for the puree.
After adding the egg mixture to the rice pudding, pour half of the pudding into another small pot. Add sweet potato puree to one of the pots and proceed with the recipe, simmering both pots for 5 minutes.