I’ve recently signed up to get a weekly box of fruit and vegetables delivered – in part so we can get out of the rut of buying the same old, same old veggies week in and week out.
This week we were delivered a splendid bunch of Swiss chard, which I must confess I’ve never really eaten, let alone cooked. After leafing through my copy of From Asparagus to Zucchini (a great cookbook I bought at a local farm that lists vegetables alphabetically and then gives you recipes to use them , so a perfect match for a veggie box) I decided to adapt a recipe to make a very simple Swiss chard quiche.
Ingredients
1 uncooked pie crust/tart shell (I used wholewheat and you could of course make your own)
1/2 a large onion, finely chopped (mine was red)
3 cloves garlic, crushed (I like garlic, less would be fine)
1 tbsp olive oil
1 large and splendid bunch of Swiss chard, washed and chopped (I removed the thick central ribs)
3 large eggs
A heap of grated hard cheese (I used about 4 oz of grated Gruyere, which ended up being about a cup full. But the amount of cheese really depends on how cheesy/fattening you want it to be.)
A very generous slug of single cream/half and half
Salt, pepper and nutmeg to taste
Method
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F/200 degrees C
Gently saute’ the onion and garlic in the olive olive until all is soft and going golden round the edges. Then add the chopped chard and continued cooking until it is soft and thoroughly wilted (you could stop at this stage and you’d have a lovely side vegetable).
In a bowl whisk up the eggs, add the grated cheese and and enough cream so that the mixture will fill your pie crust. Season to taste with the salt, pepper and a little nutmeg.
Bake in the oven for about 30 mins, until puffy, firm and golden.
Et voila’ one slightly strange vegetable successfully negotiated! (I know, I know, you’re going to tell me you eat Swiss chard ALL the time).
yes. ALL the time. but not so much in a pie shell – love it! Don’t feel bad – I went to dinner at friends house last week and brought chard – she had never cooked it either!
here’s what we made – she is Japanese and she called this “Asianed up greens”
one onion, sliced 1/4 thick
large bunch chard – stems cut 1″ thick, leaves cut into ribbons
garlic + red pepper flakes to taste
olive oil
salt
teaspoon toasted sesame oil,
TBL each soy sauce, rice vinegar
pinch of sugar
saute to onions in oil 2 or 3 mins – add chard stems and saute 3 mins more (add garlic and pepper flakes if using)
add leaves and saute a minute or two until they begin to release water – add other ingreidents (I should note that these amounts are totally to taste – I like more soy sauce)
you might add a bit of hot water if it’s needed – cover and steam a couple minutes – or more – as you like it
serve over steamed white rice
Oooh, that sounds DEELISH. One of the things I love about Seattle is all the Asian-influenced food which I hardly ever used to cook before.