Swiss chard (blettes in French) is good cooked as a side dish to serve with meats, poultry, or fish. Cook it briefly until tender with olive oil, garlic, and red pepper flakes, or with cream enriched by addition of a tablespoon of Dijon mustard. I have a lot of chard growing in the garden, and it needs to be harvested, so I'm looking for ideas.
Chard is a good addition, for example, to Asian fried rice. For a good result, use cooked (steamed) rice that is a day old, or rice that has been cooked and then allowed to cool down and dry out for a couple of hours before being fried. The grains will stay separate that way.
Here's a batch of fried rice made with diced onion, grated or finely chopped ginger root, sliced bell peppers, diced carrot, and blettes — just the green leaves in this case. First, sauté the onion and carrot in vegetable oil for a few minutes, before adding the chard, peppers, and ginger to the mix.
When all these aromatic vegetables are cooked to your liking, add the cooked but cold, dry rice to the pan and stir to coat with the oil and flavor ingredients. Sprinkle on soy sauce or fish sauce to taste. I added some chickpeas (from a can) and some roasted peanuts at the last minute. Corn or green peas would be good additions.
We had the fried rice for lunch with chicken wings we had baked in the oven and then tossed in some warm plum sauce "fortified" with a spoonful of sriracha hot pepper sauce. Some of the plum sauce drizzled over the fried rice was also delicious.
As I mentioned in an earlier comment, blettes are also known as bettes-cardes probably because their leaf stem looks like the ribs of cardon which is a member of the artichoke family, cardoon. Now, I'm wondering if the word chard in English is not a derivation of cardon, also because the similarity of the ribs, even though the two plants are not related?i
ReplyDeleteI'm sure chard derives from French carde, which another word for "rib" or côte in this case. I just pulled up a huge chard plant by its roots and I'm washing and trimming the leaves this morning. Then I'll cook them.
DeleteThe English verb to card, as in to card the wool, carder in French, comes from the dessicated fruit of the chardon that was used for that task before it was mechanically done. The fruit of the chardon is not edible :-)
DeletePour autant que je sache, carde, singulier ou pluriel, n'est pas un synonyme de côte, c'est la tête épineuse du chardon ou une brosse métallique de même type servant au même usage. CNRTL, à qui on peut faire confiance pour le français, ne connaît pas d'autre acception. Dans le mot composé bette-carde, je pense que carde signifie ressemblant au cardon ou côte de carde.
DeleteRegarde le sens du terme 'pétiole' ici.
DeleteOu bien ici
DeleteOu encore ici^, où je lis à propos de la bette ou blette : «Ses tiges sont appelées cardes. D'où parfois des variantes: blette à cardes jaunes, blette à cardes rouges...»
DeletePour le moment, je m'en tiendrai à ce que dit CNRTL qui ignore cette acception qui n'a aucune base sémantique. Wiktionnaire est du type, "je l'ai vu à la télé, donc, c'est vrai"' ou "je l'ai lu sur la toile, donc, c'est réel". C'est le nivellement par le bas et je me refuse à entériner des âneries au nom d'une prétendue évolution du langage! C'est le renouveau du Volapūck ou d'un charabia international.
DeleteTu m'en diras tant, CHM. Moi j'essaie de comprendre ce que les gens disent, sans leur donner de leçons.
DeleteThere's a Jacques Pepin recipe I like with polenta, sauteed swiss chard and crumbled blue cheese. I find chard a bit "dirt-y" in flavor, but this combination is excellent.
ReplyDeleteI'd use the word "earthy" rather than "dirty" for the taste of chard greens. Chard is a form of the beet plant, and a lot of people don't like the earthy taste of beets. I'm glad I'm not one of them. Today I pulled up a chard plant and trimmed and cooked the leaves and ribs. The ribs or côtes I just cooked in a steamer pot, with no seasonings. When I tasted them, I realized eating them was almost like eating candy. Sweet and nutty, but not too sweet. No earthiness.
DeleteFunny that I never thought about how helpful it would be to let your rice sit overnight or cool off, to keep it from being sticky in a dish like this. Thanks for the tip ;)
ReplyDeleteI learned about preparing rice for fried rice from Elise Bauer on Simply Recipes.
DeleteHow are you cutting the chard leaves? All the ribs out, or leaving small ones in, and are you mincing? I think I'd want to throw the whole thing in the Cuisinart, which would likely give me mush.
ReplyDeleteSee my upcoming posts, Emm.
DeleteAnd look at this blog.
DeleteI love the images and I am now very hungry to say the least. Hoping you and Walt are doing great. All good here and we really need to get back soon. Been since 2014!!
ReplyDelete