Cookery

[pecunium]

CG has started to take in a CSA box. So far it's been sort of dull, mostly winter vegetables, and not many. Some boring oranges, and avacados she doesn't care for. A butterut squash, etc.

This week included some chard, and a fair bit of young bok choy. She wondered what we could do with that and my mind started down some flights of fancy. Most people don't care for chard much, but I've had it, or collards, as filling in rolled roasts (very good when served cold in a picnic; sometime I must discuss the art of the picnic; a good place to start is The Wind in the Willows which has a splendid one, right there in in chapter one. It's enough to make one which it was spring, and one could just say, "Oh bother," and dash off to the river and spend the day messing about in boats), but I digress.

So we trotted to the market and bought some flank steak, a onion, some beers (an Anderson Valley Belgian style, "Brother David's Triple" and a bottle from Belgium, Lousberg).

Back home. I was going to make a variation on carbonnade. Set an onion to caramelise, and wilt some chard (sliced off the ribs, and then into thin strips) with a bit of chicken broth in the microwave. Roll a bit of flanken around the wilted kale and some minced onion. Brown that in some bacon fat (the bacon I added to the onion in the saucier). Add the Triple, and some russet potato (I wanted the russet to break down and add body to the beer/broth). Some new potatos, and another onion, cut large.

In a bit, add some carrots, and a tomato. Just before it was done (about an hour on a low fire) put some bok choy in to wilt, toss in the caramelised onions and open the Louberg to drink with it.

Comments

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

Chard's probably as Good For You as spinach, and tastes much better (to me, that is), though perhaps not quite as good as young beet greens. Steamed & served hot with a little vinegar & olive oil, or steamed, chilled, & drizzled with them, or with the ground sesame seed paste the Japanese use with chilled spinach. The leaf portion, with the midrib pounded a bit if it's large, is supposed to be an excellent replacement for cabbage leaves in making steamed stuffed-cabbage rolls (which I'm going to try tomorrow, using some leftover brown basmati rice (cooked with ground turkey) as a filler. Chard also (like bok choy) can go well in a stir-fry (midribs removed & chopped, to be cooked a bit longer than the green portion). Mind you, I hold that one Swiss chard plant is more than enough for a family, and the only reason I'm growing six of them is that the various colored-stem varieties look so good in the garden -- far more of the leaves go into the compost pile than into my kitchen.