Side

This recipe was adapted from one I found in the Jackson, Mississippi, Junior League cookbook, Come on In! We have served them at Bayona forever, and they go fast. The sweet potato gives these rolls a beautiful color and rich, moist texture.

German for “little sparrow,” spaetzle are tiny dumplings that make a delicious side dish to any number of meats. A former sous chef enriched the traditional recipe and came up with this delicious variation that we typically serve alongside medallions of venison. Creole cream cheese is the secret ingredient here. It has a tart flavor and a texture as rich and thick as mascarpone. It was traditionally eaten as a spoon food, almost like yogurt, topped with sugar or fruit. It was almost lost until the Slow Food movement came along, and people became more interested in artisanal food products. These days it is produced locally and sold at the farmer’s market. My favorite variety is made by the Mauthe family (see Sources, p. 384) at their hormone-free dairy north of Lake Pontchartrain.

The first time I passed through London—long before I started cooking—I figured out that some of the best food was to be found in the ubiquitous Indian restaurants. Fortunately for my traveler’s budget, it was also the cheapest! One of my favorite discoveries was an onion bhaji, a cluster of fried onion slices bound with a spicy, aromatic batter. The flavors stayed in my memory for a long time, and after much research, I came up with this recipe. The batter is made from high-protein chickpea flour (also called besan or gram flour at Indian markets), which gives it a rich flavor. At Bayona we serve bhajis with seared scallops and carrot-cardamom sauce, but they are awfully good by themselves for snacking, with a drizzle of cilantro-spiked yogurt or your favorite chutney.

My strongest memories of Thanksgiving are the mingling smells of chopped parsley, melted butter, and chicken broth going into the stuffing, and the sounds of cheering and yelling as we all watched the Army-Navy football game. At Bayona we always serve two different stuffings with our roast turkey. One is my mom’s simple bread stuffing, and the other is loaded with local flavors like shrimp (or crayfish) and andouille. I still like my mom’s the best. I call for both stuffings to be baked in casseroles, but you can also follow your favorite method for baking them inside a bird.

As almost any southerner will confirm, you can’t underestimate the allure of a warm, moist spoon bread. Sometimes the desire for it is downright urgent. Take my first recollection of the dish: when I was five years old, I invited one of my girlfriends to spend the night, and she woke up in the middle of the night wailing for spoon bread. My parents ended up having to take her home, as she would not be consoled. I can relate to the craving. When Hurricane Katrina forced us to evacuate to Jackson, I had the good sense to throw a pork roast in a cooler. Our first night in exile, we had dinner with our in-laws, and my mom made her spoon bread—served with the pork roast, it was a nice taste of home. My mom’s recipe, the one I grew up on (but never demanded at the home of my friends), is simple and delicious. At Bayona we couldn’t resist jazzing up her version to go alongside our grilled double-cut pork chops—a match made in heaven!

I created this soufflé for a magazine article about Thanksgiving in New Orleans. I wanted a side dish that was seasonal and distinctly southern—and this filled the bill. Imagine how nice it would look on your table in your prettiest casserole or soufflé dish. This soufflé dresses up a simple roast chicken or pork loin. But I’d encourage you to try it with Roasted Duckling with Orange-Cane Syrup Sauce (p. 262).

Plain ole dirty rice is a good thing. Add the earthy, nutty taste and toothsome texture of wild rice, and you have something even better.

Can you tell I love rice? I can’t say which one of these recipes I prefer—the spicy, tomatoey red rice or the poblano and herb flavors in the green rice variation. They are both full of flavor and complement countless dishes. Serve either one with Jalapeño-roast Pork (p. 269), and your favorite spicy black beans or grilled fish, chicken, or shrimp.

Basmati wins my vote for the best all-around rice because it is easy to cook, incredibly fragrant, and complements so many different dishes. Best of all, it’s so rich in flavor that it needs little enhancement. Before I discovered basmati I used to love to eat butter with my rice. This pilaf is definitely delicious enough to eat on its own, but I especially like it with a sprinkling of chopped scallions. (What can I say—I’m a Crescent City girl.)

This is one of my favorite dishes for entertaining. The tender roasted eggplant sheets are used like cannelloni pasta and rolled around the savory cheese filling. The sweet roasted tomatoes add just enough acidity. If you are short on time, fresh tomatoes marinated in oil and vinegar are a great alternative. If you want to get fancy, secure each bundle with a blanched chive for a beautiful presentation.

Preparing fresh artichokes takes some effort, but it’s worth it because they are so delicious. In The French Laundry Cookbook Thomas Keller says that cleaning artichokes is one of his favorite things to do. I’m just the opposite. When I started out at Louis XVI, I had to clean two cases a day. My fingers were perpetually dried out and stained a nasty tobacco brown, and they didn’t want to come clean, no matter how much lemon I rubbed on them. I still clean the occasional case myself, and cuss under my breath the whole time. So, if you’re not put off by this introduction, read on to learn how to clean, cook, and stuff your way to happiness.

This is a tasty little combination that can be used on top of or alongside any Asian-inspired meat or fish entrée or mixed with shrimp or crabmeat to make a light and tangy starter. I love it with tuna, brushed with a little hoisin sauce, or with medallions of pork tenderloin.

We first developed this recipe as a side for a vegetarian dish we were serving at Bayona. We wanted to create the traditional smoky pork flavor of southern greens without using pork. That’s when we thought about smoking the onions. The smokiness imparts a tremendously satisfying and “meaty” flavor, but if you want to prepare this dish in the real southern way, don’t hesitate to throw some bacon, ham, or salt pork in the pot. Also, we tend to cook ours a little drier (mainly for presentation, so it plates up neater), so if you want more pot liquor, add more water early on.

If you’re going to buy and chop up all the vegetables for this salad, you might as well make a big batch that will last you a few days. This colorful, incredibly satisfying combination keeps well and makes for a terrific side dish to just about anything you care to sauté, fry, or grill. And because this salad feeds a crowd, it’s perfect for picnics and backyard barbecues.

Years ago I drove through France with English friends on our way down to Provence. We were trying to decide where to stop for the night and couldn’t agree, so we kept passing by pretty country inns until finally it was dark, options were limited, and we were all tired and cranky. We agreed to stay at the very next place we came to that offered rooms, which turned out to be a rather dismal box of a building with very little charm. Just our luck! We went in and asked the woman who greeted us if we could possibly have a meal as well as a room. She told us to take a fifteen-minute walk, and then she would be ready. We stumbled around in the dark, hungry, weary, and not expecting much. When we returned to the house, we were greeted by a lovely platter of crudités, a country terrine with mustard and cornichons, sautéed river trout with lemon, and cauliflower that had been browned in butter. Needless to say, we were lucky after all! I’m sure there was dessert too, but the thing I dreamed about long after was the cauliflower. This preparation is still one of my favorite things to eat.

Sweet, sticky, and full of flavor, glazed carrots and turnips are the perfect complement to roast meat of any kind, although lamb comes to my mind first. This dish is also a good way to show off a favorite fancy honey, but even the plainest squeezie-bear type works well.

My mother always served this dish with roast pork, or sometimes goose, and tiny boiled potatoes. I have served it with our Seared Duck Breasts with Pepper Jelly Glaze (p. 264) for a long time, and I never get tired of it. It’s easy to prepare, and yet, to please Alice, my mother, it must be “just so.”

Though we have a cabinet-style smoker at the restaurant, you can do the same thing at home with a domed barbecue grill or smoker. Get your chips going, then fill the drip pan with ice. Lay the veggies out on the grill, close the cover, and let it smoke. The smaller vegetables like mushrooms need less time. Check them periodically and take them off when they look and smell ready.

This recipe will not be for everyone—gland lovers only! Chef Daniel taught me how to prepare sweetbreads many years ago (his technique follows), and I have been serving them ever since. Of all the offals, it is the most appealing to me, because of its mild flavor and creamy texture. This particular preparation is my mom’s favorite dish, so it will never go off the menu. One of the most challenging parts of preparing sweetbreads is finding a place to buy them. You will probably have to special order them from your market’s meat department, but once you have them, then the real fun begins! For those intrepid cooks who dare to tackle this rather involved recipe at home, read on….