If the main dish is all-meat or all-seafood, we try to prepare a vegetable side dish for a more balanced meal. We’re not a hundred per cent successful. There are times when there are no veggies in our meal at all but I do think we deserve credit for trying. And that’s saying a lot coming from an omnivore who leans more toward the carnivorous side.
Okay, so, what do I mean by a vegetable side dish? It can be a cooked vegetable dish or a raw vegetable salad. If it’s a raw vegetable salad, I’m really happier if it were more than a mixture of green leafy vegetables. I like texture, you see. And color too. And even if green is a “happy” color, it’ll take more than a sea of green to make me happy with my salad.
That salad in the photo above, for example, makes me happy. Love the simplicity, the colors, the varying textures and flavors of the vegetables — the sweetness and light crunch of the corn kernels and cucumber slices, the tartness of the tomatoes, the fragrance of the fresh basil leaves… That’s a happy raw vegetable salad.
If we’re having a cooked vegetable dish on the side, we try to keep it simple. Nothing too overpowering that it steals the spotlight from the main dish. A side dish, after all, is meant to complement the main dish. As a general rule, anyway. There is an exception but more on that on another occasion.
So, an example of a simple cooked vegetable side dish. A recent favorite is roasted bell pepper and garlic salad. The color alone will brighten any meal. But after your eyes have feasted, let your nose savor the aroma of the dish too before you start piercing away with your fork.
Is this side dish difficult to make? Oh, no. I roasted six uncut bell peppers in the oven toaster (you can do this in the air fryer too) until the skins were blistered and charred in spots. When the oven toaster turned off after 20 minutes, I left the bell peppers there to cool. Once cool enough to handle, they were peeled, deseeded, pulled apart into strips and arranged in a bowl.
Next, olive oil was heated gently with some garlic slices thrown in. The oil and garlic were spooned over the bell peppers before balsamic vinegar was splashed generously over everything. Finally, torn cilantro is sprinkled in. Parsley works too but we’re partial to cilantro.
What about you? How do you like and serve your veggies with your meals? Raw or cooked? I have recommendations for both.
Salads I simply love
Salted quail eggs and vegetable salad
For ovo-vegetarians, a bowl of this salad is substantial enough for a filling meal. For omnivores, enjoy it as a side dish to go with grilled or fried meat or fish. We had the salted quail eggs and vegetables salad with fried tilapia and talakitok (trevally) steaks.
Kani salad
Make kani salad with kanikama (imitation crab meat), cucumber, carrot, fresh ripe mangoes, lettuce, Japanese mayonnaise and a little sesame seed oil. It’s outstanding!
Asian cold noodle salad
Blanched ramen, cooked shrimps, lightly fried eryngii mushrooms, pickled vegetables and soy sauce quail eggs are drizzled with Vietnamese mixed fish sauce to make this Asian cold noodle salad.
Favorite cooked vegetable side dishes
Mixed vegetables agebitashi
The default cooking procedure is to season the ingredients before and during cooking. With Japanese agebitashi, unseasoned food is fried then soaked in a sauce.
Fried eggplants with ginger dashi sauce
Eggplants are cut into slices, flash fried, doused with ginger dashi sauce and garnished with crispy bonito flakes. Great side dish or vegetarian main dish.
Garlic butter asparagus and baby corn
A fast-cooking side dish that goes well with meat, garlic butter asparagus and baby corn is deliriously creamy and spicy at the same time.
