*SIDES & SALADS

Steps:

• Dinner without side dishes may fulfill a basic need, but it's less than thrilling. You might as well eat standing at the sink (if you aren't already). Side dishes add balance, dimension, and even identity to an entrée. Not to mention the health benefits of tapping into another strata of the food pyramid. Throw a salad in there, too, and you're really living right. When we talk about preparing side dishes, however, we don't just mean reaching for the bag of frozen green beans. While a side dish can add color to your plate, there's more to it than that. Adding vegetables and grains to your diet doesn't have to be boring and predictable. While side dishes certainly don't have to be elaborate, a little effort can generate a great payback. Figuring out what to serve up alongside the entrée can be broken into a few easy steps. First of all, think of how you'd like to contrast or complement the entrée by temperature, color, texture, and flavor. A cool, crisp green salad topped with crunchy toasted nuts will counterpoint the warm tenderloin's yielding nature quite nicely. Creamy mashed sweet potatoes will snuggle up to the richness of a grilled turkey breast, while a fresh fruit salad will cool off that spicy jerk chicken. You can also go for contrasts within the side dish. How about a drizzle of balsamic vinegar on your grilled sweet peppers? Add a sprinkle of bread crumbs or a splash of a flavored oil to your veggies and you take them a notch higher. Then, think dimension. Would fluffy light buttermilk biscuits add lift to your grill-roasted chicken or pork ribs? If you're going for a special theme, such as a classic barbecue or an Asian dinner, side dishes make the whole scene. Imagine a backyard barbecue without baked beans, cornbread, or coleslaw. In some parts of this great land, such an omission could be considered borderline sacrilege. After all, entire songs have been written in honor of such venerated accompaniments! And while a classic Japanese spread without a crisp cucumber salad is no crime, it's certainly a sad oversight. Sort of like a carnival without the cotton candy. Another thing to consider is timing. Do you want something you can make ahead so all you do is pull it out of the refrigerator or oven as you set the table? Or do you want to grill something alongside your entrée and take it all off the cooking grate at the same time? Grilled vegetables are a great way to go if that's your aim. Getting all the food done to the proper temperature at the same time is an art. Master that and you're a backyard hero. Having a salad waiting in the wings is another wise move that sounds obvious, but the difference is in how imaginative your salads are. Time to exorcise those "grated carrots and unripe tomatoes on romaine" demons! In this chapter, we give you lots of help on expanding your green salad horizons, and offer deliciously innovative lettuce-free salads as well. Lentil, quinoa, or brown rice salads add healthy legumes and grains to your daily intake in a most alluring way. We've also got salads that could easily make a meal. Toss a grilled seasoned chicken breast on a Caesar salad, for instance, or stuff a chicken-and-snow-pea salad into a pita, and you've got a hearty lunch or light dinner. The secret, of course, is in the sauce. We dress these classics to the nines with fresh ingredients balanced for "more, please!" flavor. Lastly, we must admit that we feel the same way about sides and salads as we do about starters. If you like what you see, pick two or more and make a meal of them!From Weber's Big Book of Grilling. Copyright © 2001 Weber-Stephen Products Co. All rights reserved. First published by Chronicle Books LLC, San Francisco, California.