It’s never a good idea to start an article with the words, “Bear with me,” but that’s what I need to ask you to do. Maybe you don’t like green leafy vegetables as much as I do, but before you start yelling, “Ew! Gross! It’s green!” or “She wants me to eat that?”, let me convince you of the merits of this dish.
1. It’s nutty from chickpea flour.
2. It’s salty and savoury from cheese. Yes, I used real cheese. Not fake soy cheese which is mostly oil and thus disgusting. This was on sale at Fromagerie Atwater. Organic. Unpasteurized, and delicious. Hurray for free samples. Finally, free sample marketing worked. Actually, this isn’t the cheese I used…I used a lactose-free Finnish cheese. Turns out there’s something else in it I’m allergic to, but at least it’s not the lactose. I ate this on the side of some barley risotto instead. If you are not lactose-intolerant you should use this cheese instead:
3. The health reason: It uses 2 pounds of greens, making it easy to look like Popeye in no time flat.
4. Did I mention you’d have Popeye arms? Those are much more attractive than Madonna arms, though you should probably lay off the corn cob pipe business.
5. It turns into a patty that tastes like the best version of tempeh you ever had, but it’s gluten-free and has no disgusting, slimy tofu. Not that all tofu is slimy. Just most of it. There are very few cooking scenarios when tofu wins. It should generally be replaced with meat or avocado in my opinion. Confused? Leave a comment and we’ll talk about it like adults.
6. The gloopy green sauce is the best way to use up a bunch of herbs ever. I keep getting so many herbs and not managing to use them all, but with this there’s no problem. Long live gloopy green sauces and my inability to do plate garnishes.
7. And finally, this is the perfect recipe when you have mystery greens. Sure it works best with chard or other slightly sweet greens (aka not mustard greens), but any leafy greens work as long as you remove the spines (including mustard greens).
8. Oh, and I guess I should say you can fry these in a lot of oil, which automatically makes everything more delicious, but I prefer them baked, which dries them out, meaning that if you end up with too much liquid you don’t need to add more breadcrumbs that you don’t have. Instead you can just bake them longer at a lower temperature (high enough to cook the egg) to dry them out and make them meaty.
If you need a ninth reason you probably didn’t make it this far. So I’m going to assume we’re good and you’re in this for the long haul, aka dinner. Shows you how long my relationships tend to be, doesn’t it?
Swiss Chard Cakes with Parsley Sauce
Adapted from Yotam Ottolenghi’s “Plenty”, my new favourite beautiful cookbook of gourmet vegetable recipes.
Sauce Ingredients:
3 cups parsley (the original recipe is for sorrel, but who has sorrel? And 3 cups of it? Really? No way was I going to go buy sorrel when I actually had three cups of parsley sitting in my fridge wondering when it was going be eaten)
1/4 cup almond milk (original recipe calls for Greek yogurt. See above comment re: what was in my fridge and make appropriate conjecture).
1 garlic clove, crushed (I usually hate raw garlic. But I used it, and so should you since it’s a really boring sauce if you start leaving things like flavour out. So suck it up, buttercup)
1 tbsp olive oil (I used jalapeno olive oil. I like heat. Even sesame oil would make this delicious, though. Use what you got. Like hips.)
1/2 tsp Dijon mustard (not everyone has three Dijons in their fridge. I have a honey Dijon called “Hot Russian”, a maple Dijon, and a Grainy Dijon that simple but with whole mustard seeds so you’ve got to do the grinding part with your teeth if you want real flavour. See above comment on hips or stock up on Kozlik mustards at St. Lawrence Market or specialty stores where some of his bestsellers are found.)
Cakes Ingredients:
1 1/4 lbs swiss chard, leaves pulled from spines, but spines reserved (1 1/4 lbs, but who’s counting? If you bake these cakes it doesn’t really matter much if it’s a little over or under. I suggest over and really pack in the green. No fall colds in this house, thanks)
1/3 chickpea flour (the recipe calls for pine nuts, but those you need to toast, and I was just going to grind them anyway, whereas chickpea flour is pre-toasted and ground but just as nutty. Your call. You may need a little extra if you skimp on or skip the breadcrumbs below)
1 tbsp olive oil
4 oz Parmesan, Pecorino Romano, or other hard, salty, grate-able cheese (4 oz you say? Who’s going to weigh their grated cheese?I recommend weighing before grating if that is the case, but just aim for about 1/4 cup. Think of it as a “to taste” measurement without the tasting step. If you feel cheesy today add a bit more, and if you’re trying to stay on the straight and narrow hip-wise, skimp on the 1/4 cup. It is most of the flavour, however, so maybe just use a naturally lower-fat cheese. Not a double Brie or anything…kind of hard to grate those anyway)
1 egg, gently beaten with a fork
6 tbsp breadcrumbs (yeah, like I was going to make breadcrumbs when I could just add more chickpea flour…no, I should ahve done breadcrumbs, I know. It adds texture and flavour, but I didn’t have any bread lying around, so don’t fret if you don’t either)
1/4 tsp salt (extra if you skimped on cheese)
1/4 tsp black pepper
Instructions:
Boy I love food processors. Get yours out (or your blender) and blend all the sauce ingredients. Taste and adjust flavouring if necessary. Transfer to a bowl. Voila, sauce. Hurray, food processor.
Then blanch the chard stems by plunging them into a pot of boiling water for 3 minutes. Then add the greens and swoosh them around for another 3 minutes. Drain the chard, let cool a few minutes so you don’t burn yourself, and then press the water out of the leaves with paper towel or a kitchen towel or just squeeze it out with your hands.
The time consuming (better) way: Chop the cooled and squeeze-dried chard leaves and stems roughly and put them in a big bowl. Add the toasted pine nuts (toast for 1 minute in the tablespoon of olive oil heated in a skillet over medium heat. Max two minutes), grated cheese, beaten egg, breadcrumbs, salt, and pepper. Use your hands to combine and then shape into 8 patties (2-inches in diameter and just over a 1/2-inch thick. I like some larger and smaller ones in diameter because that way you can eat the ones you want depending on your appetite, but they cook less evenly this way, it’s true. Lightly oil a baking sheet and place patties so they’re not touching on sheet.
The easy way (especially if you’re making breadcrumbs):
Put 1 slice of day-old bread, roughly torn, into the food processor or blender (no need to clean it after making the sauce). Process until crumbs form. If they don’t form because the bread is too soft, get over it. Next time toast the bread first. Hopefully you read this recipe first and decided to toast them before processing because you didn’t trust my foolhardy instruction to not clean out of the food processor post-sauce. Add the rest of the cakes ingredients and process until combined. See? Wasn’t that easier than chopping the chard and beating the egg, and toasting the pine nuts and mixing it all with your hands and then getting your egg-hands everywhere? Less texture, but less egg-hands. Fair trade-off. Now you can either choose to form patties with your hands or drop by the spoonful onto a lightly oiled baking sheet. Flatten tops to above measurements.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Bake for 25 minutes, or until the cakes aren’t gooey inside. They should be firm but not rubbery when you press down on the middle of them with a finger or bottom of a spoon. You can turn them halfway through the cooking if you’ve got the guts and spatula skills. I just leave them be and end up with a crusty top and a soft underside. Like bread, but better. And greener. So, so much greener.
Or fry the cakes in 1/4-inch of vegetable oil on high in a frying pan. About 3 minutes on each side, until they’re golden brown. Transfer to paper towel-lined plates to suck up excess oil.
Serve with the sauce on the side or on top. A little extra Dijon is a nice touch too. Think of the cakes as vegetarian sausage. Sauerkraut, anyone? Yes, please. Both disgusting (the thought) and delicious (the taste). I’m okay with that.
Leave a Reply