Tag Archives: chard

Greens with lime, honey & fresh basil

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Greens with lime and basil

People come up to me on the street all the time, and they say, “Claire, we love to eat greens, but we can’t be bothered to wash them or remove their stupid stems. Should we just popeye them straight from a can into our mouth?” Alright, so this is apocryphal. It’s never happened and it never will. But if it did…I would be ready with an answer. I have a tip. A cooking tip. This is how I wash fresh greens. Even if they’re filthy muddy buggy greens straight from the farm after a horrible storm. It’s not difficult and it doesn’t require a lot of effort. What you do is fill a large bowl with cool water (a salad spinner bowl and basket is ideal – not because you’re going to spin it, but because it’s easier to dump out the dirty water and replace it with clean). You put the greens in and swish them about a bit. Then you let them soak while you go about your business. In my experience, the bugs will float to the surface, and the sand and grit will sink to the bottom. You dump out all the dirty water, rinse the bowl, and soak again. (This is where a salad spinner comes in handy, because you can just lift the greens right out in the built-in basket.) You swish them around a little bit and then let them soak again. How many times you do this depends on the dirtiness of your greens. Once the bottom of the bowl is grit and sand free after a soak, you’re probably clean enough. Now, to remove the stems, and also check each leaf for hidden bugs – you use your fingers. I find this much quicker than trying to chop the stems off. You pick up a leaf, fold it in half lengthwise (they often do this all by themselves) and pull the stem off from the bottom to as far up the leaf as you need to go to remove the unpleasant spiny bits, using your other hand to pinch the leaf so that you don’t lose too much good green stuff. It’s sort of hard to describe, but try it and it will all make sense. This is a surprisingly quick and easy job, even if you have a large batch of greens. Many of the smaller stems can just be snapped off near the bottom. If you have something with giant fat stems like kale, it’s easiest of all – you just grab the stem and pinch the leafy parts right off. It’s that easy!!

I think this is a really nice way to make greens. It’s fresh, sweet and tart. I made it with half broccoli rabe, half chard. So – a little bitter plus a little earthy. I like to pair a more assertive green (broccoli rabe, turnip, beet) with something gentler like spinach or chard. You could use any green you like with this, and just adjust the lime/honey ratio till it’s perfect for you. This is quick and doesn’t make your kitchen too hot on a summer’s day!

Here’s Outkast with So Fresh, So clean, because this tastes fresh, and your greens are so clean!
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Chickpeas with fines herbes, chard and articoke hearts

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Chickpeas w/ fine herbes

I have this recurring dream. I’m in my old bedroom in the house where I grew up. I’m surprised to find piles and piles of clothes in the cupboards. Clothes I’d never known about – clothes that I could have and should have worn, but inexplicably never did. They’re stale and horrible and full of moths. In the dream I alway wonder if I could clean them and wear them, but I know that it wouldn’t really work. I’ve always interpreted the dream as being about lost opportunities. Career paths I could have taken but chose not to, films I should have made, novels I should have written. Well, the other night I had a dream that we lived in this strange house. Part of it broke away to reveal rooms upon rooms that we hadn’t known were there. And there were kitchens! Lovely kitchens, painted blue-green and butter yellow. Well-equipped kitchens, with large lovely windows. We were delighted! And I’m going to interpret this dream as opportunities yet-to-come, opportunities right before us that we’re just starting to see. Beautiful and dreamy.

And I should probably warn you that we’re in greens season, at the moment, here at The Ordinary. In our CSA box we received kale, chard, spinach, and turnips with lovely perfect leaves. So there will be greens recipes! Every kind you can imagine! Fasten your seatbelts! I was inspired to make this dish because we’re growing chervil. Chervil is lovely. It’s pretty and delicate and fernlike and has a subtle anise/lemon flavor. As I understand it, chervil is one of the fines herbes, along with tarragon, chives and parsley. So I mixed these with some chickpeas, and some greens, and some artichokes and zucchini, and served it with pearl couscous and giant puffy flatbread, which I’ll tell you about after I get a few chores done. This isn’t the prettiest dish you’ve ever eaten, but what it lacks in visual flash, it more than makes up in wonderful flavor.

Here’s Stranger Cole with The Time is Now. He’s my new fave!
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Chard, raisin, pecan pesto & black pepper pasta

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Chard, pecan, golden raisin pesto

I had a little tantrum yesterday. It was not my proudest moment. It was about ice cream – I was like the kid that drops the ice cream cone, except that instead of tears there was lots of swearing and self-pity. Why did this happen? Let’s take it back. As they say in the TV shows, 18 hours earlier…

The night before I’d mixed some yeast and sugar and a little bit of flour – I’d made a starter. Then I’d gone to bed and thought about all of the interesting things I could make to go with my bread. The next morning I’d added all the other ingredients for the bread, and I had, almost simultaneously, made a brown butter caramel custard to turn into ice cream later in the day. For some reason, I cooked the heck out of everything in the house yesterday! I wanted to make everything from scratch. Bread, pasta, sauce, ice cream. Why? I don’t know! I was seized by some dormant Little House on the Prairie-longing, perhaps. But it all seemed so easy and pleasant. Everything was just a little bit of effort now, a little bit more later. I had fun kneading the dough, I didn’t panic whilst making the custard. I felt positively light-hearted!

Then things started to go wrong, as they usually do. But I couldn’t take it in stride, for some reason. The bread had a really nice crust, but the inside didn’t have the big holes I was hoping for. I really want to make bread with big holes. The pasta was fine, I think, but Isaac wouldn’t even try it. He always eats pasta, and he would not take one bite. Not one! Malcolm ate his pasta like a dog, which is probably normal behavior for a nine-year-old boy, but it did me in. He relented and ate with a knife and fork, but I’d gone to the dark side, by then. And then the mother-flipping ice cream wouldn’t freeze. I have a child’s toy of an ice cream maker from the 80s. It’s not ideal, but it does the job, usually. Not last night. Sigh.

I sat in the backyard enjoying the silence and the greenness and the smell of our lilacs and roses, and the sight of tiny little fireflies. (Why have I never noticed them before? Are they just young fireflies? They’re lovely!) The boys came out and asked for dessert. Goddamn dessert. Then came the cursing, the regret over wasted ingredients, the desire for one peaceful meal, the wistfulness for the ice cream that might have been. I threw squares of bittersweet chocolate at them, which they absconded with happily. Hopefully they’ll remember that, rather than be scarred for life by their mother’s moodiness.

This pesto is really tasty, though, I think! One of my all time favorite combinations is greens, raisins and nuts. (I’ve said it many times, I know!) I’ve baked it into savory pies plenty of times, and it was time to try something different. I thought to myself, why not put it all together? I love pesto, and I like to experiment with different kinds. So that’s what I did. You’ve got chard, pecans, almonds (because I didn’t have many pecans left), golden raisins, roasted garlic, rosemary and smoked paprika. Savory, sweet, and a little smoky.

Here’s Tom Waits with All the World is Green. I love this song, I’ve listened to it so much lately. And all the world is green, right now! And this pesto is a lovely, mossy sort of green.
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Eggplant pie with greens, quince, and hazelnut

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Eggplant pie with greens, quince & hazelnuts

We started bird watching back in our courting days. We’d wake up as close to dawn as we could muster, we’d stop at Dunkin Donuts for some sweet coffee, and we’d listen to the Sudson Country radio show on the way out. Despite having been born in Kansas, I’d never listened to a lot of country music, and I’d never heard the classics. Kitty Wells, the undisputed queen of country; Lefty Frizzell, with his sweet, gentle voice; Hank Williams, with his twangy sass – they all seemed to fit, somehow, with our sleepy mood and the slanting morning light. Then we’d find our field or our trail, and we’d begin the slow, silent walk, stopping at every flutter of wings in the trees over our heads. It’s hard to describe the thrill of seeing your first yellowthroat, your first oriole, warblers, vireos…good lord – wood thrushes and veeries – with their hopeful, haunting songs. It boggled my mind that all of these birds had been here, all along. They weren’t new. I’d never bothered to look at them, I’d never taken the time to look up, and discover the teeming world in the tangled branches of the trees. We’d come home and write our finds in a little turquoise-covered blank book that I’d been saving for years for something special. Then we’d check each other for ticks. Birdwatching is a little like falling in love, in a way – you catch a glimpse of something bright and beautiful. You can’t believe it’s really alive, with its small warmth and its fast-beating heart. You’ve heard about it; you’ve read about it in your bird book. Other people claim to have seen it, but, frankly, you’re a little skeptical. You’re not convinced it even exists. Then when you’ve got it, you hold it in your sight, you know you’ll never understand it, but you try to identify it, this wild, fragile, lively thing.

We don’t have a lot of chances to go bird watching any more, what with children and real life and all of their demands. But we went on a lovely bike ride this morning, and it makes me happy to know they’re all still there. We can still catch a glimpse of a bird and know what we’re seeing. We’ll hear a sweet little song, or a hoarse call, and we know what we’re hearing. We’re still part of their world, and they’re still part of ours.

Eggplant pie

So! Eggplant pie! It’s got thin layers of crispy rosemary/balsamic-marinated breaded eggplant. It’s got layers of chard and spinach, sauteed with garlic and red pepper and mixed with quince jam. It’s got layers of crispy toasted hazelnuts, and it’s got layers of melted cheese. Odd combination, you say? Oddly perfect together!! All in a crispy crust. If I do say so myself (when have I not, eh?) it turned out really delicious. I think this would be nice for a party or a picnic, because it tastes good even when it’s not hot out of the oven, and it holds together well for carrying around with you. So you can take it for an evening-time picnic, and walk around with it as you look for all the birds that come out at in the gloaming!

Here’s Left Frizzell with I Love You A Thousand Ways.
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Roman gnocchi “pizza” with chard and roasted mushrooms

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Roman gnocchi pizza

The power went out for about an hour this morning. It was the crucial coffee-making hour. I panicked, and bought two large coffees after taking Isaac to school. ($5.30? Really?) By the time I got back home, the power was on and all was right with the world. Well, that coffee must have been stronger than our usual coffee, cause I feel a little odd! I’m wired, my heart is racing, and I feel on the verge of seeing spots or possibly experiencing tunnel vision. But I’m strangely tired, too. I could take a nap, in fact. Except that I can’t take a nap, because I’ve had too much coffee!! And I feel like I’ve got too much to do to take a nap, but we all know that’s not true, because I’m a lady of leisure. A roustabout, a ne’er-do-well.

I would like to tell you about my roman gnocchi pizza, though. I’m a big fan of roman gnocchi. Basically, roman gnocchi involves applying a cream puff technique (one of my very favorite cooking techniques) to semolina flour. It’s baked rather than boiled. It doesn’t call for potatoes, but it does call for eggs. So it’s light and fluffy. Dense and soft on the inside, cripsy on the outside. Very comforting and delicious. You can add all sorts of things to the batter – herbs and cheese being the most likely (I was going to make a joke about adding nails and pennies, and legos and other small household objects, but I thought you might think the coffee had made me crazy!). I like to make a big plate of roman gnocchi in the summer, and then have lots of little dishes along with it – fresh tomatoes and basil, chard and raisins and pinenuts, basil pesto, crispy eggplant, a good salad. It’s one of my favorite meals! This time of year I thought it would be nice with chard and roasted mushrooms. And I further thought that it would be nice to combine them before I bake the roman gnocchi, and to make it in a sort of pizza shape. So that’s what I did. It was quite simple to make. Generally, when you make roman gnocchi, you make the dough and then let it sit, so that you can cut it into shapes before you bake it. The sitting step was eliminated in this version, because I just scooped it onto a baking tray and arranged it with a spoon.

Here’s Mississippi John Hurt with Coffee Blues. This song kills me, because it’s so beautiful, but it’s actually an advertisement for a particular brand of coffee!
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Chard & raisin tarts with almond topping

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chard, raisin and almond tarts

Last night was something of a momentous occasion here at the test kitchens of The Ordinary. If you’re following along at home, you may remember that I recently made some forays into the experimental realm of savory almond custard. I lay awake thinking “if it doesn’t have sugar in it, can you still call it frangipane?” (I wish this was a joke!) And my first effort, though tasty, didn’t really let the savory almond custard shine. Well…last night I made these little tartlets. They have chard and raisins (big eye-roll – again, Claire? Oh, yes.) they have rosemary, they have garlic. They have mozzarella (secret melty cheese!!). And they have this almond custard – ground almonds, butter, eggs, a smicker of balsamic, a smicker of white wine. It turned out so nice! Crispy on top, soft in the middle, and very delicious! I’m sorry to sound so pleased with myself, but I am quite proud, because I really didn’t know how it would turn out. It could have been a completely disaster. I hate when dinner is a complete disaster. You could bake this as one large tart, if you preferred. And you could really use any kind of cheese you like (or not cheese at all) I thought about using gruyere or goat or cheddar. But I wanted something mild and salty to balance the sweet strong flavors, and mozzarella filled the bill.

cross section of tart

Here’s Joe Strummer with Digging the New. The new culinary technique, that is! (Unless people have been making this for hundreds of years. Won’t I feel foolish!)

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Butternut squash flatbread stuffed with greens & walnuts

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butternut squash flatbread

I seem to cook a lot with butternut squash in the winter time. I’ve made empanadas, enchiladas, big pies, little pies, soups, stews, dumplings, soufflés… on and on it goes. So when presented with half a roasted butternut squash (I’d used the other half in soup), I decided I wanted to do something different with it. I decided to bake with it. I’ve never done it before, but it makes perfect sense! I’ve baked with sweet potato puree, and pumpkin puree – people do that all the time. So why not butternut squash puree? Why not, indeed. I decided to make a yeasted dough, and to make it into a flat bread, because I feared it might be a bit dense, and in these situations it’s a good idea to keep it thin. I thought a lot about how to flavor it. Butternut squash goes well with so many herbs and spices. I decided on a mix of sage, nutmeg and allspice. A little bit savory, a little bit sweet, very nice together when all baked in a bread!

And then I decided to stuff it, because I love how butternut squash tastes with greens and nuts and cheese. I think arugula, goat cheese, and hazelnuts is my favorite combination with it, but this time I decided to go with chard, walnuts and mozzarella, because it’s February, I guess! I made two fat rolls out of extra dough, because I was curious about how they would come out. They were nice! The flavor really shines through, and the texture was dense, but not unpleasantly so. Extra good toasted the next day. And my Isaac gobbled one down, which means he’s getting some vitamins, right?

Here’s a nice little ditty from the Arctic Monkeys called The Bakery Song. Do you think they sell roasted squash bread in this bakery?
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Empanadas with greens, green olives and pistachios

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empanadas with greens

I bought these beautiful little green olives. I can’t remember what they’re called, but I think they might have been castelvetrano olives. They were small and round and serpent green. Lovely! They were so pretty that it might have been a shame to stuff them inside of empandas – if the empanadas hadn’t been so mother-flippin delicious!

They have three kinds of greens – chard, kale and spinach, they have very green olives, and they have pistachios, which are green nuts! They also have ricotta, mozzarella and lots of herbs. I’m especially pleased with the texture of these. You never know how it’s going to go with greens and ricotta. Will they be watery and runny? Or mushy? This was perfect, though. Juicy, almost, but not soggy. It occurred to me that these were like large, baked, crispy ravioli, and in that spirit, I added a little semolina flour to the dough. (If you don’t have semolina flour, just leave it out. Or add 1/4 cup regular flour to replace it. Either way. )I made a sauce to go with these with roasted red peppers, almonds, tomatoes, paprika and chipotle. It turned out very spicy!

Here’s REM’s Green Grow the Rushes, because I’ve had it going round in my head lately.
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Gallette with chard, porcini mushrooms and savory almond custard

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galette

Savory almond custard? That’s right! Savory almond custard. Every once in a while I’ll start to muse about why some things are sweet, and other things are savory. Usually at 3 am. Vanilla, for instance. Why always sweet? Why? The other day, as I was making a bakewell tart, I started thinking about frangipane, or almond custard. I love almonds in savory situations, be they ground or slivered or chopped. So why not in a sort of custard? And then came the day I started watching youTube videos of french pastry chefs creating Galettes des Rois – a tart made with puff pastry and sweet frangipane. I got a bee in my bonnet to try to make a savory version. And so I did.

I added chard and mushrooms (porcini & white), because they’re nice with almonds, and I like them together, and I like them in pies! The pie was delicious with chard and mushrooms, but it overshadowed the almond custard a little bit, so I fully intend to someday make a version with only the almond custard. Oh, and I added cheese, too, because I like cheese! I was full of indecision on this score. I could imagine any number of varieties of cheese tasting good here. In the end I decided on smoked gouda, because as I walked the boys home from school the smoke from fireplaces all over town incited a craving.

I used the soaking water from the porcini mushrooms to make a sauce. I combined it with port wine, shallots, herbs, and a tiny bit of cream.

I should mention that my puff pastry didn’t rise as dramatically as the ones in the youTube videos of French pastry chefs. It was very crispy and flaky and delicious, but it wasn’t made up of millions of little layers, and it wasn’t toweringly tall. I’m ordinary, I tell you! I use ordinary flour! I don’t take the temperature of my butter! (You could always buy puff pastry, I suppose!)

Here’s Monty Alexander with King Tubby Meets the Rockers Uptown. I’m sure he brought them a galette des rois! (Thanks, Tony!)
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Portobello Wellington

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Portobello Wellington

Does it seem like I’m stuck in a wellington rut? Perhaps I am. I had thought about making eggplant wellington for Christmas Eve dinner with my family, but my dad doesn’t like eggplant (obviously he’s never tried eggplant everybody can love!) And it occurred to me that the steakiest of all vegetables has to be portobello mushrooms, and wouldn’t that suit a wellington! Yes, it did!

Apologies in advance if this seems garbled. I’ve got a boxing day haze all on my brain. But here is what I did…I cut the portobellos in thick slices, and cooked them in olive oil, white wine and balsamic till they were dark and crispy. I also roasted some white mushrooms with shallots, garlic and herbs to form the first layer on the pastry. And I cooked some big chard leaves until just tender to form the second layer. Then came some sharp cheese and then piles of portobellos.

I used paté brisée instead of puff pastry because I just didn’t have time to do it all! It worked out fine, I think. Crisp and flakey. And we had it with herbed walnut sauce, which I had added a bit of white wine to in the early stages.

Here’s Duke Ellington’s Toot Toot Tootie Toot from his Nutcracker Suite. Because Ellington rhymes with wellington, of course! Plus, it’s brilliant.
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