Much like beets, where you supposedly buy them for the beets but the greens are just as much of a draw, swiss chard you buy for the leaves, but the sweet tender stems are just as nice. The cooking liquid? It became a rich sweet broth with a beautiful color that made a delicious meal of a carrot, a zucchini and an onion, plus a few chard leaves and some Parmesan.
I would buy it again just for that.
Scissors make easy work of separating the leaves from the stems. Fill the sink with cold water and let the leaves fall in.
Put three or four centimeters of water into your largest pot, salt it, and put it on to boil, adding the chard leaves with the water still sticking to them. After just a moment, they will need turning so that the raw leaves at the top can wilt also. One could think that as soon as they are wilted they are done, but stay by the pot and keep testing them- as they simmer, they become both more tender and quite a bit more sweet. Cook them until they suit you- it will be just two or three minutes- and then fish them out with a slotted spoon, keeping the rosy-colored cooking liquid. In the meantime, have ready the washed stems, cut into roughly similar lengths for elegance. Put these into the same cooking liquid and simmer until tender (perhaps five minutes?), and fish them out with a slotted spoon also. Pour the broth into a jar.
The leaves make a fine salad when dressed with olive oil, salt, and lemon juice, particularly fragrant when they are still a bit warm. They are at once rich, sweet, and delicate- nicer than spinach and than beet greens both. In Greece a salad of boiled greens is thought a very good accompaniment to fish. They are simple to serve and to eat, which is very nice as fish requires so much attention to be enjoyed.
The stems were now my focus of my happy effort to find as much pleasure as possible in everything. I'm sure they would be a nice afterthought in an acqua cotta. But I was looking for a stand alone dish- a treat for one or two on a gray afternoon. The stems have a perfect texture- tender but with enough structure. A thick bechamel sauce brought them together famously.
We will need:
the stems from two or three bunches of swiss chard, cooked- 2 large handfuls in this case.
15 g/ 2 T flour
30 g/ 2 T butter
300 ml/ 1 1/3 C milk
a bay leaf
salt and pepper
just a little grated nutmeg
a handful of grated parmesan
Smear a ceramic baking dish with butter and put in the chard stems, aligned roughly in the same direction for a tidy, handsome dish.
Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the flour, and whisk over medium heat until the mixture becomes puffy and airy. It may turn a bit golden and this is fine. Add the milk all at once, whisking vigorously so no lumps form, and add the bay leaf and salt and pepper to taste and a very small grinding of nutmeg (this adds so much elegance to the flavor). Cook, whisking all the while, until thickened- this happens quickly. Remove the bay leaf, pour the sauce over the stems, and put under the broiler. Keep a close watch on it and, as soon as it starts to take color, sprinkle the Parmesan cheese over the dish for the last minute or two. Take it out when it is bubbling and browned:
This looks like a side dish; but for lunch with a little glass of Rose it is perfect perfect perfect- light and creamy and satisfying.
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