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I thought I had an unusual affinity for bitter things, but if that's the case how come I have a hard time eating radicchio and other people don't? Anyway, my gardener friend also works for a local organic farm helping with distribution, and she often brings me lovely things. Yesterday one of the things was an oblong radicchio about half the size of a big old romaine lettuce, and another was red romaine about half the size of that. The little lettuce I devoured immediately with things sprinkled on it and the juice of half a wee meyer lemon (this is not a trendy meyer, it is the consequence of living on the coast where it is never hot enough for a high-acid proper lemon: though I admit I loive meyers best anyways). Akso, the dill and mint will be easy to dispose of.
So anyway, the radicchio. I had a vague memory of successfully doing it up in a sort of bastardized ala Catalana, so I figured I would do that again. A word about ala Catalana is in order. This is a Spanish spinach dish: you saute it fast fast with a sprinkle of raisins and pine nuts and splash it with red wine, and serve it forth. It is heavenly, but of course I cannot eat spinach anymore because I failed some universal test of worthiness and lost an enzyme or gained an antibody or some damned thing and now I must suffer without spinach forever and forever. I can hardly eat an occasional bite of chard or a bit of beet greens, but if I push it, the results are not pretty, and one spinach leaf destroys me and my immediate environment for a couple of days if not longer. We are speaking of dysentery here and now let's stop speaking of it. Oh, and I can't even eat pine nuts either, they turn my mouth into unbearable bitterness for weeks nowadays. I am not exaggerating. I think it was six weeks, the time I found out about it.
The point is, there is this lovely tecbhnique for cooking greens, which can be generalized as so: greens, dry fruit, nuts, liquor or acid, sauteed, as simple as that. I had a revelation and I thought, radicchio and a milder green, mixed, and use some candied orange peel and some wafer-dried plums (m y own invention because I don't trust the plums to dry in traditional prunes or halves without molding in our foggy climate, even in the dehydrator), and walnuts (often I use almonds or even sunflower seeds which are nice and resinous). And I thought, wouldn't a sweetish, salty sort of meat be nice too? And how about a shaving of asiago at the end, for a blander note? The meat was some ham because it was the thing I could get in the smallest amount at the big grocery store. And I used red chard, but just a little because it is in the spinach family and I don't quite trust it.
Reader, it was heaven on a plate. I slivered everything in thin thin slivers so it would all look the same. Except the asiago, I shaved it in wide thin flakes. If you eat noodles as I pretend I don't but really I do now and then, it would probably be nicer on something like orecchiette than on something like angel hair. Or you could do it with polenta, perhaps. I just did it as it was because I had already had starchy food three times today: half a big sandwich roll for breakfast, two flour tortillas! for lunch, and the breading of the emergency fried chicken I bought the dog.
I still have more than half the radicchio left. I'm going to make green soup from some of the broth left from cooking chicken for the dog. Should I put that in there?
On another front, I planted red bunching onions, some kind of old carrot seed, celery root, and turnip today. Also campanulas. I got home too late from getting chickens for the dog to water so I must must must in the morning.
So anyway, the radicchio. I had a vague memory of successfully doing it up in a sort of bastardized ala Catalana, so I figured I would do that again. A word about ala Catalana is in order. This is a Spanish spinach dish: you saute it fast fast with a sprinkle of raisins and pine nuts and splash it with red wine, and serve it forth. It is heavenly, but of course I cannot eat spinach anymore because I failed some universal test of worthiness and lost an enzyme or gained an antibody or some damned thing and now I must suffer without spinach forever and forever. I can hardly eat an occasional bite of chard or a bit of beet greens, but if I push it, the results are not pretty, and one spinach leaf destroys me and my immediate environment for a couple of days if not longer. We are speaking of dysentery here and now let's stop speaking of it. Oh, and I can't even eat pine nuts either, they turn my mouth into unbearable bitterness for weeks nowadays. I am not exaggerating. I think it was six weeks, the time I found out about it.
The point is, there is this lovely tecbhnique for cooking greens, which can be generalized as so: greens, dry fruit, nuts, liquor or acid, sauteed, as simple as that. I had a revelation and I thought, radicchio and a milder green, mixed, and use some candied orange peel and some wafer-dried plums (m y own invention because I don't trust the plums to dry in traditional prunes or halves without molding in our foggy climate, even in the dehydrator), and walnuts (often I use almonds or even sunflower seeds which are nice and resinous). And I thought, wouldn't a sweetish, salty sort of meat be nice too? And how about a shaving of asiago at the end, for a blander note? The meat was some ham because it was the thing I could get in the smallest amount at the big grocery store. And I used red chard, but just a little because it is in the spinach family and I don't quite trust it.
Reader, it was heaven on a plate. I slivered everything in thin thin slivers so it would all look the same. Except the asiago, I shaved it in wide thin flakes. If you eat noodles as I pretend I don't but really I do now and then, it would probably be nicer on something like orecchiette than on something like angel hair. Or you could do it with polenta, perhaps. I just did it as it was because I had already had starchy food three times today: half a big sandwich roll for breakfast, two flour tortillas! for lunch, and the breading of the emergency fried chicken I bought the dog.
I still have more than half the radicchio left. I'm going to make green soup from some of the broth left from cooking chicken for the dog. Should I put that in there?
On another front, I planted red bunching onions, some kind of old carrot seed, celery root, and turnip today. Also campanulas. I got home too late from getting chickens for the dog to water so I must must must in the morning.
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no subject
Around here it is available frozen in Indian grocery stores, like Patel Brothers, but it can be grown pretty easily from fenugreek seeds bought as spices (also available in large quantities).
no subject
I sometimes get to San Jose and I have always meant to check out the many Indian groceries over there, so that will be on my list. I can only hope the leaves don't taste like the seeds, which I do not like by themselves (though I know they are in many combinations I do like). I have good hope for that, as horseradish leaves taste nothing like the root.
no subject
You might also like dandelion greens too.
no subject
I have been unsuccessful with making dandelion greens edible for me, again because of bitterness, and still baffling because I think I like bitter until I try certain things.