Swiss chard and herb tart with young cheese

We all get a bit stuck in our comfort zone and when scanning through new recipes, I must admit I have a tendency to stick to the familiar, so I nearly bypassed this Ottolenghi recipe I found when looking for a new way of using up chard. For a start it was called Swiss Chard and Herb Tart with Young Cheese, and I knew for sure that I did not have any “young cheese” lying around in my fridge, nor was I very likely to be able to get hold of any very easily in the culinary void of Wimbledon. 

Secondly, I wasn’t sure about the mint. I am always a little wary of cooking mint. A little too much and it can e
nd up tasting like toothpaste. I wasn’t sure about the quantities of the ingredients (follow the net weights not the descriptions). 8 large chard leaves turned out to be a whole bag of chard from Riverford. And finally I didn’t have any courgette flowers – too early in the year for my allotment. But I decided to make it anyway and I am really pleased that I did. It is absolutely delicious, even without the courgette flowers. For the young cheese, I used a Abergavenny goat’s cheese that I found in Sainsbury’s.

Swiss chard and herb tart with young cheese
Adapted from Yotem Ottolenghi. Serves four as a main course.
½ small red onion, thinly sliced (85g net)
3 celery stalks and leaves, thinly sliced (220g net)
8 large chard leaves, roughly chopped, white stalks discarded (175g net)
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
2 tbsp torn mint leaves
2 tbsp chopped parsley
2 tsp chopped sage
2 tbsp olive oil, plus extra for drizzling
75g feta, crumbled
50g pecorino, finely grated
15g pine nuts, lightly toasted
Grated zest of 1 lemon
350g all-butter puff pastry, I used ready rolled
100g brocciu cheese (fresh cheese) or ricotta or fresh goat’s cheese
6 Courgette flowers, cut in half length-ways (optional)
1 egg, lightly beaten
Salt and black pepper

Place a large frying pan on medium-high heat and sauté the onion, celery, chard, garlic, mint, parsley and sage in the olive oil. Cook, stirring continuously, for 15 minutes or until the greens are wilted and the celery has softened completely. Remove from the heat and stir through the feta, pecorino, pine nuts, lemon zest, ¼ teaspoon of salt and a hearty grind of black pepper. Leave aside to cool.
Preheat the oven to 200C.
Roll the pastry, if necessary to a 3mm thick sheet and cut it into a circle, approximately 30cm in diameter. Place on an oven tray lined with baking paper. Spread the filling out on the pastry leaving a 3 centimetre edge all the way around. Dot the filling with large chunks of brocciu, ricotta or fresh goat's cheese.  Top with courgette flowers, if using. Bring the pastry up around the sides of the filling and pinch the edges together firmly to form a secure, decorative lip over the edge of the tart. Alternatively press with the end of a fork. Brush the pastry with egg and refrigerate for 10 minutes.
Bake the tart in the oven for 30 minutes until the pastry is golden and cooked on the base. Remove from the oven and brush with a little olive oil. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Plenty

Usually the necessity of having to work for a living is nothing but a distraction for getting on with my blog. Recently however, I have been doing recipe testing and photography for Riverford, for their soon to be launched "Recipe Boxes".This is a new craze sweeping the nation when you receive, delivered to your door, three easy to follow recipes plus all the ingredients to cook your evening meals. 

I have to admit that I wasn't overwhelmed by the idea until I put them to the test. I like to think I am not the sort of girl who is not short on ideas or creativity when putting together a dinner for two, but I cannot tell you how pleasant it is, just sometime to not have to think about it. To know that everything I need is there at home waiting for me, no shopping, no planning and what turned out to be an even greater plus is that even Hugh, the other half, can cook them too. For the first time in years he actually managed to cook dinner on his own, not once but twice in a week. He found the recipe cards easy to follow and what with the unavoidable convenience of having all the ingredients weighed out, to hand, managed to knock up dinner with practically no fuss at all!  And you would not believe how pleased he was with himself.

In the meantime I needed to deal with my latest allotment glut. Due to my failure to sew few and often, to stagger my crops and in my total over enthusiasm to grow anything at all, I now am reaping the excess crops to mirror my initial excess impatience. I failed to thin my crops sufficiently and I am weighed down with Fennel, Chard and Spinach, all ready at the same time.

Lucky for me, guess what recipes I have been testing this week. Being seasonal, the recipes I am testing exactly match what I am harvesting and these two recipes for Indian Spiced Spinach & Chickpeas and Fennel & Chard Gratin could not have been more perfect for using up my surplus vegetables.  Now I can start dealing with the tomatoes!

Indian Spiced Spinach & Chickpeas with Coconut & Coriander Rice
prep & cook 40 mins, 

serves 2
1 onion (150g)
1 garlic clove (5g)
piece of ginger (25g)
fresh coriander (20g)
20g butter
150g long grain white rice
1 x 400ml tin coconut milk
salt
oil for frying eg sunflower or vegetable
200g spinach (or change to 150g chard)
1 x 400g tin chickpeas
½ teaspoon brown mustard seeds (2g)
½ teaspoon ground cumin (2g)
½ teaspoon garam masala (2g)
¼ teaspoon chilli powder (1g)
¼ teaspoon turmeric (1g)
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon (1g)
400g chopped tomatoes
1 lemon (150g)

Put the rice in a sieve and rinse well under the tap. Peel and chop the onion. Peel and finely chop the garlic. Peel the ginger and finely grate it. Wash the coriander leaves and leave them to dry. Melt the butter in a heavy-based saucepan. Add the rice and stir to coat the grains. Stir the coconut milk so it’s smooth and add to the rice with 150ml water. Season with a good pinch of salt. Bring to the boil, the lower the heat, cover and leave it cook on a bare simmer. Keep an eye on the pan, stirring it every now and then to stop it catching on the bottom. Add a little water or more of the coconut milk if it’s getting too dry. While the rice is cooking, heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a large saucepan. Add the onion and gently fry without colouring for 6 minutes. While the onion is cooking, rinse the chickpeas well and leave to drain. Wash the spinach and remove any tough stalks. Roughly chop the leaves. Add the garlic, ginger, mustard seeds, cumin, garam masala, chilli powder, turmeric and cinnamon to the onion. Fry gently for 1 minute. Add the chopped tomatoes and a good pinch of salt to the onion. Bring up to a simmer. After the tomatoes have been simmering for 10 minutes, remove the rice from the heat and leave to steam, still covered. Continue cooking the tomatoes for another 5 minutes. Finely chop the coriander leaves. Uncover the tomatoes and add the drained chickpeas and spinach. Stir together and simmer, uncovered, for 5 minutes. Taste and add more salt if needed. (It does look like a lot of spinach to start with, but it wilts down). Fluff up the rice with a fork. Squeeze in the juice from ½ the lemon and stir in the chopped coriander leaves. Serve with the chickpeas and spinach.

Fennel & Chard Gratin
prep & cook 45 mins
serves 2
2 fennel bulbs (500g)
olive Oil
salt & pepper
300g chard
2 garlic cloves
100ml white wine
1 whole nutmeg
125ml crème fraîche
fresh thyme
salt & pepper
25g wholemeal breadcrumbs
40g parmesan
1 lemon

Preheat the oven to 190C/180C fan assisted/gas mark 5. Put on a large pan of salted water to boil. While the oven is heating up, trim any large spiky tops of the fennel and remove any tough outer leaves. Cut the bulbs into thin wedges, still with the core intact to keep them together. If a few odd bits fall apart, don’t worry. If you have any feathery fronds on your fennel, keep those and add them when you stir in the cream. Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a large pan. Add the fennel and cook it very slowly, stirring every now and then. It will take about 20 minutes, until it’s starting to caramelize. Strip the chard leaves from their stalks. Wash both, then chop the stalks very finely. Peel and finely chop or crush the garlic. Once the water is boiling, plunge the chard leaves in and boil for 3 minutes. Get a large bowl of cold water ready. Drain the leaves and plunge into the bowl to refresh, then drain again. When cool enough to handle, roughly chop the leaves. After about 20 minutes or so, when the fennel starts to look a golden brown colour, add the chard stalks and garlic. Cook, stirring, for 5 minutes. Add the wine and use a fine grater to grate a little of the nutmeg into the pan. Cook for 2 minutes. Stir in the cream, chard leaves and the thyme leaves. Season well with salt and pepper. Transfer to the baking/gratin dish. Put the breadcrumbs in a small bowl. Finely grate enough of the lemon zest over the bowl so you have approximately 1 teaspoon in there. Grate in the cheese too. Mix together then scatter over the fennel mixture. Transfer the dish to the oven (ideally keep the sweet potatoes on the same shelf but move them onto a lower shelf if you need to make room – you might just need to cook them a little longer) and bake for approximately 20-25 minutes, depending on your oven, until the gratin is golden on top.

Variations on a Theme.

It has been all work and no play at the moment so I afraid that my blog has been a little abandoned but I am back and hurrah, so is Asparagus.  By that I mean English Asparagus and it marks the end of the hungry gap - that long period between December and April when the root vegetables have come to an end and although Spring is all around us, there is still a long wait for the first spring crops.  This means that we have to make do with the end of the winter crops such as leeks, cauliflower and purple sprouting broccoli, mushrooms and potatoes. 

The current torrential rain and lack of sunshine has delayed Spring crops still further, so I am still struggling with my vegetable boxes to move the menu on from Winter. The potatoes thankfully never seen to disappoint as there is always a different variety that can be exploited to stretch the seasons and a Gratin Dauphinoise never fails to please at a Riverford lunch.  I have learnt to adapted the recipe to include all sorts of vegetables and it is certainly always one of the most popular dishes that I ever cook at my Riverford lunches or indeed, dinners. 

Through until the end of winter I was often adding leeks, mushrooms and lots of garlic. Last week I tried out a really delicious new version with spring greens and bacon but you can use any greens from pointed cabbage to savoy.  All are delicious.  Another variation is to add some anchovy and lots of rosemary.  This is classically known as Jansson’s Temptation and I often add some sautéed chard as well. Absolutely delicious to accompany some Spring lamb and guaranteed to warm you up at the same time.  Just what you need this Spring.

Potato, Leek and Mushroom Gratin

Sometimes I like to add a little truffle oil with the cream.

500 mls Double cream
500g large potatoes, sliced paper-thin
10 sprigs fresh thyme (very finely chopped)
2 tablespoons olive oil
10 sliced mushrooms
3 Leeks, cut in rings and well washed and dried to remove all grit
Salt and pepper, to taste

In a large saucepan big enough to hold all the potatoes, bring the cream to the boil, being careful not to boil over. Season with salt to taste. Add the potatoes and bring back to the boil, stirring gently until the cream thickens. Remove the pan from the heat and test again for seasoning. 

Meanwhile, coat a frying pan with olive oil and place over medium heat. Sauté the mushrooms until golden brown. Add the thyme and season. Remove. Heat another frying pan and sauté leeks in butter and olive oil without colour until soft for about 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

Arrange 1/2 of the potato mixture on the bottom of a gratin dish. Top potatoes with the mushrooms and the leeks. Finish with another layer of potatoes. Press the layers down with a spatula to condense. Bake in a low oven at about 160 degrees. Cook for 1 -1 1/2 hours until the potatoes are tender. A blunt knife should easily sink in.  

Potato, Spring Green and Bacon Gratin

You could use any greens including Kale or cabbage in this. They are all delicious. You can easily omit the bacon if you are vegetarian.

                   

500 mls Double cream
A handful of rosemary (very finely chopped) 

500g large potatoes, sliced paper-thin 

1 packet of good smoked streaky bacon, cut into lardons
3 cloves of garlic, very finely chopped or crushed

2 tablespoons olive oil

Large bag of spring greens, Kale or a cabbage (stems removed and shredded)

Salt and pepper, to taste

In a large saucepan big enough to hold all the potatoes, bring the cream to the boil, being careful not to boil over. Season with salt to taste. Add the potatoes and bring back to the boil, stirring gently until the cream thickens. Remove the pan from the heat and test again for seasoning.

Meanwhile blanch the greens in a large pan of salted boiling water. Return to the boil and cook for about three minutes. Remove and lay out flat on a dry tea towel and allow to cool. When cool, use the tea towel to squeeze out any excess water. In a frying pan with olive oil fry the bacon until golden brown and crisp. Add the chopped garlic, fry for a few seconds and add the greens. Stir fry for a few minutes and season with salt and pepper.

Arrange 1/2 of the potato mixture on the bottom of a gratin dish. Top potatoes with the greens. Finish with another layer of potatoes. Press the layers down with a spatula to condense. Bake in a low oven at about 160 degrees. Cook for 1 -1 1/2 hours until the potatoes are tender. A blunt knife should easily sink in.

Potato and Chard Gratin with Anchovy 
This is a variation on a famous potato dish called Jansson’s Temptation which I first found in a Jane Grigson Book 

500 mls Double cream
A handful of rosemary (very finely chopped) 

500g large potatoes, sliced paper-thin  
A few handfuls of chard 2 garlic cloves thinly sliced  
6-8 good quality anchovy fillets
2 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and pepper, to taste

In a large saucepan big enough to hold all the potatoes, bring the cream to the boil infused with the rosemary, being careful not to boil over. Season with salt to taste. Add the potatoes and bring back to the boil, stirring gently until the cream thickens. Remove the pan from the heat and test again for seasoning.

Prepare Chard by removing the leaves from the stems. Chop the stems into strips. Blanch first the leaves and then the stems in a pan of boiling salted water for a few minutes each. The stem will take a minute or two more than the leaves. Remove and lay out to cool on a flat surface such as a clean teatowel. When cool, squeeze the excess water from the leaves and roughly chop. In a fryingpan, first saute the anchovies and garlic in the olive oil. The anchovies should dissolve. Next add the stalks and finally the leaves. Season with salt and pepper and stir really well. Taste for seasoning.  In a gratin dish arrange 1/2 of the potato mixture on the bottom, top with the chard mixture and finally top with the remaining potato. Press the layers down with a spatula to condense. Bake in a low oven at about 160 degrees. Cook for 1 -1 1/2 hours until the potatoes are tender.  A blunt knife should easily sink in.