Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Roasted Vegetables





There are probably a lot of you out there who already know how to do this, but somehow I got by for 40 years not knowing how to roast vegetables well.

I work part time for a good friend, Rachel Nason. She is the owner of D'Lish a private chef and catering company. When Rachel does parties, she is nice enough to let me help out and I have been lucky enough to pick up some new techniques. One is roasting veggies.

The first time I worked a big party for Rachel she had the most amazing crudite I have ever seen. Say goodbye to cold carrot and celery sticks mixed in with cucumbers, radishes and cherry tomatoes. Rachel uses things like mini zucchini, mini squash, sweet peppers, broccoli, and cauliflower all roasted and arranged like a work of art. Don't like cauliflower? What about brussel sprouts? Everyone likes their veggies when roasted this way. I have proved many a picky eater wrong with Rachel's technique.

Recently I made some roasted veggies for Easter. Here is the recipe.

High heat 425 to 450 oven
Any veggie you can cut to have a flat surface on one side, cut. ie. Broccoli spears, Cauliflower spears.
Lay veggies onto a sheet pan and generously cover with olive oil
sprinkle with kosher salt
place sheet pan on bottom rack of oven and roast until bottom has a nice golden brown.
Careful, don't over crowd the pan, veggies will steam and not cook uniformly.

The finished product below looks nothing like Rachel's beautiful platters, but wanted to show you the array. I did some sweet potatoes at Lou's request

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