Root Vegetable

Don’t let the lengthy ingredient list scare you away. It’s really not as bad as it looks. Even my brother, Bubba, can make it. On a cold winter’s day it will make your tongue want to slap your brains out! This recipe serves two or three dozen people, but can easily be cut in half. It keeps for up to five days in the refrigerator or two months in the freezer.

The marinade in this recipe also makes a wonderful salad dressing.

A luxurious spread for bagels that is so much better than ordinary cream cheese, this will keep for about a week in the refrigerator. For best results, remove the cream cheese from the refrigerator about an hour or so before you plan to use it, so it will soften.

Buttermilk gives a tangy flavor to this old-fashioned salad, which is great for a brunch picnic. Mixing the potatoes with a firm hand, so that some of the potato is mashed up, makes for a creamy potato salad. You can make this a few hours in advance. Refrigerate, covered, and serve cold. Taste for seasonings before serving.

Very simple to make, this dish goes well with all kinds of brunch meats, such as steak or pastrami, and with eggs. It is easy to double or triple when you’re serving a lot of people. Red-skinned potatoes have a moist, less starchy texture than baking potatoes and are ideal for boiling. Use the smallest ones you can find.

A springtime-only treat, wild ramps, also known as wild leeks, resemble broad-leaved scallions and have a flavor that’s both oniony and garlicky. Ramps are a great match for asparagus, and the lemon brings out the best of both vegetables. You can prepare this dish ahead of time and chill it, tightly covered, for two to three days in the refrigerator. Serve it chilled or at room temperature.

Sweet potatoes make delicious home fries, and with the addition of ginger, these become something really special. Choose small to medium sweet potatoes and use them within a week: They don’t keep as long as white potatoes. Store sweet potatoes in a dark, cool place, but don’t refrigerate them.

To make this dish, you’ll need a mandoline, which is a hand-operated slicing appliance with assorted blades for thick to thin slicing. A metal kitchen utensil known as a spider, which vaguely resembles a spider web with a long handle, is handy when frying because it lets you quickly remove hot food from the oil without removing much of the oil. It’s inexpensive and sold in most kitchenware shops. Soaking the julienned potatoes before cooking them removes some of the starch and yields a crisp shoestring effect.

Also known as latkes, these crispy, golden treats are a childhood favorite and are best served with caramelized onions, sour cream, and fresh, tangy farmers’ market applesauce. Allow yourself about twenty minutes to soak the grated potatoes in the cold water to remove the starch. Otherwise, they become gluey as the starch cooks in the potatoes and they won’t get crispy.

While the classic fried potato dish served with bacon and eggs in diners everywhere is excellent on its own, the “smothered and covered” variation is more decadent, blanketing the crusty brown potatoes with caramelized onions and cheese. Thanks must be given here to the Waffle House chain for their inspired innovation!

A robust and filling variation on classic home fries, this pretty vegetable dish gets color and crunch from the asparagus. It pairs especially well with Crispy Crab Cakes (page 198) and Scrambled Eggs (page 75), though potato lovers may decide to eat this as a main course. This is a great way to fit vegetables into a brunch without its being too healthy.

What would bacon and eggs be without a side of home fries? These “homers” are too good to be called simply a “side.” Many Bubby’s customers prefer to eat them in great quantities with an accompaniment of bacon or sausage.

Make this ahead of time so it has time to chill, and store it, well wrapped, in the refrigerator. It’s great for sandwiches or spreading on crackers. It goes well on a brunch table with other fish options, such as pickled herring. If you’re making tea sandwiches, top with Horseradish Cream (page 157).

This dish can be served as a sandwich filling or as a stand-alone salad accompanied by favorite lettuces and veggies. We use canned tuna packed in spring water because it’s lighter than tuna packed in oil, and we make sure the apple is tart and crisp. Granny Smith apples are fine, but also Mutsu, Honeycrisp, or any good local crispy, tart apple will do. Add half the dressing at first and see if you need more—it’s up to you how well coated you want the tuna and apples to be.

A delicious and painless way to sneak more vegetables into the brunch, these crêpes are good for when brunch tilts more in the direction of breakfast. You can make the filling a day in advance and store it, tightly covered, in the refrigerator. Warm it over low heat before using it as a filling.

This layered, all-in-one brunch casserole is great for when you’re serving four or more people because it can be prepped before your guests arrive. It’s an old-time casserole with the added flavor of leeks and some delicious homemade fried onion straws on top.

Torta—Spanish for “cake,” “loaf,” or “sandwich”—is also a substantial brunch entrée in which the eggs are baked, often with vegetables. In this version, caramelizing brings out the natural sweetness in the onion and red bell pepper. Serve this torta either hot or at room temperature with sourdough toast and slab bacon.