By Marc
Chard -- red, white, or yellow -- is one of my favorite leafy greens. The flavor is mild, it is available all year at the Farmers' Markets in the Bay Area, and it is a perfect side dish for a wide variety of main courses. I typically cook it with a bit of garlic, but it also works in a tortilla casserole, or a filling for pastry (the one in the May/June 1998 Saveur magazine is especially delicious).
But I never eat the stems, and this waste of vegetable matter always bothered me. So I recently started a project to sell myself on eating the chard stems, otherwise known as "stem sell research."
In my years of cooking, I don't recall seeing any recipes that use chard stems. At Simply Recipes, I found a delicious-looking recipe for pasta with chard stems (and a lovely picture of chard stems), it looked a bit too rich for me on that particular day, so I took a dive into my wall of cookbooks. After a bit of a search, I found a "Chard Stem Gratin" in Alice Waters' Chez Panisse Vegetables. I used the recipe as a guideline, and added some additional vegetables (sun-dried tomatoes and potatoes, locally grown, of course) to make it more interesting.
Although it took a bit more work than I was expecting (much more than for a typical leaf preparation), I was happy with the gratin. The chard stems were similar in flavor to chard greens, but perhaps a bit sweeter and less astringent. The smooth sauce was infused with the flavors of the chard, herbs, and sun-dried tomatoes. Now, whenever I strip the leaves from chard stems, I "file" the stems in a plastic bag in the refrigerator for a future gratin (or compost, if I wait too long).
If you would like to try your own "stem sell research," here is a sketch of the gratin that I made with my chard stems:
Chard Stem and Potato Gratin
Overview: Prepare the vegetables, blanch the vegetables, make a bechamel sauce, put the vegetables in a baking dish, cover with the bechamel sauce, bake until sauce is bubbling and the top is golden brown.
Ingredients: 15-20 chard stems, a few potatoes, a few sun-dried tomatoes (or 2-3 fresh tomatoes, if local ones are in season), 2 cups milk, a few tablespoons flour, a few tablespoons butter, salt and pepper, fresh thyme or parsley.
Equipment: Shallow baking dish (about 6" x 9" x 2"), small saucepan or Pyrex measuring cup, heavy saucepan, strainer, large pot.
Prepare the baking dish: Lightly butter or oil a ceramic or glass baking dish. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
Prepare the vegetables: Scrub the potatoes and cut them in half, then in slices. Wash, trim, and destring the chard stems (see note below), then cut them into 3/8" slices.
Bring a pot of water to boil, then add the sun-dried tomatoes. After a few minutes, they will be soft enough to cut. Remove and chop into pieces. Blanch the potatoes for a few minutes until they are almost tender (they will cook a bit more during baking). Blanch the chard stems in the boiling water for a few minutes until almost tender.
Make a bechamel sauce: heat 2 cups of milk (with a few sprigs of herbs, a bay leaf, a few peppercorns, chopped onion and other flavorings, if you like) in a saucepan or a glass bowl in the microwave (e.g., a Pyrex measuring cup). In a heavy saucepan large enough to hold the milk, melt 2-3 tablespoons of butter. Stir in 2-3 tablespoons of flour and cook, stirring constantly, until the raw smell of the flour has disappeared. Remove the pan from the heat. Quickly pour the milk through a strainer into the pot with the roux, then stir with a wisk, being careful to reach into the corners to incorporate all of the roux into the milk. Return to medium-low heat and cook, stirring frequently with a wooden spoon until the sauce has thickened. Season with salt, pepper, and more chopped herbs (thyme and parsley go well with chard stems).
Assemble and bake the gratin: Pour the bechamel sauce on top of the vegetables. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until the top is golden and the sauce is bubbling.
Note: Chard stems can be destringed by pulling the long, thick fibers from the ridged side of the stem. Find the strings at the wide end of each stem, and pull them away.
Marc lives in Berkeley, California and writes Mental Masala, an enticing blend of food, history, travel, and nature.
