Crudités with Three Dips
Veggies with dip is an essential at virtually any type of party — from the big football game to a family holiday bash to a classy affair.
INGREDIENTS | SERVES 8
- About 6 cups of assorted vegetables, cut into bite-size pieces, such as carrot sticks, celery sticks, various colored bell peppers, zucchini and yellow squash, radishes, blanched broccoli florets, cauliflower florets, and green beans, fennel, cooked beets, etc.
- Assorted black and green olives
- Rosemary or thyme sprigs for garnish
- Three dressings or dips, such as the ones following
Arrange vegetables attractively on a serving platter or in a basket, placing different colors beside one another. Garnish with olives and herb sprigs.
Serve with dips or drizzled with any dressing.
It's Easy Being Green!
Quickly parboiling green vegetables, or “blanching” them, locks in nutrition, flavor, and especially bright color. The key to successful blanching is to bring the vegetables immediately up to a boil, cook them only enough to tenderize them, and to stop the cooking by plunging them immediately into ice-cold water, a step known as “shocking” the vegetables. Salt plays an important role in keeping green vegetables green, and it is recommended in both the blanching and shocking waters.
The most important strategy, though, is to put only small batches of vegetables into a large amount of rapidly boiling water, ensuring that the water never stops boiling as they are added. If too much is added at once, the water cools, and the vegetables will fade. One pound of green beans, for example, should be cooked in four small batches, in four quarts of boiling, salted water. Each batch (about a handful) should boil rapidly from the moment it's put in the pot, until it is removed and shocked in ice water. Remove each batch from the shock water before adding the next.
