English Peas, Spring Onions and Roasted Almonds

Just cooked English peas, sautéd spring onions and roasted, salted almonds are a delicious combination of tender sweet, sweet pungent, and crunchy just salty. You can set this side dish next to grilled fish or chicken or mashed potatoes and a roast. It's...

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Stalk Vegetables Category Archive

Celery

Here’s a formula for getting the most out of a bunch of celery:

• Trim off the leafy top and set it aside for flavoring soups or stock or for use in salads.

• Remove and dice the coarse outer ribs then combine them with diced carrots and onions and herbs to make mirepoix—a tasty seasoning for sauces and stews—or a bed for fish or braised meats.

• Sauté tender outer ribs in butter, season with salt and pepper, and serve with roast pork or lamb.

• Use the tiny leafy ribs around the center for a raw vegetable hors d’oeuvre.

• Split the inner most ribs—called the heart—and braise in chicken or beef stock, add fresh ground pepper and chopped parsley and serve as a side dish with a sweet, nutty flavor.

Or, you could just slice up a few celery stalks and stuff them with peanut butter or cream cheese.

Tasty!

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Swiss Chard

Swiss chard, chard, silver beet, spinach beet, leaf beat, sea kale, Swiss beet, sea kale beet, Indian spinach—are all the same vegetable. Don’t get dizzy!

Swiss chard leaves have a hearty, yet mild spinach flavor. Swiss chard stalks have a delicate, celery-like taste and crunch.

Serve chard greens raw alone or in a mixed green salad. You can also steam or boil chard greens just like spinach.

Cut chard mid-ribs and stalks into pieces two or three inches long and simmer them until tender. Serve them hot with butter or chilled with light vinaigrette. You can cook and serve chard stalks just like asparagus.

The season for Swiss chard is spring through late fall, April through November in the Northern Hemisphere.

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Bamboo Shoots

Bamboo shoots are a spring delicacy in Japan. Slowly simmered, they have a delicate, bitter flavor and earthy aroma.

Fresh bamboo shoots can be sliced and boiled, sautéed or braised and served as an accompaniment to meat and fish. They can be slow cooked with other vegetables or stir-fried.

The crunchy texture of young, tender bamboo shoots make them a great choice served as a hors d’oeuvre or stand alone vegetable. Served with a sauce, bamboo shoots will absorb the flavor of the sauce but still retain their own taste.

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Kohlrabi

Kohlrabi tastes like a mild, sweet turnip with a bit of radish tang. Young kohlrabi is juicy and crisp and delicate.

Trim, scrub, boil whole or sliced for 20 or 30 minutes, then drain, peel, and serve with melted butter or white sauce or mashed.

Kohlrabi is delicious served with cheese, curry, Dijon mustard, garlic, ginger, potatoes, rice wine, roasted meats, sesame oil, or soy sauce.

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Asparagus

When asparagus comes to your farm market, you know that spring has arrived.

Asparagus made its debut this year at the San Francisco farmers’ market this past weekend.

Asparagus plants produce young edible shoots—called “spears”” for about six weeks each spring just as the days begin to lengthen and winter fades. The season for asparagus is late February through June—the season’s peak depends upon where you live.

What’s the best way to appreciate the subtle sweet grassy taste of asparagus? Well, you can eat it raw, parboiled, steamed, boiled, braised, baked, roasted, and grilled.

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Florence Fennel

For a light delicate taste reminiscent of licorice and anise, choose Florence fennel.

Florence fennel--which is also known as bulb fennel and in Italy as finnochio—is a pale-green, feathery-topped vegetable, with celery-like stems and swollen bulb-like base of overlapping broad layers.

Fennel can be served raw in wedges or sticks, finely sliced in salads, parboiled, steamed, stir-fried or sautéed, braised, or chopped and added to soups. The flavor of Florence is more delicate after it has been cooked.

The harvest season for this cool weather vegetable is early fall through spring.

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Cardoon

That bunch of silvery gray-green stalks that resembles a giant bunch of wide, flat celery is cardoon. Unlike celery the color of cardoon is dull not bright, and its texture is subtle not crisp.

Cardoon is available fresh and local from winter through early spring.

Cardoon has a more bitter than sweet taste that hints of artichoke, asparagus, celery, and salsify.

The cardoon is related to the artichoke. Both are edible members of the thistle family. The name cardoon comes from the Latin carduus or the later French chardon—which means thistle.

Cardoon is prepared like asparagus and celery and is served as a vegetable side dish or added to soups or stews. Cooked it is soft and meaty.

Cardoon is thought to have originated in the Mediterranean region where the Greeks and Romans considered it as an essential ingredient in a gourmet meal.

Today, cardoon continues that regional popularity in France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and the countries of North Africa. In Italy, cardoon is called cardoni. In Spain, the blanched stalks or ribs of the inner leaves of cardoon are used in cocido—a meat and vegetable stew. (For more on cocido, read here tomorrow.)

Choose: Look for cardoon with smaller stalks that are firm and have a dull-silvery, gray-green color. The outer stalks of larger bunches can be woody, hard and covered with soft spikes. Avoid stalks that are wilting or browning—although the top of stalks that have had their upper leaves removed will brown slightly.

Store: Place a damp paper towel at the base of each bunch then place the bunch in a plastic bag in the refrigerator. Cardoon will store for up to 2 weeks.

Serve: Cardoon is prepared much like celery or asparagus. It can be boiled, braised or baked. Remove the tough outer ribs. Cut the inner ribs to the size called for then soak them in a light lemon or lime water to prevent browning. Many recipes call for pre-cooking cardoon for 15-30 minutes in boiling water. Pre-cooking cardoon will remove the bitterness.

In Italy, young cardi is cut into strips, tossed with olive oil, salt, and pepper and then baked in a moderate oven. When the cardi is baked tender, it is removed from the oven and sprinkled with Parmesan cheese and served.

Raw cardoon can be chopped into salads, but taste a piece to make sure it is not bitter. If it is, pre-cook the stalks, chill then serve.

The botanical name for cardoon is Cynara cardunculus.

Florence Fennel: Finocchio

There are three types of fennel: bitter, sweet and Florence. The leaves and seeds of the first two are used chiefly as flavoring. The third, Florence fennel, is used as a vegetable.

Florence fennel, which is also called finocchio, has a bulb-shaped base and spiky celery-like stalks. The fennel bulb which has onion-like layers can be eaten raw—like an apple--or cooked. The taste is similar to licorice or anise—but lighter. Cooked Florence fennel is delicate and sweeter than raw.

Choose: Select large, squat bulbs that are clean and crisp looking. If the feathery leaves are attached, they should be fluffy looking—not wilted.

Serve: Cut Florence fennel stalks into slices, simmer them in water or stock until tender; butter and serve.

Local Celery

Can you remember what you were doing 4 months ago today?

Well, if you are a bunch of celery, you were probably just getting your start on life, germinating as a little seed.

And today, you are ready to make an appearance on a snack tray, in a salad or a soup. For locally grown celery—in the northern Hemisphere, your season has just about run its course.

Most varieties of celery take about 115 days to mature from seed. Since celery grows best in cool weather and especially enjoys cool nights, the first crops go into the ground two to three weeks before the average date of the last frost in early spring. With an early spring start that means the final celery harvests should be taking place during the final days of early summer—which is now.

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