Christmas dinner ideas are harder to come by than any other holiday menu. Most people have deep traditions when it comes to their Thanksgiving table, but Christmas presents a great opportunity to try new things, new ideas for the coming new year.
Let’s start with starch. Potatoes are high in calories, high in carbohydrates, high in starch and sugars. For nutritional value, you’re better off with complex grains, but who wants quinoa next to their holiday ham? No one. If we want to change something, let’s change the potato.
Holiday eating is about fulfillment of the soul, not the food pyramid, and potatoes are great comfort food to many families. But, instead of the same-old mashed potatoes, how about a new Christmas dinner idea this year, Potatoes Anna?
Potatoes Anna gives you the best of both worlds that cooked potatoes have to offer. Starting with a basic sauté procedure, sliced rinsed and dried potatoes are layered over hot clarified butter. After a bit of salt and pepper, and more butter, another layer of sliced potatoes are added. Continue in this fashion until the pan is filled with a daisy-wheel of layered potatoes.
After browning the Potatoes Anna in the sauté pan, cover it with a lid or foil and finish the dish in the oven. This combination of direct source conductive heat along with the indirect convective heat of the oven will give us a new side dish that’s brown and crunchy on the bottom while still soft like mashed potatoes in the middle.
You’ll see why this is such a great potato side dish when you invert the sauté pan onto a plate and witness the beautiful plate appeal of browned potatoes atop layers of soft, steaming slices of fragrant goodness.
Try something new this year and get away from basic mashed potatoes. The New Year is coming; it’s time for new traditions, new journeys, exploration and education. Your search won’t end with this one Christmas dinner idea, but hopefully it’s the start.
Do you have Christmas dinner traditions you’d like to break? Please tell us with a comment below:
Turn Holiday Cooking Stress into Holiday Cooking Success this year.
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