Chard, vaguely Middle Eastern/South Asian style

Chard is beautiful and delicious, but I'm a little bored with the way we usually cook it (simmer garlic in olive oil, add chard, add some stock, cover).

I was hoping to cook it in sort of a Tuscan style today, but we didn't have any white beans. Instead, I started tossing things in--half an apple, some dried currants, some curry powder--and it came out pretty well, I think (and viv agrees).

Here's the "recipe" (more or less):
Ingredients
1 small bunch chard, roughly chopped
1 large shallot, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
c. 1 tsp curry powder
c. 1 tbs dried currants
1/2 apple, in chunks
olive oil
s + p

Directions
1. Saute shallot and garlic in oil over medium heat, until very lightly browned
2. Add chard, and cook until it reduces to about half its normal size
[If I were to do this again, I would add about 1/4 water here and cover, to make sure the chard gets completely tender; then remove the cover and cook off the water]
3. Add apples and currants, and curry (to taste - you may need more depending on how much chard you have and how strong your curry powder is) and cook until heated through and the apples are tender (though don't let the apples lose their shape and start to dissolve)
4. throw in a splash of white wine or sweet vinager or lemon juice to lighten things up
5. eat!

I think a little crunch--some pine nuts or walnuts--would probably be good as well.

[photo from flikr user M P G]

Places and Recipes to Try

Places to Try:

Helmand, Cambridge, MA - Afghan

Matt Murphy's Pub, Brookline, MA - Irish pub food and Wednesday trivia nights


Recipes to Try:

Chicken Tortilla Soup

Beef and Guinness Stew

Voulez-Vous Poulet Avec Moi?

The frustrating part of learning how to blog is figuring out how to make user-friendly posts and also how to use blogger. I just wrote a post about tonight's dinner and ended up deleting the whole thing by accident. It's probably the most frustrating thing that could happen to you while blogging, besides losing your entire blog!

Back to the topic at hand - Hainanese chicken! I have no idea where it's from--Hainan?--haha--but it is practically a national dish in Singapore. You take a whole chicken, poach it and then cook rice with the chicken stock from the poaching. It's typically served with sliced cucumbers and tomatoes, but we had some baby bok choy and pea pod shoots that Ben picked up from the Allston farmer's market, so we sauteed those instead and served them on the side.

You start with a whole chicken -- ours came from Whole Foods. They carry a line of whole organic chickens from Petaluma, CA (awful food mileage, I know) that comes with all the bells and whistles -- organic, free range, hormone free. You poach it and shred/slice the chicken. The rice is cooked with shallots and garlic, and the chicken stock is used as the cooking liquid. The result is an intensely chicken-flavored rice, and delicious, perfectly cooked chicken. The chicken is served with cilantro and a salt-scallion-ginger dipping sauce. All we have to do now is strain the leftover stock and freeze it for next time. Tonight's chicken started with leftover stock from the first time we made it :) The theory, according to the NY Times, is that the chicken flavor gets more intense as you repeat. The recipe is below -- courtesy of Mark Bittman of the NY Times. Ben is a little obsessed with Bittman and his "The Minimalist" series. We even have his "How to Cook Everything" cookbook. I think a lot of his ideas/recipes are overrated, but this recipe was one I picked out and it's a home run! The picture above is from the first time we made it.

Ben wants to add that when you cut up the chicken on a cutting board and leave the carcass, the juices congeal and the remnants are so rich it tastes like turkey. Yup, that's my husband.

RECIPE: The Minimalist: From a Chinese Island, a Chicken for Every Pot (September 17, 2008)

Ingredients:

Salt and freshly ground pepper

1 whole (3- to 4-pound) chicken, trimmed of excess fat

Several cloves smashed garlic, plus 1 teaspoon minced garlic

Several slices fresh ginger, plus 1 tablespoon minced ginger

1/2 cup peanut oil, or neutral oil, like corn or canola

3 shallots, roughly chopped, or a small onion

2 cups long-grain rice

1/2 cup minced scallions

2 cucumbers, peeled and sliced

2 tomatoes, sliced

Chopped fresh cilantro leaves

2 tablespoons sesame oil.

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and salt it. Add chicken to pot along with smashed garlic and sliced ginger. Bird should be completely submerged, but only just. Cover, reduce heat to medium, and cook for 10 minutes. Turn off heat and let bird remain in water for 45 minutes to an hour, covered, or until it is cooked through.

2. Remove chicken from pot, reserve stock, and let bird cool to room temperature. Put half the peanut oil in a skillet over medium heat; you may add trimmed chicken fat to this also. When oil is hot, add remaining garlic, along with shallots; cook, stirring occasionally, until lightly browned, about 5 minutes. Add rice and cook, stirring, until glossy. Add 4 cups reserved chicken stock and bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and cover; cook for about 20 minutes, until rice has absorbed all liquid. Stir in salt and pepper to taste.

3. Make a dipping sauce of remaining oil, ginger, half the scallions and a large pinch of salt.

4. Shred or chop chicken, discarding skin. Put rice on a large platter and mound chicken on top of it; decorate platter with cucumbers, tomatoes, remaining scallions and cilantro. Sprinkle sesame oil over all and serve with dipping sauce.

Yield: 4 to 8 servings.

Belmont Farms CSA and our first CSA haul

Here's a picture of part of our haul today!

This afternoon, Ben and I picked up our first winter share of veggies from Belmont CSA! CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture, and the concept for CSA shares is that in return for investing in a local farm through the purchase of a share, you get a portion of that farm's bounty throughout the growing season. Belmont CSA's winter share is a growing collective among three farms, and the Belmont CSA acts like the agent for the other two farms. There are lots of good reasons for supporting local farms and sustainable agriculture -- we'll probably post about that later on.

At the Belmont farm, we had a great time walking through the field - they are still growing lettuces, leafy greens like kale and collard greens, leeks, broccoli, cauliflower, and root crops like radishes.

Here's some pics of the farm.






It's amazing that you can still grow food in the Boston area in late October, when evening temperatures oftentimes dip into the late 30s. We sipped on apple cider and pondered which variety of apple to take home. Included in this pick-up was 10 lbs. of apples, and we chose Empire apples. We also picked up a pumpkin from Sergi Farms next door to the Belmont CSA -- Ben's going to carve the Obama campaign symbol into it. We'll post pictures once the pumpkin is carved!

Our bounty from the CSA is below. (We put everything on our kitchen floor to get everything in one frame!) Besides 10 lbs. of apples, included in our share today was 45 lbs. of produce -- swiss chard, escarole, lettuces, green and red peppers, napa cabbage, leeks, harukei turnips, potatoes, sweet potatoes, onions, beets, parsley, acorn squash, delicata squash, butternut, sugar pumpkin, spinach, carrots, daikon and fennel! We are storing the squash, onions, sweet potatoes and potatoes in our back stairwell and hope they won't go bad hanging out back there.