Winter Greens

Cold winter temperatures means a few exciting veggies that we don’t have the opportunity to enjoy the rest of the year: radicchio, escarole, and watercress.  Each of these veggies brings back memories of my first few seasons at the farm in New York.  I turned my nose up at them, wondering how in the world these crazy Northerners choked these greens down.  Then, one late fall, a wonderful CSA member named Denise cooked me her traditional Italian soup with escarole, white beans, tomatoes, garlic, onions, and parmesan and brought it to me on a cold, late afternoon.  I took it with thanks but doubted the whole bike ride home if I would really eat it.  Well, I did.  I ate the whole quart!  And I was sold.  

Here are a couple ways I enjoy these stronger tasting greens...my advice to you, from a novice turned winter green lover, don’t eat them raw, don’t even try them, just make one of these great dishes and enjoy!

Traditional Italian Escarole Soup, from Denise

Saute two-four cloves garlic and half an onion in olive oil.  Add well-washed, chopped escarole.  Saute a few minutes.  Add 1 can tomatoes or 1 home-jarred pint.  Add 1 1/2-2c. cooked white beans (I add the juice, too.) or 1 can.  Cover with veggie broth, chicken broth, or water.  Salt.  Bring to a boil, reduce, and cook for about 30 minutes.  Ladle into bowls.  Add parmesan cheese and homemade croutons (or serve with crusty bread) and serve.

A take on this tradition...

Follow steps through white beans (you can use tomatoes or not).  Add croutons and parmesan cheese.  Mix thoroughly.  Place in a casserole.  Add more parmesan cheese (if you don’t put croutons, you can instead put bread crumbs at this step).  Bake at 375 for 20-30 minutes.

Veggie Soup with Escarole

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 medium onion, quartered and thinly sliced

2 to 3 cloves garlic, minced

6 medium or 4 large potatoes, preferably russet or golden, peeled and diced

2 to 3 medium carrots, thinly sliced

32-ounce carton low-sodium vegetable broth

1 teaspoon dried basil

1/2 teaspoon dried thyme

One 16-ounce can cannellini (large white beans)

1 medium head (6 to 8 ounces) escarole, coarsely chopped and rinsed 

1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Heat the oil in a soup pot. Add the onion and sauté over medium heat until translucent. Add the garlic and continue to sauté until both are golden, stirring frequently.

Add the potatoes, carrots, broth, basil, thyme, and 2 cups water. Bring to a gentle boil, then cover and simmer gently for 20 minutes, or until the potatoes and carrots are tender.

Stir in the beans, escarole, and half of the parsley. Simmer gently for 8 to 10 minutes, or until the escarole is tender.

With the back of a wooden spoon or a potato masher, mash some of the potatoes in the soup to give it a nice base. Stir in water as needed (up to 2 cups). The soup should be thick, but not overly so. Return to a simmer. Stir in the remaining parsley, season with salt and pepper, then serve.

If time allows let the soup stand off the heat for an hour or more before serving, then heat through as needed.

Watercress...this one really throws people who try it raw because it seems well, hot, like the hot mustard they serve in Chinese restaurants (related...).  But cooked, its lovely.  Every winter when the watercress gleams on the surface of wet (sometimes frozen) brown dirt, I run like a little girl to snatch it up, except its watercress not chocolate.  See, I have been waiting 12 long months to make watercress mashed potatoes!  I realized while making them tonight for dinner that arugula would probably make a very adequate substitute and wondered if my once a year joy could in fact be had many more months of the year.  Anyways, here’s how you do it:

Watercress Mashed Potatoes

Boil potatoes!  While those are boiling, cook chopped leeks over low heat in butter (yes, butter!) and a little salt.  When the leeks have really cooked down, add chopped watercress (wash it several times, it grows on the ground!).  Cook 5 minutes.  Add about 1/4c. or 1/2 c. milk, cream, almond milk...  Heat.  Add cooked potatoes.  Mash the whole thing up.  If you really want to go crazy, add cheddar cheese and bacon and call them loaded!  Serve with whatever you want.  We had them with portobello mushrooms.

Lalo’s favorite: wash watercress well.  Drain.  Squeeze a whole lemon over it.  Add some salt.  Let marinate for a while.  Serve over fish tacos.  It is really yummy!

Radicchio...okay, so I’m still not a huge fan of the round, red ball of a radicchio that they sneak into those pre-bagged lettuce mixes, but sugarloaf radicchio is a whole different animal.  

I copy this from Lucy’s Kitchen Notebook (http://kitchen-notebook.blogspot.com/2009/01/pain-de-sucre-sugarloaf-chicory.html) because she says it so well:

“This time of year, pain de sucre is found in bins amid the winter varietal greens, spinach, the many strains of radicchio chicory, nestled between the squash and pumpkins. Tender looking elongated tightly packed loaves, in English called Sugarloaf Chicory, tumble gladly into my market basket. While it's still dark in the early evenings, I walk down to the Wednesday night market at Place Carnot where the local farmers come once a week and keep an eye out for it.

I like to cook my pain de sucre by slicing it into chunks, rinsing the leaves, and lightly poaching them in a billowy herbal broth that's been simmered with a big winter bouquet and a ham bone. Chicory goes with pork. I float the poached leaves with the meat and herbs, sometimes adding wedges of pumpkin or topping the soup with shavings of good hard cheeses. A spritz of lemon juice, a drizzle of olive oil, and a grind of rose peppercorns or sichuan pepper acts like a little taste ladle that captures the bitter goodness and lifts it up for a second boost of winter satisfaction. Wrap yourself in a sweater, sip this soup in a chair by the window, slurp the bitter greens, and settle in for an afternoon soaking up some prose.”

I assume that radicchio does go well with pork.  Although I am eating meat now, pork is still not my meat of choice, but some turkey bacon would do the trick.

Radicchio is also really good with blue cheese, which Lalo hates and I love, so I make meals like these knowing I will receive complaints or even questions as to whether it will kill us, but I still enjoy it mightily. 

Risotto with Radicchio, Walnuts and Blue Cheese
About 6 1/2 cups vegetable or chicken stock
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
1 onion, chopped into 1/4 inch dice
1 stalk celery, chopped into 1/4 inch dice
1 clove garlic, minced
1 head radicchio, cored and cut into thin strips (chiffonade)
2 cups risotto rice
1/2 cup prosecco or white wine
3/4 cup crumbled blue cheese
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
1/2 cup toasted walnuts

Bring the stock to a boil in a large pot.

Heat the olive oil and butter in a large saute pan over medium heat. Add the onion and celery, and cook until soft and translucent, about 5-7 minutes. Add the garlic and radicchio; cook for 1 minute.

Add the rice. Stir for about 1 minute. Add the prosecco, and simmer until it has evaporated. Stir in a ladleful of the stock. Cook, adding the stock a ladleful at a time, and allowing it to be absorbed by the rice before adding more. Cook until the rice is just tender to the bite, or ‘al dente’. You may not use all of the stock.

Stir in the cheese, and season with salt and pepper. Divide between 4 serving plates, garnish with walnuts and serve.