Swiss Chard, Swiss Chard- So Nice We Ate It... Three Times.

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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Applesauce Cake (... for I am sick with love)

"Sustain me with cakes of raisins, refresh me with apples...." 

-Song of Solomon 2.5

Cake- disregarding perhaps the Song of Solomon (and Marie Antoinette)- is not an essential thing. It's a beautiful thing. When you walk into the house and there is a sheet pan with a knife next to it and a rectangle cut out- it does not scream "Cake!"- no matter how luscious it is. It's so worthwhile to go the extra distance- buttering 2 pans instead of one, slathering some cream on one layer, and topping it with another, more cream, some jam, some chocolate shavings... a handful of paper-thin apple slices dried in the oven and scattered like the fall leaves tumbling outside the window. Put it on a cake stand. You can even serve lentil soup for dinner and no one will notice- because they will be saying "Oh! Cake!" Does cake deserve anything less?

Applesauce cake with raisins is a perfect example of a cake longing for this treatment. Instead of a lunch box afterthought, it's a festive, elegant dessert- the kind you clear the table for before you present it after dinner. 

Here it is:

First, line two 24 cm/9" round cake pans with baking paper- butter lightly, dust well with flour, and give them a good tap upside down over the sink. Take a handful of currants and sprinkle some rum over them- heat gently so they soak up the rum. Then grate a piece of fresh (peeled) ginger- the size of your thumb.

Then, in a small bowl:

300 g/ 2 1/2 C flour- (using half whole wheat- as long as it is soft/pastry flour- adds a sweet nutty flavor.)

5 ml/ 1 teaspoon baking powder

2.5 ml/ 1/2 teaspoon each salt and baking soda

a little ground cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove (careful with the clove- it can overpower very quickly)- we can tweak it in the final mix.

In a large bowl, beat:

225 g/1 C butter 

400 g/2 C brown sugar (you could start with a little less and, depending on the sweetness of your applesauce, tweak it later.)

then add: 

4 eggs, one at a time, beating until blended in. 

Measure out 500 g/2 C applesauce.

Now we'll add half of the dry ingredients, then half the applesauce, then rest of the dry ingredients, then the rest of the applesauce, and the rum-soaked raisins. Taste for spices and add more if it needs it.

Spread the batter in the prepared pans (and if you have a kitchen scale out- go ahead and weigh them to see that the batter is even between them), and bake at 175 c/ 350 f  for about 15 minutes, switch racks, and bake another 10-15 minutes, until the cake springs back and a toothpick comes out clean.

While the cake's in the oven, you can make these:

They tumble over the cake like fall leaves.

Slice a whole apple as thinly as you can on a mandolin/slicer- don't worry of they don't all come out whole- they shrink in the oven anyway. Lay them in a single layer on a metal dish, and let them dry and brown in the oven alongside the cake. They will not be completely dry, but have a lovely color on the edges.

before...

after (about 10-15 minutes- keep watching)

Even without the apple leaves, the cake is impressive with a tall crown of whipped cream, sweetened as you like and with a little vanilla or rum to scent it. Make sure the cake is completely cool before you assemble it. If you can let it sit for an hour or two in a cold place before serving, the cream will sink into the layers a bit and soften them. It is a wholesome thing in truth, but you'd never know it.

That's a little golden syrup drizzled over the top-
 maple would be nice, too.

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Bright Summer Tabbouleh- I Love You as I Love Salt

I read a children's book about an egocentric King who called his daughters to him and asked them each how they loved him. The older daughters were shrewd flatterers; they said they loved him as gold and diamonds, respectively, which pleased the vanity of the King. The little daughter though had not learned such arts and she did love him and so she said "I love you as I love salt!" She was banished and fled to the forest and was rescued by a prince et cetera, et cetera and many years later they had a successful restaurant and the King visited and, well, you can see where this is going- after a saltless but otherwise opulent banquet (served on gold! plates), she revealed her identity, and our foolish King realized that she was the only daughter who had truly loved him- for to her, he was no a luxury of the heart, but the most necessary thing. In order to share with you my angst in making (of necessity) a saltless tabbouleh, I wanted to share the story, and a search for it unearthed this whole slew of them:

It seems salt is universally adored, indispensable.

Back to family (and fairy tales), my mother-in-law, a lover of vibrant summer flavors and salads, is taking cortisone, and this often causes some swelling, the last thing you want in the July heat. Salt of course famously exacerbates this, and, not wanting her to end up like the Aunts (or indeed the peach itself) at the beginning of James and the Giant Peach, I set out to make an entirely saltless tabbouleh- one of her favorite things, and so packed with flavors I thought it may be a good recipe to adapt.

It will look like this: see how
 the bulgar is swelling up 
through the surface? 

First let me say that I do tabbouleh in an unorthodox way I have not read about and I would like to share it with you- it saves a step, and yields a more flavorful dish with a more sprightly texture. Rather than parboiling the bulgar or soaking it in warm water, I just give it a good wash in cold water and squeeze it dry, and put it on the bottom of a plastic container.Then I dice tomatoes and, with their ample juice, mix them with the juice of a lemon, (some salt to taste when it is for us), and plenty of oil.This I pour over the dry bulgar, and set in the refrigerator for several hours. The buglar swells with the flavorful juices, rising up through the tomato, and does not get watery.

When we are ready to have it, I add lots of very well chopped herbs- mint and parsley- an entire bunch of each- and one or two cucumbers in small dice. It's fabulous. We nearly always have some in the refrigerator. I can't stress enough the importance of the herbs' being finely chopped- large pieces are exhausting to chew and it seems like something made for a goat. Also, fine chopping keeps the tone of the dish refined middle-eastern (as opposed to messy hippy).

This time, having on hand the most fabulous orange peppers (the little ones that I did not stuff), and anxious to conceal the saltlessness of the affair, I diced and added them as well. It was fresh and delightful and the addition of the peppers brought in the sweet warmth of the sun. Then it struck me as I spied an orange on the counter- why not take it in this sweet, warm direction? I zested the orange and added both the zest and the juice and it brought out all the sunshine, strengthening the savory notes in contrast and flattering the peppers and tomatoes no end. Like salt, you would necessarily know it was there, but you'd sure miss it if it weren't.

So here is the recipe:

Mother-in-law Tabbouleh

1 C (170 g) dry bulgar

3 good-sized  tomatoes (the size of a man's fist)

1 juicy lemon

1/4 C olive oil

2 cucumbers

an orange

a large bunch each of mint and of parsley

an orange pepper and a yellow pepper

Everything we need.

Wash the bulgar well in cold water and squeeze it dry. Dice the tomatoes small and mix them with their juice and the juice of the lemon and the olive oil, and pour this over the bulgar. Put it in the refrigerator for several hours or overnight, to let the bulgar swell with the juices.

When you are ready to serve it, add one big bunch parsley and one of mint- washed well and squeezed out and chopped fine. Then dice one or two cucumbers and a yellow pepper and an orange pepper, mix these in, and finish with the juice and finely grated zest of an orange.

(at 11 o'clock we have tangy sumac to dust over, at 3 the bulgar, 
and at 6, the sadly unused salt, glittering beguilingly.)

Of course, if there is no restriction of diet, salt makes this shine! Add a good teaspoon along with the tomato.

(Actually, salt makes everything shine):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcysUL6Zp-0

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