Ridiculously good chard tart
Thaw a package of puff pastry. More power to you if you make your own. Puff pastry is so labor intensive, however, that even the most ambitious cooks typically buy it, like phyllo dough.
Chop a pile of chard. Oh—that sounds so brute! considering the chard we had in hand this November. After the bunch was rinsed, I held a leaf up like an X-ray, a stained glass, to the window, and with the sunlight shining through, it was a cartooned tree of tall, cumulous shape in sea-vegetable Green with Fuschia branches, pink veins edged in lit white. Layer the leaves on top of each other and roll like a cigar, slice from the end to your fingers to make long shreds. Then slice across these shreds to make bite sized pieces.
Peel and chop two shallots. Toast a handful of pine nuts in a dry skillet. Zest a lemon (again – organic, the peel!). Hold these ingredients in little bowls or dishes until you are ready to incorporate them into the dish.
Heat your oven to 375º. Heat a shallow skillet over medium heat to cook your greens. Melt about a tablespoon of butter and toss in the shallots. Let the shallots cook for a few minutes (3-ish) and then toss the shard over it along with half the lemon zest. Cook the greens down, stirring occasionally. About 10 minutes total. Let sit in the pan with the heat off.
Stir together ½ a cup of Greek yoghurt and ½ a cup of feta cheese along with the remaining lemon zest.
Crush ¾ of the pine nuts in whatever way is easiest in your kitchen. I crush them on a cutting board with a wine bottle, not rolling pin style but screwing and crushing with the round bottom. Stir the crushed pine nuts into the greens along with a handful of currants.
On a cookie sheet, layout a full sheet of puff pastry and turn up the edges all the way around to make a crust. Pinch over about a quarter inch and use your fingertips to squish the folded over edge into the main body of the dough. Spread the feta and yoghurt along the pastry. Spread the chard mixture on top of the creamy layer. Sprinkle with more feta and the whole pine nuts. Bake at 375º for 15-20 minutes or until the puff pastry is golden. Let rest for 10 minutes or so, slice into squares, and serve hot.
burfee with rose water, cardamon and pistachios
Most Indian deserts are made on a stove top, not baked like cakes, brownies, and pies. Not many ovens in India. But when they do have a birthday cake – story goes- there is a cake fight.
In a heavy saucepan, melt
3 tablespoons of unsalted butter.
Stir in
1 pound of ricotta cheese
and cook for 20 minutes, stirring with a slotted spoon or a whisk, banging it against the side frequently (a whisk really cages the cheese). Whisk in
just more than half of one 14-ounce can of sweetened condensed milk.
Cook for another 20 minutes, until very thick and fudgey. Add
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 teaspoons of rosewater
3 tablespoons of almond shavings
or whatever other flavoring feels like nirvana or Narnia or night-blooming jasmine scented seduction to you.
Pour into a shallow baking pan or onto a cookie tray or into a mini-muffin tin. Top with
2 teaspoons of ground cardamom
2 tablespoons crushed pistachios.
sparkly decorator sugar; i used “silver”
Or edible silver leaf, but like I said… Refrigerate until solid; great to make the night before and let sit overnight. Cut into diamonds.
These recipes are based primarily on Neelam Batra’s recipes in The Indian Vegetarian: Simple Recipes for Today’s Kitchen, Hungry Minds Inc. (1998). Neela likens burfee to brownies.
I want to make beet burfee. The improvising will soon begin, but if anyone who reads this has a recipe, please do share.
summer strudel
this basil – in bloom – and veggies from the farmers’ market wrapped up with cheese in phyllo dough
don’t fear the strudel – it is just like a fancy burrito.
heat your oven to 375º and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper – especially if you want to make the strudel and refrigerate it to cook later – or grease it lightly with butter.
Thaw a package of phyllo dough. You are only going to use three sheets so if you are not interested in trying some other phyllo recipes you can make this filling and use it in tortillas like a quesadilla or as a layered frittata. Anyway, onward-
prep your veggies. Scrub clean, leave the skins on, and slice thin:
1 small summer squash. Slice your squash very fine, so you have thin circles edged in green. If it is short and squat rather than long like zucchini, then cut it in half then slice. The one I took home from the farmers’ market was the size of a tennis ball, gum drop shaped, and green with white speckles.
5 new red potatoes, about the size of ping pong balls. Slice them very fine, so you have thin circles edged in red.
peel and slice:
½ of a sweet yellow onion
melt 4 tablespoons (half stick) or so of butter or olive oil in a hot skillet. Pour off all but a table spoon into a cup to use with the pastry later. In the remainder, fry the onion and potatoes until the onions are translucent and the potatoes just begin to brown – about 10 minutes over a medium high flame. Every few minutes, turn them carefully with a fork; the potatoes this thin are delicate.
in a medium sized bowl, mash together with a fork:
1 cup pre-cooked cannelloni beans, tossed with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and
¾ cup fresh soft cheese. Sounds vague, but the label on the tub from the upstate organic, humane dairy says “fresh soft cheese” so I don’t know what else to tell you. Whatever local, happy white soft cheese you can get will be delicious.
pick a handful of fresh basil leaves. I ended up with about a half cup of shredded basil – suit yourself. Pick the leaves, and layer them, staggered side by side to make a wide stack, then roll them up like a cigar. Slice along the circular end to make fine shreds. Stir into the beans and cheese, along with:
¼ cup or more fresh sweet peas.
unroll your phyllo dough on a cutting board, and lift one sheet to your paper-lined baking tray. Brush lightly with butter, layer another sheet, brush with butter, third sheet, butter. Drop several tablespoons of the cheese filling onto the stack of phyllo, making a rectangle of filling with an inch of pastry above and below and two inches to its right. Layer slices of squash over the filling then add a bit more cheese & beans. Layer the potatoes and onions over that and a little more cheese and bean. You’ll have more filling than you need. Fold the two inches of pastry to the right over the filling then fold over the top and bottom pastry margin. Using the parchment paper to help you, fold the strudel over and possible over again to seal. Brush the entire outside with melted butter. Slash diagonal cuts across the top.
store in the refrigerator until ready to use (even over night) or bake immediately for about half an hour or until the outside is golden brown.
You can make this recipe vegan by making sure you use vegan phyllo, subbing olive oil for the butter, omitting the cheese entirely, and mashing the beans more thoroughly. Try adding tofutti sour supreme or tahini to make it creamier. Other veganizing ideas – please leave ‘em in the comments.
broccoli rabe quiche
- butter
- all purpose flour
- cornmeal
- ice water
The filling:
Crust
be not afraid! Remember – the freezer will help you make yummy, foolproof pastry. Cut up 6 tablespoons of butter then stash the butter bits in the freezer for a few minutes.
combine the cold fat with 3/4 cup all purpose flour sifted together with 3/4 cup cornmeal (there will be some grit but just dump that in, you aren’t trying to get rid of it, just fluff the dry stuff). If you have a food processor, you can whir this all together until it is crumbly, like soft gravel (about four bursts should do it). If not, then you can use a pastry cutter, two forks, two knives, or your hands (which is what I do and prefer).
work the dough with your fingers, freeze it for a few more moments, then use a wooden spoon to stir in just enough water so the dough holds together. See also the directions for the pastry pockets given before.
pat out your pie dough into a flat circle and roll it to form a crust. Lay it into a 9- or 10- inch pie pan (or a cast iron skillet).
Pie
heat your oven to 375.
clean about ½ a bunch of broccoli rabe, enough to fill a large skillet heaping full. Green, leafy things tend to cook down more than you would expect, but you only need enough rabe to make a layer in the pie. Heat a heavy skillet on the stove top, and add a tablespoon or two of butter. Sauté the rabe until bright green and nearly tender – maybe 8 minutes. While the greens are cooking, grate a whole lemon so the zest falls into the pan then squeeze each lemon half, adding the juice to the greens. I do a sort of squeeze and flick number, squeezing the lemon half a little then shaking the about-to-escape seeds into the sink.
grate about ½ a cup worth of pecorino cheese, and spread it over the bottom of the pie. While you are prepping, crush a handful of pine nuts, maybe with a bit of sea salt.
whisk together 4 eggs, 1 cup of ricotta cheese, and 3 tablespoons of flour. Spread the broccoli rabe over the cheese, pour the egg mixture over the rabe layer, then top with the crushed pine nuts and a generous sprinkling of paprika.
bake for 35 to 45 minutes, or until solid in the center. Serve hot, warm, or at room temperature.
simple stuffed mini squash
- 3 baby acorn squash – you can use any squash, but we had these absurdly cute mini-acorn (acorn-like acorn) squash at the coop
-
mushrooms – any and all sorts would be good
- fresh sage
- pine nuts – if you’ve got ‘em; try subbing pecan/walnut bits, maybe sunflower seeds
- millet
- olive oil
- sea salt
- pecorino cheese
heat a heavy skillet over a medium-high flame (for medium high on a gas stove – turn it up all the way then back a quarter turn; that’s about right). Toast (slightly browned; nutty smelling) 1 cup of millet. Dump into a sauce pan or pot with a lid, and add 1 ¾ cups of water. Bring to a boil, cover, and simmer for about 15 minutes. When the millet absorbs all the water, take it off the heat and fluff with a fork.
toast ½ cup of pine nuts too, and put them aside.
halve the squash and scrape out the seeds and pulp. Pour a little olive oil into the hollow of each of the squash, sprinkle a little sea salt and let them hang out soaking while the oven heats to 350. Turn them over onto a cookie sheet, slide them about to oil the sheet, and bake for 20 minutes to half an hour, until soft.
chop two generous handfuls of mushrooms (about a cup and a half chopped or more; more is tasty). I picked out the smallest crimini mushrooms I can find and just slice them thin, stem and all. If you select larger mushrooms, just pop of the stems, tossing them if they’re really woody or mincing them for the stuffing if they’re nice. In the skillet over medium heat, add about a tablespoon of olive oil. Sauté the mushrooms until soft.
shred a handful of fresh sage. Toss it with the cooked mushrooms along with a bit of sea salt. Shred enough pecorino to scatter on top of final assembly (three inches of a wedge ought to do it).
when the millet is fluffy, stir the mushrooms and pine nuts into the millet. Stuff your squash halves. Top with some cheese. Slide the whole shebang into the oven for quarter of an hour or until the cheese is melted.
Fancy Stuffed Squash
(from the Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen, 1977, 1999, 2000)
same process, but for the stuffing:
1 cup raw brown rice cooked with 1 ¾ cups water
1 tablespoon butter
1 teaspoon salt
1 ½ cups minced onion
1 to 2 tbs honey or brown sugar
2 medium cloves of garlic, minced
2 medium sized tart apples, diced
3 large navel oranges, sectioned
½ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon allspice or cloves
1 cup chopped almonds
Melt the butter in a skillet. Add the onion and sauté for about 5 minutes, or until translucent.
Add garlic, apples, oranges, and spices, and sauté over medium heat about 5 more minutes. The oranges may fall apart, but that’s ok.
Add the sauté to the rice and mix well. Season to taste with salt and honey or brown sugar.
Fill the pre-baked squash halves, and top with chopped nuts.
And dear, dear Mollie recommends serving with Orange-Ginger Sauce on page 90. Oh, yes:
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 cup of orange juice
2 to 3 medium cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger
¼ cup of soy sauce
salt, pepper, and cayenne, to taste
Other Additions
½ tablespoon grated orange rind
1 to 2 tablespoons honey or dry sherry
1 scallion/green onion, finely minced
Place cornstarch in a small bowl (if you are using this for stir-fried vegetables) or in a small saucepan (if you’re using this for anything else).
Add orange juice, and whisk until the cornstarch dissolves. Stir in all remaining ingredients (including optional additions).
If you are using this sauce for stir-fried vegetables, stir from the bottom and add to the wok or skillet about midway through the cooking (see detailed instructions on the previous 2 pages). If you are using this for anything else, place the saucepan over medium heat, and gradually bring to a boil, whisking constantly. Lower heat to a simmer and cook, whisking frequently, until thick and glossy (3 to 5 minutes). Serve hot or warm.
