A holiday side dish we dare not skip
- Scott Daniels: We Ate Well and Cheaply
- December 16, 2021
- 863
Young, growing families must at some point face a dilemma: which family gets which time at Christmas? Does Mrs. Barleycorn get to haul the whole tribe to her parents' house on Christmas Eve or on the day? Do the kids have to wait to open presents until grandma has arrived or do they get two or more paper-tearing sessions? How many meals have to be planned and who is doing the cooking?
Once upon a time, my then-mother-in-law used to pick a day somewhere within a few weeks of the holiday and have everyone come together then, fearlessly moving Jesus’ birthday to any nearby slot everyone could show up for.
The downside was when Dec. 24 arrived, there was nothing to do and everyone was separated. It’s the sort of thing to make you get more involved in church. If we’re just going to sit here eating a cheeseball, we may as well go volunteer to hand out candles.
If you get to host your family for a Christmas meal this year, I feel your stress. It can be a lot of worry and expense, if you allow those things to get a toehold.
I like the idea of making as much as possible ahead of time, buying things already made whenever you can and keeping the number of side dishes to a manageable minimum. This is a plan I’ve never been able to follow.
It’s Christmas, after all, and it’s the time to revive all the family recipes folks expect. For ages we had to have this pudding concoction Mom used to make that was so rich I could only do a small spoonful once I’d passed my childhood sweet tooth.
Perhaps you make it also: It’s a batch of prepared boxed chocolate pudding, a tub of Cool Whip and a bunch of smashed Oreo cookies. Mix that stuff up and you’re done. Now that my sister has passed, I doubt I’ll ever see it again, but we never had any special occasion without it.
One thing we shed as soon as Mom was gone was the little cocktail wieners in grape jelly thing. It’s as revolting as it sounds, and I have no idea why that untouched bowl made an appearance year after year.
I began making a side dish for holidays a few years ago that has become something I dare not skip. Baked pearl onions in cream and white wine sauce is a big deal for us, and it’s a nice side dish to go with just about any main course you might choose to serve.
The hardest part is peeling all those stupid little onions. I finally found the secret, though it’s still a lot of work. I’d happily just use frozen pearl onions if I could ever find them.
Someone is buying a lot of frozen diced onions by the looks of freezer cases around here, which is mind boggling and more than a little gross, but there are no pearls.
To peel pearl onions, the trick is to blanch them first. Get a small pot of water boiling and drop them into the hot water for two minutes. Drain them and then plunge them into a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking and cool. They should then slip out of their peels fairly easily with the help of a sharp paring knife. You also can just use very small yellow onions.
CREAMED ONIONS
1 pound pearl onions, peeled
1 cup hot chicken stock
1 1/2 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons flour
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/4 dry white wine or vermouth
Salt and white pepper
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
Preheat oven to 375 F.
Drop the peeled onions into the hot stock and simmer, covered, for about 6 minutes or until just about tender. Strain, reserving the stock, and set aside.
Heat the butter in another saucepan over low heat until melted and whisk in the flour, forming a roux. Cook for a minute or so and add the reserved stock, whisking until thickened. Add the onions, wine, cream, nutmeg, salt, pepper and parsley. Transfer to a small baking dish and bake for 30 minutes, then carefully brown the top under a broiler and serve.