Another way to use chard is to bake it into a pan of lasagna. I know spinach lasagna is a standard, at least in America, but a lasagna with chard is good too. Here's what the chard leaves look like. I just used the green parts in the lasagna, and I sliced and steamed the white ribs — well, the leafstalks, I guess they are, actually — separately.
Most of the recipes for spinach or chard lasagna that I've read call for cooking the leafy greens separately and then putting them in, already cooked or at least wilted, as one or more of the layers in the dish. I wondered about that, and I finally decided to try putting fresh chard leaves into the lasagna without pre-cooking them. That worked out great.
I made sure there was enough liquid in the bottom of the lasagna pan to make a good quantity of steam during baking, to cook and tenderize the raw chard leaves. The lasagna noodles, which I don't pre-cook either, also need steaming as the lasagna bakes, so I covered the pan for the first 15 or 20 minutes of cooking. You can eat chard raw, just as you can eat spinach raw (at least the tender young leaves), so I figured even minimal cooking would be sufficient for the green leaves. When the pan of lasagna came out of the oven, the chard leaves were much more than minimally cooked, in fact.
I had made a sauce with sausage meat, onions, tomato, garlic, fennel, oregano, etc. for the lasagna. And instead of a béchamel sauce, which people in France use in making lasagna, I bought a couple of tubs of Italian ricotta cheese for ours. On top, I put some grated emmental and some grated comté cheese. We had the leftovers of the lasagna for lunch yesterday. It was tasty, just like the first time we ate it.
I like the idea of ricotta there. It sounds great.
ReplyDeleteI think the reason recipes call for cooking spinach first is to squeeze out the moisture--so the lasagne doesn't end up soupy and so the spinach doesn't take up too much space--cooked is more compact.
ReplyDeleteI have a recipe that uses blettes. Ripped out of a French magazine years ago, I've tweaked it many times, including making it a meal by adding white beans. https://francetaste.wordpress.com/2017/02/17/pillows-of-swiss-chard-bliss/
The raw blettes didn't make my lasagna soupy at all. The tomato-meat sauce was pretty dry, and that probably helped.
DeleteTen or so years ago, I made blette rolls, like cabbage rolls. Here's the post. I've made roulades with collard greens as well. All good. Thanks for the link to your recipe.
I think it also depends on the noodles. Sometimes my lasagna seems a bit dry, depending on which brand of noodles I use.
DeleteBTW I agree on ricotta vs. béchamel. Hugely contentious in our household.
That sounds and looks so good!
ReplyDeleteI like that you didn't have to precook the noodles or chard, covering it all at first makes sense.
ReplyDeleteWe haven't pre-cooked lasagna noodles in a very long time. They just cook in the dish when the lasagna is in the oven. I'm not sure what the box instructions say, and we buy different brands just depending on what ones we find in whatever supermarket we happen to be shopping in.
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