SFist in the Kitchen: Chard
We recently saw an email that Eatwell Farm sent to their CSA members. "Chard next week!" they enthused. Little did new subscribers know they'd be getting chard for the next several months. When we subscribed to their program, every box included a bundle of deep green leaves with rainbow-colored stems. We tossed and turned at night, desperate to think of creative uses for the ubiquitous green.
We were sick of chard after just a few shipments.
This early in the season, we can once again admit that the earthy flavor of chard complements other deep flavors on a plate. The pigmented stems also contribute an interesting visual element to a dish, though as with other members of the beet family, that color tends to bleed into every other ingredient in the pan, like a brand-new red shirt you put in the laundry with your whites. And chard is healthy in a big way: The ruffled leaves are packed with nutrients that help ward off winter ailments.
Photos by Melissa Schneider
But we still don't know many preparations for this winter staple. Maybe we don't need more. If our personal heaven took requests for dinner, we'd revisit the dish we enjoyed this weekend: braised chard and onions served with pancetta atop fried potatoes and under a crispy-skinned piece of duck confit. You'll find a recipe below.
You'll also see chard gratin in various cookbooks. We fried some Fatted Calf pancetta and used the grease and some butter as the base for a roux so we could make a bechamel sauce. We blanched the chard briefly in well-salted boiling water and then shocked it in an ice bath before tossing it in the sauce with the pancetta. We smushed the sauce-coated greens into gratin dishes, added more sauce, topped with bread crumbs, and cooked for thirty-five minutes at 375°. Finally, we put the gratin under the broiler for just forty seconds to give the bread crumbs a deep brown color. We served some braised beef short ribs not only over chard but, sadly, over charred. We drowned our sorrows about the beef in glasses of a Napa Cabernet.
Though Americans tend to discard the stems, we urge you to give them more attention. We dice ours and pour a vinegar brine over them to make a tart relish, and Alice Waters suggests you make them into a gratin in Chez Panisse Vegetables. She also suggests adding chopped and blanched chard to pasta, along with other greens. And she doesn't mention it, but we're sure that cooked sausage would be a nice addition.
Help free us from our chard rut! What do you like to do with this green? Let us know in the comments.
Recipe: Braised Onions and Chard with Pancetta, Fried Potatoes, and Duck Confit
Here's our recipe for two, which works well with any number of dark greens:
- Slice a medium yellow onion into thin arcs. "Lyonnais style".
- Remove the stems (but don't throw them out! see above) from a bundle of chard leaves and then slice the fleshy green strips crosswise into large chunks.
- Peel Yukon Gold potatoes and cut them into large dice.
- Slice some bacon (we used Fatted Calf pancetta) into small squares.
- Boil the potato cubes in well-salted water until just tender, and plunge the cooked potatoes into a bowl of water and ice.
- Heat a skillet over medium-high heat and add the duck confit, skin-side down. Fatted Calf and Boulette's Larder offer excellent versions if you don't make your own.
- Cook until the confit is warm and the skin is crisp, and hold on a warm plate.
- Use the fat in the confit pan to pan-fry the drained potato cubes.
- As you cook the potatoes, fry the bacon in a separate pan until it releases its fat and gets crisp
- Remove the bacon bits, and add the onion arcs. Sauté until soft.
- Add the chard leaves. Sauté until they start to wilt, and add a small amount of liquid (we used duck stock, but any flavorful stock will work).
- Reduce the heat under the chard to low, and cover. In ten minutes or so, the leaves will reduce to a much smaller volume. We've long thought that no matter how many winter greens you start with, they always cook down to the same volume.
- Season the potatoes to taste with salt and pepper.
- Toss the bacon into the greens, and season to taste with salt and freshly ground nutmeg, a classic pairing with these meaty greens.
- Spoon half the potatoes onto the center of a plate, top with the chard/onion/bacon mix, and top that with the duck confit, skin side up.
- Drink with a robust wine from the Southwest of France.