Side Dish All Stars

As November trickles away, I’ve been spending time looking through my notebooks, pictures of holiday meals past and flipping through food magazines. I’ve been in charge of planning and cooking the holiday meals for the past several years, and even though the menu doesn’t change too much, I still enjoy the process of it. Mostly. The guest list nowadays is much smaller than it was while I was growing up, but since we often have a revolving door of folks who join us for whatever reason, I like to make sure I’m flexible with a roster of side dishes that I can pull from. I love turkey, but I know for many, holiday dinners are all about the sides.

In the weeks leading up to the holidays, I try to make some dinners that include one or two holiday sides as a dry run. I like to make sure I’ve got everything I need, and the rehearsal gets me in the mindset that I need when I have to multitask making a ton of things at once.

I had purchased a frozen, pre-cooked pork belly from Trader Joe’s months ago and I thought that this would pair perfectly with two of my favorite holiday sides - Bryant Terry’s Slow Cooked Collard Greens from his cookbook, Vegetable Kingdom, and a simplified version of Chef Resha’s Garlic and Leek Creme Fraiche Mashed Potatoes. A very cozy style dinner, right?

Two hefty bunches of collard greens got washed, stripped of their ribs and chopped up - J thankfully lent a hand for this task.

Next, I chopped a whole mess of shallots. I’ve done this recipe with a combo of shallot and yellow onion, and all yellow onion and it still comes out great. You can’t leave out the chopped garlic and ginger, though. The recipe calls for two ingredients I never use: coconut sugar and Bragg’s Liquid Aminos - two common ingredients in vegan cooking. I swapped them out for turbinado sugar (aka cane sugar, raw sugar) which I always have for topping baked goods, and low sodium soy sauce. Easy!

I cooked down the shallots in olive oil, and then quickly sweated the ginger, garlic, and some salt together to bloom and release those flavors. A few tablespoons of tomato paste got toasted and caramelized until it was dark, but I was careful to not let it burn. Best way to monitor this is by smelling the air and paying attention to the color. As soon as it turned into a dark brick color, I added veggie broth (I love Better than Bouillon) and the greens, stirring to make sure everything is mixed well. I didn’t get pictures of those steps because it all moves pretty fast! After the greens came to a simmer, I covered it and put the burner on low - you get to forget about it for an hour, which is great for the holidays because you can set a timer and move onto other tasks.

My go-to recipe for fancy mashed potatoes is from Chef Resha, a great private chef and recipe developer I found on IG a while back. They’re loaded with creme fraiche, herb butter infused half and half, and leeks - so good and such a treat for the holidays! But for non-holiday meals, I make a scaled down version with whatever dairy and herbs I have in the fridge, lots of fresh garlic and dried ramps.

I chopped up the herbs (today it was a mix of fresh sage and thyme) and the garlic and let them toast and infuse in a stick of unsalted butter for about fifteen to twenty minutes.

I did this at the same time as I was boiling the potatoes (I used 4 medium sized Yukon Golds). Low heat is key! The kitchen smelled so cozy and rich. Then, I added some dairy - I used about a cup of heavy cream and let that come to simmer until it steamed. I took some of the woodier pieces of herbs out but left all the softened garlic pieces. I let the mixture cool a bit - dairy burns are the worst. I used an immersion blender (or you can use a regular blender!) and blended the mixture until it was nice and creamy and seasoned it liberally with salt and white pepper until it tasted right.

I drained my potatoes, mashed them up a bit, slowly added the cream, and then mashed them again. I’m really glad that I don’t live alone, because I probably would have just eaten the mashed potatoes.

The pork belly looked pretty gnarly before I browned it, and to be honest, it looked pretty gnarly afterward, too. When J sliced into it, it looked pallid and flabby. Thankfully, he took on the task of searing the slices so they would get nice and crispy, so I could make a quick gravy with some fat I had leftover in the back of the fridge (a combo of super flavorful duck and turkey fat from last year’s turkey - don’t judge me!).

When the greens became silky and tender, I added a few tablespoons of apple cider vinegar which woke up the flavor and a little more salt and pepper - but they didn't need much. It’s pretty incredible how flavorful Terry’s recipe for greens is with such simple ingredients.

Here’s the final plate:

In the end, even though the pork belly wasn't all that I expected it to be, my favorite sides more than made up for it. Oh, and NEVER forget to make some gravy - even if you completely fuck up your Thanksgiving dinner, almost everything can be saved with gravy.