Spinach Salad with Rhubarb Vinaigrette and Strawberries

This was one of those happy accidents of having a variety of things on the kitchen counter at once, and not something that I set out to do. The spinach from our CSA farm was so small and fresh that it seemed a shame not to make a salad of some of it (though with six heads of lettuce in the fridge and a garden-full of salad greens, why I would use something else for salad is madness). The spinach and the strawberries that I had picked made me recall a very nice salad that a friend took to a potluck. Hers had some kind of creamy poppy seed dressing, which was delicious.

However, I had just made stewed rhubarb for another use, so I thought I would try making a vinaigrette with it. The rhubarb was delicious mixed with olive oil and a dash of balsamic vinegar. When I make stewed rhubarb, I mascerate it in sugar for a few hours (using about ½ cup of sugar per pound, or about 4 cups, of thinly sliced rhubarb), then cook it for about ten minutes until it collapses. Not adding water but rather using the rhubarb’s own juices produces a good thick consistency.

To assemble the salad, toss well washed spinach leaves (tear in pieces if large) with the vinagrette, add sliced strawberries and top with toasted almonds. Yum.

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More Spring Greens: Spinach and Herbs

I came back from our CSA farm with a ton of lettuce, arugula and spinach as well as a quart of strawberries that I picked. Because the greens take up so much room in the refrigerator, I make it a habit of first using those that can be cooked down to a small volume. The spinach was clearly the first candidate since it was rather stemmy, clearly the thinnings from a growing crop.  With scallions from the farmers’ market and a variety of herbs from our pot garden, I made a delicious medley that I tossed into rice and finished with cheese. The key is the variety and volume of herbs. This can also be baked in the oven with the addition of more cheese, especially a melting variety.

Spinach and Herbs with Rice and Cheese

3/4 lb spinach, well washed and torn into pieces

5 scallions, white and pale green sections, sliced

Butter or olive oil

Handful of mixed herbs, chopped: parsley, lovage, dill, tarragon, young thyme and oregano

Cooked rice

Parmesan cheese (or really small pieces of mozzarella)

Wash the spinach well and drain it, leaving some water clinging to the leaves. In a pot large enough to hold the spinach, sauté the scallions in a little butter (or olive oil, though I usually use butter when I’m adding cheese). Add the spinach and cook it down. Drain it if necessary, then add the herbs, stirring to wilt them a little. Stir into cooked rice and add cheese. If you’re using a melting cheese like mozzarella, this can be baked in the oven with great success.

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Spring Greens Ottolenghi

One of the online food columns that I enjoy is The New Vegetarian that Yotam Ottolenghi writes for The Guardian in the UK. I was thinking about ways to prepare cabbage and kale that would feel seasonally spring-like and looked up a post from early April called “Yotam Ottolenghi’s seasonal greens with crushed peppercorns recipe.” While his use of three types of peppercorns was the feature of a cabbage and broccoli fricassee served over barley pilaf, I was intrigued by the combination of shallots, ginger and cream coating the parboiled cabbage strips as well as by the use of pink peppercorns.  I of course tinkered with this considerably, but the concept represents the typically understated but sophisticated style of a really interesting cook. Now if I can only get my hands on his new cookbook Plenty.

Cabbage and Kale Fricassee (after Yotam Ottolenghi)

½ head of green cabbage, outer leaves cut into 1-inch ribbons (reserve center for another use)

3-4 stalks of green kale, stalks removed and kale torn into pieces

2 tsp butter

2 tsp vegetable oil

2 shallots, cut in small dice

¼-inch slice of fresh ginger, minced

2 tbsp heavy cream (or 1 tbsp sour cream)

Salt to taste

1 tsp pink peppercorns, crushed with a mortar and pestle

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Blanch the cabbage strips for about a minute, refresh in cold water and set aside to drain. Do the same with the kale, cooking until barely tender. Drain the water. Heat the butter and oil in the pot and add the shallots and ginger to cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the cream and simmer to reduce slightly (you will not have to do that with the thicker sour cream).  Return the drained vegetables to the pot, stirring to coat with cream. Season with salt if desired. Sprinkle in the crushed pink peppercorns and combine with the vegetables.

To be closer to the original dish, add crushed white pepper corns and Sichuan pepper in the pan to cook with the shallots and ginger.  A variety of vegetables would work with the “sauce,” and it can easily be combined with pasta or grains.

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Everybody’s Doing it…Rhubarb Crisp

Apple crisp has been a staple of fall and winter desserts in my house since I was a kid. The recipe my mother used probably came from a Better Homes & Garden’s cookbook, and is still how I make it today, though I’ve cut back on the sugar. Butter, flour, oatmeal, brown sugar and cinnamon are the main ingredients, with the occasional addition of nuts. I make it in the summer with stone fruits, like cherries and plums or berries.  When it comes to spring, rhubarb’s the best fresh candidate for the filling, with or without the addition of strawberries. I recently came across a recipe in a gardener’s community handbook, which used pecans, and then Mark Bittman in the New York Times used pecans. In my “mental tastebuds,” if there is such a thing, I couldn’t quite pair pecans with rhubarb but I had a few stray pecans in the pantry, so why not give it a try? It was surprisingly good, as the pecans worked well with the crisped oatmeal.

I vary the amount of topping according to the filling and the size of the pan, so this recipe is just indicative.

Rhubarb Crisp

1 lb rhubarb, cleaned and cut into ¾-inch pieces (about 4 cups

1 long strip of orange rind (no pith), cut into small strips

1 tbsp orange juice

2 tbsp – 1/4 c sugar

Handful of strawberries (optional)

Topping

¼ cup soft butter

1/3 cup flour

1/3 cup brown sugar, packed

¼ tsp ground cinnamon (or more to taste)

2/3 cup oatmeal flakes

1/3 cup chopped pecans

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Combine the fruit mixture and pour into a baking dish.

Combine the topping ingredients and pat them into a crust on top of the fruit.

Bake for about 45 minutes until the top is browned and the fruit is bubbling. Serve warm or at room temperature. Pour a little heavy cream on top, or serve with whipped cream or ice cream or just plain. Serves four.

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Rhubarb Grilling Sauce: my Rhu-barb-e-que

OMG, I logged into Tigress’s website Sunday night to see what the posting deadline was and there, to my horror, she had made the very recipe that I had just adapted. Didn’t want you to think I’m a copycat (we just copied the same thing). I took a slightly different approach.  Luckily had already done my normal May canning, so I have a few other things to offer the Tigress Can Jam).

With Memorial Day coming, it’s time to get out the grill so that we can cook and eat outside in the glorious weather. I’ve been cooking and jamming all month with rhubarb and asparagus and have a few jars to show for it (see the posts for rhubarb-orange-ginger preserves and the curry-spiced pickled asparagus), but I wanted to share this for the May Tigress Can Jam.

I thought a lot about how to make a rhubarb grilling sauce, because I normally like to grill vegetables instead of meat (I’m an awful meat cook and generally don’t eat it).  I thought that a fruity barbecue sauce would work for vegetables and fish, and also subtly for meat when the “meatatarians” (as my little kids would say) come home. I also wanted to avoid salt and fat. I noticed that Pam Corbin, in the second handbook (aptly, Preserves) in the River Cottage series, makes tomato ketchup that she claims can be adapted for rhubarb and canned.  So that was my jumping off point.

The key was roasting the rhubarb slowly in the oven with onions and garlic. Without the normal addition of sugar or juice, which makes the rhubarb juicy, the rhubarb self-imploded and deepened in flavor, exuding little fluid, which was great for thickening the sauce. As you know, rhubarb is technically a vegetable and it acted here like a cross between celery and chard stems. It’s possible that the rhubarb I used is young so may not have the same fluid content as the typical harvest.

The roasted rhubarb-onion-garlic mix is pureed (I used a food mill but a food processor would work), and then cooked with vinegar, brown sugar and spices. I used ground cumin, ground coriander, a touch of allspice and a little chili powder that had a hint of cloves. Though I doubled the amount in Corbin’s recipe, and made some additions, I went light on the seasonings compared to most grilling sauces since I thought the rhubarb should shine through. Cooked down, mine had the consistency of applesauce or apple butter, but if the rhubarb had been juicier, it might have been more liquid. Either works.

I canned this in one-cup jars. I really dislike having partially used barbecue sauce in the fridge, so I adjusted the canning portion to what we would use in one sitting, knowing that we can use more than one jar if we’re a crowd. Which I expect we’ll be on Memorial Day.

Yay!

To try this, I used it on oven-roasted asparagus – good — and on grilled leeks — great. It was excellent with roasted potatoes and made a fine a meat barbecue sauce. It would be good with fish, which I’ll try next. I liked the fruitiness and the subtle little kick provided by the spices.

Rhubarb Grilling Sauce adapted from Pam Corbin’s Rhubarb Ketchup, Preserves, River Cottage vol. 2. Makes 4  cups

2 ¼ lbs rhubarb stems, cleaned, trimmed and cut into ¾-inch pieces (8 cups)

1 small red onion, diced (about ½ cup)

2 cloves garlic, cut in small pieces

½ cup cider vinegar

½ cup brown sugar (I used demerara)

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground coriander

1.4 tsp ground allspice

¾-1 tsp ground chili powder (it included a hint of cloves)

Roast the rhubarb, onions and garlic in a large shallow pan (or 2) at 350 degrees until tender, about 60 minutes. (I covered the dish with foil for half the time since my rhubarb was not juicy.) Push through a food mill (a food processor works, but the texture will be different). Remove to a heavy-bottomed saucepan (I also used a “flame-taming” disk to reduce the possibility of scorching), add the vinegar and bring to a simmer. Then add the sugar and the spices and stir to dissolve. (I did this in reverse order from Corbin’s recipe since I needed to test the seasonings.) Cook for about 25 minutes until thick.  Pour into prepared 1-cup canning jars and process in a water-bath canner for 10 minutes. Remove the lid and turn off the heat at the end to let the jars sit for 5 minutes, and then remove and set aside to cool.

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Pickled Asparagus with Curry Spices and Another Batch with Herbs

After I wrote this, I had an unexpected result: floaters!  Uh oh. You never want the ingredients in the air space, so I inverted the jars to let them cure. They were fully sealed but since the blend of spices was a complete experiment, I won’t be sad to decant after a month to test-taste. Next time, I might cut the asparagus even shorter, so they’ll be covered, or really crush them in there. Last year, I pickled asparagus later in the season and the larger ones stayed put.

Having made my usual curried asparagus soup a couple of weeks ago, I thought it might be interesting to add the curry flavors to pickled asparagus. Knowing that curry powder dissolves best in oil and not wanting to add any (or much) oil to the brine and throw off the acidity, I thought, why not supplement it with the whole spices themselves? So, I added cardamom seeds (the black insides, not the hulls), fenugreek, allspice, coriander, cumin seed, and black mustard seed to the brining liquid. I also made a slurry of curry powder, adding a drop or two of vegetable oil just to get it started. Because the curry powder doesn’t really dissolve, I strained the brine before pouring it over the asparagus packed in jars. For the jars with curry spices, I used white vinegar and increased the amount slightly since I thought the asparagus would water it down and it has less acidity (5%) than the stronger white wine vinegar I usually use.

Last year I made pickled asparagus with dill seed, garlic and red pepper flakes, which was delicious but too salty and pretty pungent. So I added a little sugar and decreased the salt after checking a few sources to see how much they added. This year, I went back to an old standby: tarragon.

The trick with asparagus is first to match the general thickness, trim them the same height to fit in the jar and then cram them in so they won’t float. (ha in hindsight) Since they’ll soften when you parboil them, use about double the number of stalks that fit in the jar raw. After I put a handful in, I added more with children’s chopsticks (the ones that are attached at the end, like long wood tweezers), and also used them to get the air bubbles out before sealing.

You need to set the pickled asparagus aside for about a month before eating it, so I’ll be interested to see how my curry spice experiment worked. Also, I usually place them in the jars with tips up, but Ashley English of Small Measures (see last month’s Tigress Can Jam on herbs) suggested tips down. So I did some of each.

Pickled Asparagus with Curry Spices (1-2 12-oz jars)

1-2 lbs asparagus, cut into lengths according to the depth of the jar

Pan of ice water

1 ¼ cup white vinegar

1 cup water

1 tbsp sugar

1 tsp kosher or pickling salt

1 tsp curry powder

A few drops of vegetable oil

½ tsp per jar of a mix of cardamom seeds, allspice berries, coriander seeds, cumin seed, fenugreek granules, mustard seed, caraway seed and/or other spices typically found in a curry

Boil water in a large flat pan and add a handful of asparagus, not so many spears as to cover the base of the pan. (Do this in batches so you don’t overcook the asparagus.) Cook only long enough to bring the water back to a boil (about a minute), remove to a pan of ice water to cool quickly, drain immediately upon cool and set aside to continue draining.  Pack tightly into prepared jars.  Pack more tightly than you think possible, taking care not to break the asparagus.

Stir the sugar and salt into the water to dissolve. Make a slurry of the curry powder with a drop or two of oil and water, stirring to dissolve the powder to the extent possible, Add to the water mixture with the spices and bring to a simmer. Add the vinegar and bring just to the boil. Pour over asparagus packed in jars, leaving ½-inch headspace. Seal and process in a water bath canner for 10 minutes once the boiling point is reached. Turn off heat, remove lid and let stand for 5 minutes to calm, then remove to a safe place to stand undisturbed for 24 hours.

Pickled Asparagus with Herbs (1-2 12-oz jars)

1-2 lbs asparagus, cut into lengths according to the depth of the jar

1 cup white wine vinegar

1 cup water

1 tbsp sugar

1 tsp kosher or pickling salt

1 sprig or two of herbs per jar (I used tarragon, but dill, oregano, thyme would also work)

Boil water in a large flat pan and add a handful of asparagus, not so many spears as to cover the base of the pan. (Do this in batches so you don’t overcook the asparagus.) Cook only long enough to bring the water back to a boil (about a minute), remove to a pan of ice water to cool quickly, drain immediately upon cool and set aside to continue draining.  Pack tightly into prepared jars.  Pack more tightly than you think possible, taking care not to break the asparagus.  Include a sprig or two of herbs in the jar.

Stir the sugar and salt into the water to dissolve. Add the vinegar and bring just to the boil. Pour over asparagus packed in jars, leaving ½-inch headspace. Seal and process in a water bath canner for 10 minutes once the boiling point is reached. Turn off heat, remove lid and let stand for 5 minutes to calm, then remove to a safe place to stand undisturbed for 24 hours.

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Flower of the Week

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Rhubarb Preserves with Orange and Ginger

I love how ginger complements rhubarb, probably because they both originated in the same part of the world – Asia. Oranges are also a natural complement to both. Last year, when I was on a rosemary kick, I made rhubarb jam with oranges and rosemary, which was good but a little dull. Needing spark, I opted for ginger instead of rosemary this time.

Since rhubarb is low in pectin and I do not like the powder or gel, I needed to figure how to make the preserves gel without breaking down the fruit since I wanted the result to be chunky.  I’m aware of a technique that involves macerating the fruit overnight and then boiling down the juices with sugar before re-incorporating the fruit.  I don’t recall where I saw this but I’ve searched the Internet and see mentions of Chocolate and Zucchini leading back to Christine Ferber and Mes Confitures.  Attributions aside, I just winged this. Adding the zest and the orange seeds (pips) to the fruit and juice helps create pectin, which positively affects the ability to gel.

Rhubarb Preserves with Orange and Ginger (makes 3-4 half-pint jars)

1 – 1 ½ lbs rhubarb, cleaned, trimmed and cut into ¾-inch pieces (4 cups)

2 cups granulated sugar

1 cup fresh squeezed orange juice

1 tbsp grated orange rind

Orange seeds, if any, wrapped in a small piece of cheesecloth tied with a string

4 quarter sized slices of ginger

Thoroughly mix all ingredients in a bowl, stirring to dissolve the sugar and let the mixture mascerate overnight. When ready to can, prepare the canning jars and canner. Drain the rhubarb, removing the bag of pips if using, and bring the liquid to a boil in a deep saucepan, cooking until it reaches the gel point (220 degrees, tested on an ice-cold plate for runniness, or a little hotter since the rhubarb’s juices will dilute the mix). Add the reserved rhubarb, bring to a boil and cook for about 3 minutes. Ladle into hot canning jars and can via water bath process for 10 minutes. Turn off the heat, remove the lid and let sit for 5 minutes before removing to the counter to sit undisturbed for a day.

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The Red-Green Color Problem: Rhubarb and a Red Hen

I always like to see how things grow, so as soon as rhubarb season arrived, I rushed out to a local farm to check out the rhubarb patch. What I really wanted to know is how big the plant gets and how closely they can be planted since I have ambitions to plant some in my yard.

The stalks exhibit what my artist husband calls the “red-green color problem,” an intriguing array of complementary colors that are both subtle and stunning. But here, the color problem expanded: among the gigantic green leaves, was a little red hen sitting on her eggs. I certainly didn’t intimidate her as she let me know she wasn’t budging.

So I had to go into the farm stand for my season’s supply of rhubarb for cooking and canning.

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Asparagus and Leek Bread Pudding

I had lots of asparagus stems left over from canning pickled asparagus, a couple of fat leeks from the farmers’ market and a hunk of stale bread, so on a ridiculously cold and blustery day in May, bread pudding was not only expedient but comforting. I used my typical formula for bread pudding but decreased the bread since I was adding grated fontina cheese and thought the mixture should be custardy.

Asparagus and Leek Bread Pudding

4 cups stale bread cubes

1 bunch asparagus, trimmed

1 large or 2 small leeks, cleaned and cut into rings

Dab of butter

Chopped herbs (optional… but try tarragon, parsley or lovage)

4 eggs

2 cups milk (nonfat is fine)

1 cup grated fontina cheese

Salt and pepper to taste

Prepare the main ingredients. If the bread is very moist, dry it out in the oven at 250 degrees for about 15 minutes. Cut it into 1-inch cubes and place in a lightly buttered baking dish (9-inch glass pie plate, 10-inch square glass pan, ceramic baking dish or something equivalent). Parboil the asparagus until just tender, drain it, and cut into 1-inch pieces. Braise the leeks slowly in a little water with a dab of butter and a pinch of salt, covered, until tender. There should be no liquid left, but if there is, substitute it for some of the milk. Toss the vegetables with the bread and add the herbs if using.

Lightly beat the eggs, combine with the milk and cheese, and pour over the bread mixture, pushing down on the ingredients to absorb the liquid. Let sit for 15-20 minutes or longer. (This can be refrigerated at this point and cooked later.) Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, sprinkle with additional cheese if desired, and bake for about 45 minutes or until the custard is set and the top is browned. Let it stand for a few minutes before serving.

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