美国国家公共电台 NPR At Thanksgiving, If You Take Sides, Make Sure They're As Tasty As These

At Thanksgiving, If You Take Sides, Make Sure They're As Tasty As These

play pause stop mute unmute max volume 00:0006:48repeat repeat off Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser 1 to a recent version or update your Flash plugin. STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: 

Just before Thanksgiving, we walked into a restaurant in Washington, D.C. We met the owner, Mike Isabella, in sight of the hunks of meat turning on the kitchen rotisseries.

MIKE ISABELLA: We do lamb. We do goat. We do pig. We do chickens.

INSKEEP: I just want to describe - I realized that I can feel the heat coming off of these - what'd you call them?

ISABELLA: Spits.

INSKEEP: Spits over here - there's an entire bird on that one.

ISABELLA: Yeah, that's the turkey. We're actually doing turkeys for Thanksgiving. We - people order them - pre-order them, and then they come pick them up on Thanksgiving Day. It's been a huge hit. My guys hang out here overnight and cook them all night.

INSKEEP: The restaurant is called Kapnos, and it's 1 of 9 that Mike Isabella runs. We came to the restaurant seeking help with something more than the turkey. We wanted pointers on Thanksgiving side dishes. You know, you can just eat cranberry 2 sauce out of the can and green beans with bacon bits, but Isabella says you can stretch a bit more.

ISABELLA: Yeah. Yeah, there's - you know, I mean, a lot of people are stuck in their classic ways of doing certain classic dishes. And I took a couple of dishes and kind of - kind of recreated them as something that I would do - you know, something that chefs would do in the kitchen but also easy to make at home. So you have some similar flavor profiles, but it's also a different dish.

INSKEEP: It's a chance to be a little creative without killing 3 yourself. Mike Isabella made a couple of dishes before we arrived, one of which updates a dish that he ate growing up.

And what have we got here - this red thing? It looks like cranberry sauce.

ISABELLA: So it looks like a cranberry sauce. So basically, you know, another dish that people talked about was ambrosia 4. You know, I grew up in New Jersey 5, so we saw that a lot.

INSKEEP: Ambrosia is a bowl of pinkish goo, typically featuring yogurt, whipped topping, mandarin 6 oranges, even Jell-O. In Mike Isabella's hands, it completely changes to a cranberry dish. Cook your cranberries 7 with sugar, oranges, cinnamon stick and rosemary, then cool it all in a long, rectangular dish.

ISABELLA: And you can see how it's nice and gelatinous.

INSKEEP: It's like a loaf of cranberry, actually.

ISABELLA: Yeah, yeah. And then, basically, you just - you just slice it, you know, so you have that nice texture 8 of ambrosia. And instead of using heavy cream with this, I put on top of it a little bit of a Greek yogurt with a little bit of orange zest 9. So you kind of get a sweetness. This is a dish you want to eat with - with the - with the main meal, with the turkey. So you have your yogurt and your cranberry and your oranges, but it's still giving you that same texture of ambrosia, but in a chef way.

INSKEEP: And the slice will look colorful on the plate next to the sweet potatoes.

ISABELLA: I have over here - I did a sweet potato gratin.

INSKEEP: Sweet potato gratin?

ISABELLA: Right.

INSKEEP: This is, like, in a casserole dish, I want to say.

ISABELLA: Yeah, yeah. So instead of, like, making a sweet potato puree and putting it in here and putting some marshmallows on top, we took it a couple extra steps. I sliced sweet potatoes. I also sliced some squash because it's also sweet - has a sweetness to it, but it has a little bit of a different texture. And I also have some purple potatoes in there. And then we toss that with some cream, some mascarpone cheese, a little parmesan, some herbs. And I just layer it with all the different, you know, root vegetables.

INSKEEP: Yeah, you've cut out a piece of this from the casserole dish, and so we can see in there. And it looks like layers of sedimentary rock in there.

ISABELLA: Yeah (laughter).

INSKEEP: And then a little bit of landscape on top.

ISABELLA: Yeah, a little landscape. So on top is, like, bread crumbs 10, herbs, lemon zest and parmesan cheese. And it kind of gets a nice crust on top.

INSKEEP: So this is just potatoes, but taking the extra step, making it a little creative. It looks great, actually.

ISABELLA: Yeah.

INSKEEP: And, well, do we get to find out how this thing tastes?

ISABELLA: Yeah, we do. Yeah, we do. Want me to cut you up a piece?

INSKEEP: I would love that. This is the part where the interview comes to a halt while I eat something. Oh, yeah. Yeah, there you go. That is really - I like it a lot.

ISABELLA: You know, you get all the - all the vegetables in there, you know, with the sweet potatoes that are really thinly sliced, the squash, the purple potatoes.

INSKEEP: These are sliced like potato chips, basically.

ISABELLA: Yeah, they're slice liked - exactly like potato chips.

INSKEEP: You do notice I'm having a third bite here, right?

ISABELLA: (Laughter).

INSKEEP: So where are you usually at at Thanksgiving?

ISABELLA: I'm going to be in Pennsylvania this year - my wife's family's (laughter).

INSKEEP: So will you be cooking?

ISABELLA: Yeah, we actually do the sides every year.

INSKEEP: The very thing we're talking about here. Are people competitive in your extended family if different people are bringing the side dishes?

ISABELLA: No, they're pretty classic to what they do.

INSKEEP: You don't try to show off so much?

ISABELLA: I don't need to show off. I might hide some little things in there. I might put a little curry 11 powder in the gravy 12, and they're like, oh, what's that spice in there? I always like to put one element or two elements in there to kind of change the way people think when they taste something.

So we're going to make, you know, a green - a classic green bean casserole is usually, like, kind of, like, green beans, stewed 13 tomatoes, onions, bread crumbs on top, baked, kind of you get brown green beans after it's been cooking for so long. So I just wanted to make something a little bit more fresh, healthier, more colorful and simple. So I wanted to do, like, a warm green bean salad. So what I did is I blanched 14 off some green beans...

INSKEEP: OK.

ISABELLA: ...That we're just going to toss in the saute pan just to kind of warm them up. And I also have some cherry tomatoes that I peeled. I blanched and peeled them so there's no skin on them because I like - I like it a little clean. So toss a little bit of tomatoes in there. And then, to keep it healthy, what I did was I made a - I made a vinaigrette out of mustard. So it's, like, Dijon mustard, a little bit of vinegar, olive oil and some raw shallots.

And I'm just kind of going to pour that on into the pan, and it kind of sizzles. And that's all you really want to do. This dish is pretty much almost done. Just give it a little toss. I'm going to hit it with a little bit of salt and some - some fresh herbs. I got some mint, some dill, some parsley, whatever you got laying around - basil, anything - just to give us a little bit of freshness in there, just kind of lighten these flavors up.

INSKEEP: You kept that on the cooking surface for less than a minute, I'd say.

ISABELLA: Less than a minute. You just - you just want it warm. And then on top, I got some - I fried some shallots that we made in house that we slice really thin, give it a little crispiness. You could do breadcrumb.

INSKEEP: OK, this looks like a fancy dish when you put the shallots on top like that, you know? It starts to look like a fancy restaurant dish.

ISABELLA: Yeah, it's three - it's three elements.

INSKEEP: (Laughter).

ISABELLA: You got a tomato, a green bean and a shallot and a mustard vinaigrette. But it looks - you know, it looks pretty. You have the reds and the greens, and it's all bright and exciting. So, you know, it's - it's just - it's a fun dish to put out. And again, it can stay out all day. It can be room temp, and it's a great dish to serve at Thanksgiving.

INSKEEP: For Washington restaurateur Mike Isabella, a Thanksgiving side dish should be easy.

That's got to be the key with all of this because there's so much cooking to do. Do things that don't take a lot of time.

ISABELLA: Yeah, exactly. And that's the way we try to do it. Like, the casserole you can pre-make, the cranberry you can pre-make. And this is just mixing it all together, kind of warming it up, and you're there. And that - and that makes Thanksgiving a lot more fun, and you can drink a little bit more that way.

INSKEEP: There you go - watch a little more football. Mike Isabella, thanks very much.

ISABELLA: Thank you very much - pleasure.

INSKEEP: You can see all of chef Mike Isabella's recipes at npr.org.