How can you not pick up a bunch of rainbow chard, its stems the colour of children’s sweeties, the leaves glossy and deeply veined with carmine, saffron and apricot?
Dazzled by vegetables as beautiful as a bunch of flowers, you briefly forget the stems taste of soil and grit.
Yet, cut into tiny cubes and sauteed in olive oil with a clove of garlic and perhaps a little butter, the mineral notes will mellow and sweeten, giving you a sound base for a bean soup.
The leaves are a wonder, with their road-map of rainbow jewel-coloured veins.
I treat them as spinach leaves, plunging them for seconds into boiling water, then tossing them in butter, lemon juice and salt.
They love garlic too, perhaps mashed to a paste and cooked in butter till honey-coloured, before being tossed with the heat-wilted leaves.
Sometimes I shred them and dip the ribbons into a bean soup as it approaches dinner time.
Bean soups, stews, whatever you call them, are treated as a principal dish in this house.
Served with a large ladle, they are as substantial as they are value for money.
I use tinned beans, which are a good consistency for soup.
The result will be much the same, a dinner to fortify, with the delight of silky greens stirred in at the end.
A puddle of olive oil poured over at the table is in my book essential.
The golden biscuit tin, once the home of lebkuchen, a souvenir from a German Christkindlesmarkt, is where I squirrel away a stash of soft cookies or crisp biscuits or, if I have failed to bake, a packet of dark chocolate digestives.
Lift the lid and you may find home-made fingers of sesame, date and pistachio, dipped in bitter chocolate.
Soft and crunchy energy bars with the luxury of thick chocolate.
Bean and rainbow chard soup
Sitting somewhere between soup and stew, this a base recipe, to add different beans and greens to.
Swap the borlotti for haricot or cannellini, chickpeas or pinto beans depending on what is in the cupboard.
Stir in spinach or cavolo nero leaves at the end if you prefer or if your chard leaves aren’t as perky as their stems.
If you are making the soup for the following day, introduce the leaves when you reheat it, just before you eat.
Serves 6
Ingredients
1 onion, medium sized
2 stalks celery
2 Tbsp olive oil, plus extra to finish
150g rainbow chard stems
3 cloves of garlic
6 bushy stems of thyme
2×400g cans of tomatoes (whole or chopped)
1×400g tin of borlotti beans
1×400g black-eyed beans
200g rainbow chard leaves
Method
Peel and roughly chop the onion. Finely dice the celery.
Warm the olive oil in a deep, heavy-based pan and add the onion and celery, letting them cook over a moderate heat.
Cut the chard stems into small dice and stir into the onions.
Peel and very finely slice the garlic.
It should be almost thin enough to see through.
Strip the leaves from the thyme then stir into the onion mixture with the garlic.
When the onions are translucent and the aromatics are fragrant, add the tomatoes and their juice together with 2 cans’ worth of water.
Bring to the boil, then stir in the beans, rinsed of their canning liquid (if you are using bottled beans however, I suggest you stir their liquid in as it adds a silky texture to the soup.)
Season with black pepper and salt and continue cooking at low simmer for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Wash the chard leaves and cut them into wide strips, then add to the hot soup.
Leave for a couple of minutes to soften then ladle the soup into bowls.
Trickle over olive oil as you serve.
Sesame, date and pistachio bars
A good one for the biscuit tin, staying in good condition for several days.
I treat these as tiny energy bars.
You can veganise the recipe by using date syrup in place of the honey and a suitable substitute for the chocolate.
And don’t feel you have to include pistachios; you can use hazelnut or almonds instead.
Makes 18 small bars
Ingredients
125g pistachios
100g salted, roasted peanuts
275g soft dried dates
125g rolled oats
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 Tbsp thick honey
2 Tbsp roasted sesame paste
2 Tbsp sesame seeds
200g dark chocolate
Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line a 20cm square cake tin with kitchen parchment.
Process the pistachios, peanuts and dates in a food processor to a thick paste, do not over-process to a purée. Stir in the oats.
Warm vanilla extract, honey and sesame paste in a small pan over medium heat.
As soon as bubbling lightly stir into the date and nut mixture.
Spoon into the lined cake tin, smooth the surface, pushing down firmly, but not so hard you compact the mixture.
Sprinkle it with the sesame seeds.
Bake for 20 minutes then remove from the oven and set aside to cool in its tin.
Break the chocolate into small pieces and melt in a heatproof mixing bowl balanced over a pan of simmering water.
Don’t stir the chocolate until it is almost entirely melted, and then only gently.
Lift the block of sesame biscuits out of the tin and cut into 18 short rectangles.
Dip each sesame slice into the melted chocolate, covering half the biscuit.
Lay each on a piece of baking paper and scatter crushed pistachios over the top if you wish, then let the chocolate set.
If the room is warm, then you might want to chill them briefly in the fridge. — The Guardian News & Media
