Kale Soup, 2012

 

Every year about this time, when the winter sky is grey and my hands are too cold to type, I feel like things should be quiet in the garden. I’ve read too many English gardening books which talk about winter as a time of planning and rest. Yet I live in a temperate climate, and outside my kitchen window kale and chard are tall and strong. Large self-sown borage plants are dotted here and there; their hairy leaves have the slight taste of cucumber. Parsley, rocket, sorrel, cress, salad burnet, lettuces, even microgreens – everything is growing, growing, growing, and I am hungry, and my thoughts turn, as always, to soup.

I eat soup every day, for lunch and often dinner too. It was not always thus. Good soup requires maturity, patience, kindness, generosity and self-control, virtues I lacked in my twenties. Then, I cooked little stir fries, quick and fast, and gobbled them up in minutes; or grabbed a sandwich on the run. But I am older now, and don’t need the immediate fix. I am able to cook extra, plan for tomorrow, let things simmer for an hour or two, and make enough for friends.

I look for a steaming green stew, thick with kale and other good things, and reminiscent of the goodness of compost; and pile it in a matte bowl which I nestle in my hands in momentary pause as I give thanks for warmth and nourishment.

Every year my kale soup takes a slightly different turn. Here is this year’s incarnation. Black kale forms the backbone, with its strong dark flavours. It’s leavened by chard and borage, and the bite of celery leaves, just the thing to chase away the winter blues. The trick is to cook everything slowly so that the soup develops great depth of flavour, brightened at the end with a few greens more lightly cooked and a good drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. A bowlful is a complete meal for lunch or dinner. I know the quantities seem enormous, but this soup went quickly at our house. Six of us ate it for dinner one night; and three finished it off at lunch the next day – just the thing for sharing.

Kale Soup, 2012 - 4 tbs olive oil - 3 red onions - 5 carrots - 1 entire head of celery, including the leaves - 2 heads garlic, cloves peeled - 1 can crushed tomatoes - 2 kg silver beet (aka Swiss chard. You can substitute up to 1 kg with rainbow chard and/or beet leaves, but no more because the silver beet stalks form part of the soup. Rainbow chard stalks and beet stalks are too thin and stringy.) - 1½ kg cavolo nero (black kale) - 3 cans cannellini beans, rinsed and drained (or 250g dried cannellini beans, soaked and cooked) - 1 litre chicken stock or water - ½ kg borage (or use 2 kg cavolo nero) - a bunch of parsley - a small bunch of thyme - salt, pepper - parmesan, to serve - extra virgin olive oil, to serve Peel and chop the onions. Warm the olive oil in a large pot, and add the onions. While they are cooking, peel and chop the carrots roughly; and chop the celery – every bit, including the leaves. Add them to the soup pot, and cook over low heat, stirring from time to time, until they are beginning to brown. This will take up to half an hour. Add the garlic and cook for a few minutes; then add the tomatoes, and cook until the liquid has reduced down. Remove the stalks of the silver beet and chop them. Add them to the soup. Shred the leaves of the silver beet and cavolo nero. Throw all the cavolo nero and two thirds of the silver beet into the pot. You may have to do this in batches, mixing and stirring as the leaves collapse. Add the cannellini beans and the stock or water. Bring to the boil, then turn down to a gentle simmer and leave to cook for half an hour, stirring from time to time to ensure it doesn’t stick. Shred the borage leaves. Chop the parsley and thyme. Throw them in along with the reserved silver beet, and cook for a few minutes or until the borage has lost its hairiness. You want some of the leaves to retain their colour and crunch. Check for seasoning. Serve drizzled with extra virgin olive oil and sprinkled with freshly grated parmesan. Pass the pepper mill. A note on the greens: kale, especially black kale, should form the backbone of the soup because it holds its shape well; you don’t want the soup to be an unidentifiable sludge of miscellaneous greens. However, there is some flexibility in the other greens. I use chard and borage because I grow great quantities in my garden, and chard also holds its shape well; but if you don’t mind a more collapsed soup you might substitute in perhaps half a kilo of wilder greens for some of the chard or borage: nettles, perhaps, or amaranth, fat hen or mallow. Adapted from a recipe in The River Cafe Cookbook, which I cannot praise highly enough. (Backyard: cavolo nero, silver beet, rainbow chard, borage, parsley, thyme. Localish: onions, celery, garlic, olive oil, salt. Can’t remember: carrots. Way away: cannellini beans, canned tomatoes unless you canned your own, parmesan.)

Vine Leaf Bhaji (Pakorhas)

 

I would have grown up in a boring suburban home but for the influence of the church over my mother. She was a bright girl; and in the fifties, as every conservative Christian knew, bright girls didn’t marry. Instead, they because missionaries. My mother showed no interest in nursing but quickly proved herself a linguist, and so it was clear to all and sundry that she would go translate bibles somewhere. I never worked out whether she herself had really wanted to do this; all I know is that she told me she used to kneel every night and pray, ‘Anywhere but Africa, God, anywhere but Africa.’ Why Africa didn’t appeal is a mystery to me; but there you go.

When she was nineteen, as part of her discernment process she travelled to India to visit missionary friends. In her bag she smuggled boxes and boxes of tampons, then unavailable in India; and under the tampons, a replacement fender for a small van. The van belonged to the missionaries, who had inadvertently collided with, and killed, a holy cow. It was a hit and run. Nobody but the missionaries knew who had done it – to hit a cow in those parts at those times meant your life was forfeit.

My mother’s friends didn’t really want to give up their lives for a pagan cow that had been sitting in the middle of the road just around a sharp bend, but there were telltale marks on their fender. So the van was in hiding until they could replace the fender; there was nowhere they could get a new fender without exciting comment; and so my mother was smuggling one in from Australia.

She was stopped at customs and asked to open her very large and surprisingly heavy bag. The first things to be questioned were the tampons. The customs officer opened a box, pulled one out, unwrapped it, and held it aloft. Clearly mystified, he asked her, in sign language, what it was; and in sign language, the terribly shy girl of nineteen communicated by pointing at the moon, at women, crossing out men, and finally miming the insertion of a tampon. The customs official turned bright pink, zipped up her bag, and urgently waved her through. Thus the fender was delivered safely and the missionaries lived happily ever after.

***

My mother never became a missionary. Instead, she married, had kids, and fought her way to become a minister (priest), one of the first Baptist women in Australia to be so ordained. But she did extend her cooking repertoire to Indian food. Chappatis, bhaji (also known as pakorhas), rice and dal, aloo gobi, brinjal bartha, chicken curry, banana pickle, various chatnis – all these appeared regularly at the family dinner table.

When I cook them now, they taste of home, perhaps even more than the standard fare of the early 80’s that she also served: lamb chops, tuna mornay, beef stews.

 

And now it’s early April. The larger leaves on the grapevine are turning red even as the smaller leaves at the ends of the stems are still soft, fresh, and bright lime green. It’s our last chance for vine leaves, so this week I pruned back some of the long straggly stems, picked off the young leaves, dipped them in bhaji batter and shallow fried them. The leaves cooked in seconds, the batter puffed and golden around them. Each hot crisp bite melted in the mouth; the kids loved them; and I remembered these stories about my mother.

Vine Leaf Bhaji (Pakorhas) - ¼ cup chickpea (besan) flour - ¼ cup rice flour - ¼ tsp turmeric - 1/8 tsp bicarb soda - ½ tsp salt - 20 or so fresh young vine leaves - flavourless vegetable oil (not olive oil; enough to shallow fry) Pick the vine leaves and pinch out the base of the stem. Wash if necessary, and pat dry very carefully as any drops of water left on the leaf can cause the oil to spit. Sift the flours, turmeric, bicarb and salt together. Make a well, and add the water in a thin trickle, whisking all the time to ensure a smooth batter. Gradually incorporate all the flour from the sides of the bowl into the batter. It should have the consistency of thin cream. Warm a couple of inches of canola or other flavourless vegetable oil (not olive) in a deep pan. It is ready when a mustard seed added to the oil pops. Dip a leaf into the batter, dab it against the side of the bowl to remove any excess batter, and drop it into the oil. It will float. Cook for about ten seconds, or until the underside is puffed and golden. Flip and cook for another few seconds, then remove. Drain on scrunched up paper bags. Don’t use paper towel, as that will render your lovely crispy bites soggy. Sprinkle with extra salt if you wish, and demolish. Don’t burn your tongue! Very good with beer (or more properly with some sort of dal and rice). If you wish to save the oil, I find that letting it cool then running it through a paper coffee filter placed in a funnel cleans it enough for a second use. Adapted from a recipe in Madhur Jaffrey’s magnificent tour of regional Indian cooking, A Taste of India. Sadly, it is out of print, but her Ultimate Curry Bible looks very tempting! Recipe easily doubled or quadrupled; there is just a limit to how much fried food I will make, and that limit is very low. Incidentally, I also tried baby chard leaves, but while they were still good, they were so juicy that they lacked the requisite crispiness. I’d recommend you stick to vine or other thin leaves: sorrel, or baby spinach perhaps. You can also use this batter for thinly sliced vegetables: potatoes and potato skins, pumpkin, cauliflower, eggplant, zucchini, and even squash flowers. But I like it best with leaves. (Backyard: vine leaves. Victoria: canola oil (non GMO). Somewhere in Australia: chickpea flour, salt. From many miles away: brown rice flour, turmeric. A complete mystery: bicarb soda.)

Horta, or Cooked Green Salad

 

Three kids. One at school, one at kinder, one at childcare. I've come to think of their educational experience as three breeding grounds, since for months now we've been continually sick with colds, gastro, strep throat and other minor but annoying illnesses. As a result, I'm on the lookout for food that is simple to cook and bursting with vitamins; and a few weeks back, in the newspaper's gardening page, I stumbled across horta.

I learned that horta is Greek for wild greens. While horta may be used in pies and salads, the word most usually refers to greens stewed and served with olive oil and lemon juice. A flick round the internet suggests that many people primarily use spinach, but it was traditionally made with whatever was available: beet leaves, dandelion, chicory, sorrel, radicchio, rocket, endive and other greens both wild and cultivated. The gardeners in the article make horta out of amaranth, wild thistles and stinging nettles.

The concept is simple – just stew and dress the greens – but, while I already did this with beet leaves and rainbow chard, it never quite occurred to me to broaden the net. Now I've made horta using spinach, dandelion and warrigal greens, and I love it. Mature dandelion leaves are quite bitter, but young inner leaves stewed with beet leaves make a tasty lunch.

On one occasion I used coarser greens: a few leaves of black kale combined with rainbow chard and large turnip tops. Because the turnip leaves were very bitter I added a slosh of red wine from the open bottle on the bench and stewed it until the wine had been completely absorbed and all was tender. The final mix was still strong, but the wine had softened the flavours very pleasingly.

Taking my inspiration from the gardeners in the article, I've eaten horta alongside bread and olives, using the bread to soak up the juices at the bottom of the bowl; other times, I've made it more substantial with a bowl of cooked and dressed chickpeas on the side, or a couple of poached eggs.

Not only does it taste good; each bowl feels like a vitamin pill. Sad to say, for all the horta I've eaten I'm still pouring snot – but it could be worse! In any case, I feel healthier every time I eat it. What follows is not a precise recipe, nor do I claim authenticity; think of it, like the gardening article, as nothing more than a pointer in the right direction. A-tishoo!

Horta, or Cooked Green Salad - greens (spinach, beet leaves, warrigal greens*, turnip tops, radish tops, stinging nettles, amaranth, sorrel, dandelion leaves, fat hen or whatever else grows in your garden. Use one type or a combination – experiment!**) - herbs such as mint and parsley, if you wish, chopped - olive oil - lemon juice - salt, pepper Wash the greens well and remove any tough stalks. Warm a wide skillet, add a drizzle of olive oil, and drop the greens, water still clinging to the leaves, into the skillet. Cover, and allow to wilt. Spinach will take a few minutes; large beet leaves, ten minutes; tough kale, about half an hour. Keep an eye on things, and add extra water if necessary to prevent the horta from drying out and sticking. (For a completely inauthentic approach, add a slosh of red wine to coarse bitter greens to soften the flavours.) When the greens are soft, tip them and any remaining cooking liquid into a bowl. Add chopped herbs, if you're using them, a squeeze of lemon juice, and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil to finish. Season if required. Serve with olives and sourdough for a light meal; or serve as a side dish to a larger meal. *Warrigal greens (aka New Zealand spinach and tetragon) MUST BE BLANCHED before use. Drop them into a pot of boiling water, cook for a minute with the lid off, then drain well before adding to the horta. The leaves contain high levels of oxalates which can cause a tightening of the throat, nausea and worse when consumed in large quantities. Blanching breaks down the soluble oxalates and also some of the salts; leaving the lid off the saucepan prevents condensation from falling back into the saucepan. Discard the blanching liquid. **If you're experimenting with combinations of leaves, think about flavours, textures and cooking times. For example, mustard greens will obliterate most other flavours, so are best kept separate. Kale will need far longer in the pot than soft baby spinach – either combine leaves of similar textures only, or cook the greens in stages, beginning with coarser leaves and adding more delicate greens near the end. One final note: To point out the obvious, if you don't know it's edible, don't eat it. And if you're gleaning horta from a public space, be certain that the area hasn't been sprayed and wash it well. There are many dogs in Melbourne. The recent Age article (by Denise Gadd, in the A2 on 27 November 2010) doesn't appear to be online, but you can read more about horta in Melbourne here. This all reminds me of an interview on Gardening Australia with Lolo Houbein, author of One Magic Square, about her experience as a famine survivor, organic vegetable gardener and voracious eater of leafy greens. The presenter asked her what happened if the leaves were attacked by insects. Lolo said, 'Then you get holes. And you can eat holes.' Terrific advice for a home gardener! Sadly the transcript doesn't do justice to her delightful gentle manner. (Local: greens, herbs, olive oil, lemon juice.)

Buckwheat Noodles with Lentils and Carrots

When I was 14, my mother went back to work with a vengeance. She had been working from home before then, forever talking on the phone cradled against her neck as she stirred pasta sauce or chopped onions.

But suddenly she was out of the house twelve or more hours a day. After about a year of two minute noodles and Dad's valiant attempts at cooking, I realised it was time for me to learn to cook – but like all good teenagers, I announced that if I was going to cook, then I was going to do it my way. This meant vegetarian.

Looking back, I realise I've been cooking almost completely vegetarian for twenty years now. Early days were mostly pasta, with a few forays into just plain gross; I particularly remember a fairly putrid recipe for bolognese sauce made from mashed tofu. I tried it once, but really there is no excuse. It was – and is – a horrible thing to do to tofu.

Now I have developed my own style and range of recipes, heavy on the pulses and leafy greens. But as much as I hate to admit it, even after all these years of vegetarian cooking and eating I still find it difficult to feel perfectly satisfied with a veggie meal. It's hard to achieve the complexity of flavours and textures that make meat so special.

However, I do have a shortlist of perfectly balanced, utterly satisfying meals. This pasta is one of them. The leek and carrots add a light sweetness, complementing the earthiness of the lentils, chard and buckwheat. Whether or not you add the cheese is up to you; but I find that the chévre is the difference between pretty good and spectacular.

Buckwheat Noodles with Lentils and Carrots - 270g soba (Hakubaku noodles are from Ballarat) - ½ cups green lentils (mine are from Horsham) - 1 bay leaf - ¼ tsp salt - olive oil - 1 clove garlic, smashed with the side of the knife blade then finely chopped - 1 leek, white part only, quartered lengthwise and thinly sliced - 1 stalk celery, diced small - 2 carrots, diced small - 1 bunch chard or kale, or a mixture - 5 stems flat-leaf parsley - 150g chévre (optional. Meredith Dairy's goat chévre is perfect) Sort the lentils, then cover them with cold water, add the bay leaf and salt, and bring to the boil. Simmer for 20 minutes or so, until they are tender. Check regularly to see if they're done. As soon as they're soft, drain them into strainer set over a bowl. Retain the cooking water. Gently warm a good swirl of olive oil in a wide skillet with the garlic and a pinch of salt. (The salt prevents the garlic from sticking and burning.) Add the leeks, and sauté; then the celery and carrots. Leave them to cook over medium heat while you wash the chard or kale. Remove the tough stems, then slice the leaves into narrow ribbons. Add them to the skillet with the drained lentils. Measure the lentil cooking water, and top up with water, if necessary, to make ¾ cup of liquid. Pour it into the skillet, then cover and leave to cook gently for 30 minutes or so, or until the carrots are soft. Stir from time to time. Add a little more water if necessary to prevent the vegetables from sticking, and to ensure there is a little sauce at the end. While the vegetables are cooking, bring a large pot of water to the boil. When the vegetables are tender, cook the soba according to the directions on the packet. Place into a large serving bowl, and add the vegetables and parsley. Drizzle with extra virgin olive oil, and mix gently but well. Serve as is, or with little knobs of chévre tossed through the noodles. Pass the pepper grinder. Adapted from a recipe by Deborah Madison in The Greens Cookbook. (Local: noodles, garlic, leek, celery, carrot, chard, kale, parsley, bay leaf, olive oil, chévre. Victorian: lentils.)

Chickpeas and Silver Beet

 

Ah winter, season of pulses and strong greens. We make some combination – chickpeas and silver beet, borlotti beans and chicory, lentils and spinach – at least once a week.

The following is a flexible recipe. You can vary the proportions of chickpeas to greens; vary the greens used (silver beet, rainbow chard, beet leaves, spinach and chicory all work well); and adjust the aromatics (onions, leeks, and herbs). You can make it wetter and call it soup; toss it through pasta and call it sauce; or pile it high on grilled bread and call it bruschetta. Or do as we do: serve it on bruschetta – made from a good sourdough brushed with olive oil and grilled – and eat the leftovers as soup for lunch the next day. Feeling like a bit of cheese? Sprinkle it with parmesan. Totally ravenous? Slip a poached egg on top.

However you serve it, this is a complete meal: warm and satisfying. The carrots and red onions make it oh so sweet; and the lemon juice brightens and lightens the flavours. It's so delicious that adults find it hard to stop picking – and, ever so thrillingly, my three young children all like it.

Chickpeas and Silver Beet - 250g dried chickpeas, soaked for a night or two - 2 cloves garlic, peeled - 2 small red onions, finely chopped - 1 or 2 leeks, halved, cleaned well and white parts sliced into narrow ribbons - 2 carrots, peeled and diced small - 250ml white wine (I use a cheap but not unpleasant Riesling) - 2 tbs tomato paste - 500g silver beet or other sturdy green, washed, stems removed, and chopped - 10 to 15 stalks Continental parsley, leaves separated from stems, chopped - 1 lemon, juiced - olive oil Place the chickpeas into a large pot with the garlic cloves and a drizzle of olive oil. Cover with cold water, bring to the boil, then simmer gently until soft: 45 minutes to 1½ hours, depending on the age of the chickpeas and how long they were soaked. Skim if necessary. Salt, and leave in their liquid until needed. Warm a good swirl of olive oil in a wide skillet. Add the onion, leek and carrot and cook gently for 20 minutes, or until the carrots are tender but not brown. Add the white wine and tomato paste, stir to combine, then simmer until almost completely reduced. Add the silver beet, then clap on the lid and steam until the silver beet wilts, 5 to 10 minutes. Give it a stir every now and then. Add the parsley and the chickpeas, along with half a cup of the chickpea cooking liquid, and cook gently for another 10 to 15 minutes to combine the flavours. Add the lemon juice, and serve with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil to finish. Tumble over bruschetta, toss through pasta, or make it wetter with more chickpea liquor and serve it in a bowl. This is my own combination, developed from recipes in The River Cafe Cookbook by Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers, and The Savory Way by Deborah Madison. Photograph shows a version with beet leaves and curly kale. (Local: silver beet, carrots, red onions, leeks, garlic, white wine, parsley, lemons, olive oil. Victoria: chickpeas. Origin unknown: tomato paste.)

Silverbeet Frittata

 

Because I was tired, I made a frittata. Ten leaves of silverbeet, six eggs and a handful of parmesan, fifteen minutes, and dinner's on the table.

Because I was tired, I opened a beer.

Because I was tired, I knocked the beer over. It washed over the frittata, which soaked it up like a sponge.

Because we were hungry, we ate anyway. I can't recommend it. Beer soaked eggs are revolting. But the beer-free bit tasted good, and my four year old ate it all up.

Silverbeet Frittata - 8 to 10 small stalks silverbeet, rainbow chard or beet leaves, about 250-300g - 1 or 2 cloves garlic, bashed with the flat of a knife then chopped - olive oil - 6 eggs - a handful of parmesan or other hard cheese, grated, or a lump of feta, crumbled - parsley, or thyme or borage flowers, or other chopped herbs, optional Separate the leaves from the stalks of the greens. Discard any bruised stalks, but keep the rest. Slice the stalks thinly crosswise, then chop the leaves into ribbons. Film a wide skillet with olive oil and throw in the garlic. Stir for a few seconds, then add the chopped stalks. Sauté until translucent. Add the leaves, stir and clap the lid on the skillet. Leave for 4-5 minutes or until the leaves have softened, then remove the lid, take off the heat, and leave to cool a little. Whisk the eggs, then add the cheese and herbs. Season well. Tip the greens into the egg mixture, wipe out the pan, and reheat it. Film with olive oil again and, when it is nice and hot, pour in the egg mixture. Shake to distribute the greens across the pan. Turn the flame down and cook over medium heat until the eggs are mostly set, loosening the underside from time to time with a flexible spatula. Place under the griller for a few more minutes to set the top, slide onto a large plate, and garnish with fresh herbs. Adapted from the bible, aka The Cook's Companion by Stephanie Alexander. (Local: beet leaves, eggs, olive oil, herbs, feta. Non-local: parmesan, but you could use a local hard cheese instead.)