Page 170 - YC Cooking School

you’re ready to eat. This saves you running around and stressing at the last minute as you
try to coordinate several dishes at once – leave that to cooks who do it for a living.

Leave the dressing until last
Not all barbecue accompaniments are best at room temperature. A leafy salad, for example,
will wilt if left out for lengths of time, or if it’s already been dressed. Instead, leave dressing
the salad until just before you serve it, or serve the dressing alongside the salad. This also

means you can store any leftovers in a container in the fridge to be reused if they haven’t
been dressed.

Keep it simple
Room temperature accompaniments are best suited to family style serving. Think big,

colourful bowls on a rustic table alongside generous platters of succulent sliced meats.

7 tips for a Caponata side

1. Cut your aubergine into chunky pieces. They’ll shrink in the oven and you don’t want
them to get lost in your side dish later.

2. Blanch your tomatoes to loosen their skins. By immersing the tomatoes in boiling
water for 10 seconds, the skin will come away easily from the rest of the tomato.

3. De-seed your tomatoes. This will stop them adding extra moisture to your Caponata.

You ideally want your tomatoes to help thicken the sauce rather than make it more watery.

4. Pull the tomato seeds out with your fingers. As demonstrated by Pete in the video
tutorial, this is the easiest way to get them out. Beware though: only use this technique for
dishes that require roughly chopped tomatoes, as the end result will not look perfectly

pretty.

5. Use red onions to give the dish a beautiful colour. If you can’t find these in the shops,
regular onions will do the trick too.

6. Add equal parts sugar and vinegar. This will balance the flavours beautifully, giving you
a bit of sweetness and acidity without one overpowering the other.

7. Aubergines are ready when they’re soft to touch with a caramelised colour. You’ll
know the relish base is ready when it’s cooked down to a sticky, chutney-like consistency.

6 tips for a couscous salad

1. Add olive oil to the couscous before you add the boiling water. If the grains of
couscous are coated with oil, they’ll be less likely to stick to each other when they fluff up
and your couscous will be free of lumps.

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