Chard Quiche with Pine Nuts

During our graduate school time we lived for two years close to Basel in Switzerland. Even though during this period we never had much time to really explore the culinary scene of Basel or other parts of Switzerland we were able to experience a few of the typical treats like Basler Leckerli which is a hard biscuit made with an unique spice mixture or Rivella, a soft drink made out of milk whey. The food we most often enjoyed was “Wähen”. Wähen are essentially the Swiss version of tartes and quiches. Originally reported in 1556 as a fruit quiche, over the centuries many savory versions also appeared and we were often starting our weekends going to a bakery and eating a piece of one of the many different Wähen on display. This was of course not the first time we ever had a quiche since these are popular throughout Germany as well but they originated from the region of Alsace and Lorraine which are close to Basel.

Quiches were originally food of the poor and made by the women in Alsace to feed their families with a few, cheap available ingredients – egg, milk and bacon as a cheap and nonperishable form of meat. Since at those times, a few hundred years ago, most families baked their own bread making quiches was an efficient way to use leftover bread dough. What started as quiche Lorraine for the poor developed over time to a well-regarded class of dishes everybody around the world is enjoying. Today a large variety of toppings are used with different kinds of meat, vegetables and cheese. A consistency between these many variations is the use of eggs, milk or cream and shortcrust pastry. What started for us as a weekly visit to the bakery led to a continuous interest in making quiches at home like this chard quiche with pine nuts.

For this quiche we used a few more unusual ingredients to underline the uniqueness of chard. Whole spelt flour has a more robust and nuttier flavor than the often used regular wheat flour which helps accentuate the delicate flavor of the chard. Instead of using only eggs and cream for the filling we also added ricotta which gave the quiche more body and at the same time added a slight sweet note. The complex flavor of sage with its spicy, aromatic and slightly bitter tones helps to bring an unexpected taste to the quiche. The long baking time helps to mellow out these flavors so that the sage doesn’t dominate the dish. A salad and a nice glass of white wine made this quiche a wonderful dinner.

Sift flour on working surface, form a well in the flour and add egg with some salt. Place the butter in small pieces around the flour and mix everything using a knife.

Knead dough until smooth and store it covered in fridge for 30 minutes.

Heat oil in pot over medium-high heat and cook spring onions, chard stems and sage for five minutes. Add chard leaves and cook for three minutes until wilted. Season with salt and nutmeg. Preheat oven to 200C/400F.

Roll out dough on a little bit of flour and put dough into 30 cm/12 inch spring form.

Mix ricotta with heavy cream and eggs. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg. Fill chard mixture into spring form and add ricotta mixture. Bake quiche for 25 minutes in the oven.

Sprinkle provolone and pine nuts over the quiche and bake for another 15 minutes.

Recipe adapted from “Quiche, Tarte und Co.” by Gräfe und Unzer

Serves 4

250 g (9 oz) whole spelt flour

1 egg

150 g (5.5 oz) butter

750 (27 oz) rainbow chard, leaves cut into stripes, stems diced

1 bunch spring onions, diced

4 leaves of sage, finely chopped

2 tbsp Canola oil

nutmeg

200 g (7 oz) soft ricotta

100 (3.5 oz) heavy cream

2 eggs

40 g (1.5 oz) pine nuts

50 g (2 oz) provolone, freshly grated

Ratatouille Lasagna with Celery Root Crème – Enjoying Local Produce

Most people associate the warm weather and the laid-back life style of San Diego and California in general as one of the main perks to live here. There is no doubt that before we moved to San Diego we mainly associated these attributes with California and are still enjoying them daily. But over the years we also more and more savor the sheer abundance of outstanding local produce. The climate of California allows farmers to grow many different types of produce year-round, and San Diego itself is one of the best places to live for outstanding local produce. According to the San Diego County Farm Bureau San Diego had in 2009 more than 6680(!) farms with most of them between just 1-9 acres which is more than any other county in the US. San Diego County is also the largest community of organic growers in the nation with 374 organic farms. Some of the well known farms have also gained a high reputation outside of San Diego, like Be Wise Ranch, Suzie’s Farms and most prominently Chino Farms.

Many restaurants started to use more and more local ingredients and to cook seasonally. Over the last few years this whole movement took off, and now pretty much every relevant restaurant claims to follow this locavore trend of using local and sustainable ingredients. When we cook at home we try to use fresh produce as much as possible but it’s not always easy to also use local ingredients. We often don’t have the time to go to one of the farmer’s markets which are the best option for local produce. Fortunately some of the local markets like WholeFoods started to include a section dedicated to local produce. On a recent visit the selection included fresh local produce from places like Be Wise Ranch, Sun Grown Organics, Aviara Farms, Stehly Farms, Suzie’s Farms and Sage Mountain Farms. Seeing this great variety of local produce we decided to use it in one dish– Ratatouille Lasagna with Celery Root Crème. Besides the pasta and Parmesan cheese all ingredients were local or at least came from somewhere in California.

Ratatouille Lasagna with Celery Root Crème

Cooking with local produce

Ratatouille is always a good choice to showcase outstanding fresh produce but since it is mainly used as a side dish we wanted to make it more substantial by including it into a lasagna dish. What really made this dish special was the béchamel sauce which was based on celery root. Celery root is one of these vegetables which are underappreciated and most people only know it, if at all, raw in a salad. But celery root is a versatile ingredient which is can also be used in soups, purees, casseroles or sauces. Its taste reminds of celery but has a more subtle, round flavor which stays more in the background. We served the lasagna with a salad of local heirloom tomatoes and cucumbers.

Clean celery root, peel and cut in small pieces. Steam for 15 minutes, cool and dice.



Heat butter at medium heat and cook onions for two minutes. Add flour and cook for two minutes with continuous stirring.



Slowly add milk and cream and cook for 15 minutes at medium heat.



Add diced celery root and puree with immersion blender until creamy. Season to taste with lemon juice and salt.



Cook lasagna sheets al dente, rinse with cold water and drain the pasta.



Heat oil at medium heat, add shallots and garlic and cook for two minutes. Add zucchini, eggplant, bell pepper and chili and cook for 4 minutes until vegetables start to soften. Season with salt and pepper and remove vegetables from pot.



Add diced tomatoes with juices to empty pot and thicken by cooking for 6 minutes. Season with salt, pepper and some sugar and mix with vegetables.



Coat the bottom of an oiled casserole with celery root crème, cover with a layer of lasagna sheets, add some celery root creme and add half of the vegetables.



Repeat everything starting with the second layer of lasagna sheets and finish with some celery root crème. Bake in a preheated oven at 200C/400F for 25 minutes.



Mix parmesan with lime zest and sprinkle over lasagna. Bake lasagna for 10 minutes until golden yellow.

Recipe adapted from “Essen & Trinken”

Serves 4-6

250 g (9 oz) celery root

1 small onion

2 tbsp butter

30 g (1 oz) fluor

300 ml (1.25 cups) milk

150 ml (2/3 cups) whipping cream

2 tbsp lemon juice

8 lasagna sheets

1 can (28 oz) diced tomatoes

300 g (11 oz) zucchini, diced

300 g (11 oz) eggplants, diced

1 red and 1 yellow bell pepper, diced

2 shallots, minced

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 red chili, minced

6 stems basil, minced

4 tbsp olive oil

Sugar

30 g (1 oz) Parmesan, freshly grated

Lime zest, from 2 limes

Moroccan Vegetable Ragout

Moroccan cuisine is often characterized as one of the most refined cuisines of Africa. Due its long history as an important crossroad of the Western and Oriental world, the country has over centuries created an interesting, unique style of cuisine. Starting from the rural traditions of the indigenous Berber population of Morocco to strong influences by the invading Arabs, particular the culinary culture of Baghdad, the Moroccan cuisine later got a strong Spanish influence since many Moroccan Berbers were part of the Arabic armies who invaded and occupied Spain for several centuries.

Many Moroccan dishes often use strong spices, like cumin, coriander, cinnamon but at the same time savory dishes get enhanced by the simultaneous use of sweet components as honey or fresh/dried dates, figs, raisins. This unusual but well balanced flavor combination gives many Moroccan dishes a unique signature which clearly separates this cuisine from many others.

When we were thinking of trying to emulate this characteristic flavor profile we thought that this recipe for Moroccan vegetable ragout would be a good starting point. It had all the characteristics of Moroccan cuisine such as cinnamon and cumin as well as honey and fresh orange juice as the sweet counterbalance for the spices. We also found the included vegetables, kale, sweet potatoes and chickpeas, promising as fitting ingredients for this dish. Appropriately for the Moroccan theme of the meal we served the ragout with couscous, most likely the most famous staple of the Moroccan cuisine. We opted to serve it with toasted almonds but skipped the often included raisins since we thought it would make the dish overly sweet. Overall we were pleased with the Moroccan vegetable ragout but if we would repeat this recipe we would increase the amount of spices and at the same time use less honey. Even though the dish wasn’t overly sweet we felt that the spices could have been more pronounced.

Heat oil in large pot over medium heat and cook onions for about five minutes until softened.

Add cinnamon stick and cumin and cook for about one minute until spices are fragrant.

Add sweet potatoes, chickpeas and tomatoes, olives, orange juice, honey and three cups of water. Bring mixture to boil, reduce temperature and simmer covered for about 15 minutes.

Stir in the kale and continue simmering for about 10 minutes until sweet potatoes are tender and kale is softened. Season with salt and pepper and serve with couscous and toasted almonds.

Recipe adapted from “Fine Cooking”

Serves 4

1 tbsp olive oil

1 onion, thinly sliced

1 cinnamon stick

1.5 tsp ground cumin

1 lb sweet potatoes, peeled and diced (1/2-inch)

1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes

½ cup pitted green olives

6 tbsp freshly squeezed orange juice

1.5 tsp honey

1 bunch kale, coarsely chopped

Indian-style curry with sweet potatoes, eggplant, green beans and chickpeas

Eating out in restaurants is often a good way to (re)discover ingredients which one might have never used or not used for a long time. When we think about what we want to cook we sometimes get inspired by recent restaurants visit. Not so much in terms of replicating any specific dish but by using certain ingredients we enjoyed. In addition, our ever growing cookbook collection tends to focus more and more either towards books about specific ingredients or specific ethnic/regional cuisines (e.g. different Italian regional cuisines, Catalan dishes, Japanese cuisine) which often use underappreciated ingredients.

One ingredient that has recently popped up on many restaurant menus are sweet potatoes, often in the form of sweet potato fries or mash. We have rarely cooked with sweet potatoes ourselves but have always enjoyed it slightly sweet, starchy taste. One of our preferred take-out spots, if we don’t cook or go out dining, is Punjabi Tandoor where we really like their Bengan Bhartha curry, an eggplant based curry with tomatoes and onions. So when we recently looked for a good vegetarian weeknight dinner idea in which we could combine eggplants with sweet potatoes we settled on this Indian-style curry with sweet potatoes, eggplant, green beans and chickpeas:

As much as we like Cook’s Illustrated for its “scientific” approach to “iterative” cooking (cook the recipe, test it with a few people, get their feedback and “improve” the recipe, cook the recipe etc.) it tends to “water down” ethnic cuisines since this approach works towards finding the greatest denominator which is normally counterproductive for authenticity. But similar to the regular discussion between foodies if non authentic restaurants can have good food we think that in the end the taste of a dish matters most, and authenticity is a plus.

This Indian-style curry turned out very well and we liked the sweet flavor of the sweet potatoes and the eggplants, with the green beans and chickpeas giving some texture to the dish. The curry gets a lot of body from the roasting of the spices and the addition of tomato paste. The onion relish added some crunchiness. We prefer our curries not too spicy and just used one chili but this can easily be increased to get some serious heat. We served the curry over Basmati rice and with some mango-papaya chutney and yogurt.

Toast curry powder and garam masala over medium heat until it darkens slightly. Cool down toasted spices.

Heat some oil over medium heat and cook onions and sweet potatoes for about 10 minutes.

Add remaining tablespoon vegetable oil, garlic, ginger, chile and tomato paste and cook for about 30 seconds, stirring continuously to avoid burning the tomato paste.

Add toasted spices and cook for an additional minute, stirring continuously.

Add green beans and eggplants and cook for another 2-3 minutes.

Add tomatoes, water and chickpeas and some salt and bring mixture to boil. Reduce heat to medium and simmer for about 20 minutes until green beans are tender.

Stir in cream and cook for about two minutes. Adjust seasoning with salt.

Recipe adapted from “Cook’s Illustrated”

Serves 4

2 tbsp curry powder

1.5 tbsp garam masala

4 tbsp vegetable oil

3 garlic cloves, minced

2 onions, diced

300 g (11 oz) sweet potatoes, diced

1 tbsp ginger, minced

1 serrano chile, minced

1 tbsp tomato paste

400 g (14 oz) green beans, cut into 1 inch pieces

400 g (14 oz) eggplant, diced

1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes, pureed in food processor

1 can (14.5 oz) chickpeas

600 ml (2.5 cups) water

70 ml (1/4 cup) heavy cream

Onion relish

Onion relish:

1 onion, diced

1 tbsp lime juice

1 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp paprika

¼ tsp salt

Pinch of cayenne pepper

Mix all ingredients.

French Lentil Soup

This year San Diego experienced an unusually cold and rainy winter – for the last couple of days the weather seems to have finally turned around and become “more typical San Diegan” again. The cold winter period gave us, however, a very good excuse but also a lot of motivation to try out different new soup recipes over the last few months. We always try to cook vegetarian dishes at home on a frequent basis as we like to go out for dinners often which tend to be non-vegetarian most of the time. Since we had some green lentils at home we decided to prepare a French Lentil Soup. In general, we prefer our soups not to be too brothy and like them to have more body by using larger amounts of vegetables than called for in most recipes, and also by pureeing part of the soup at the end of the cooking. If you like yours less thick just skip the pureeing step.

This French Lentil soup had a nice earthy flavor from the lentils which were accentuated by the addition of lemon juice and Sherry vinegar.

Tie thyme, bay leaf and caraway seeds in cheesecloth

Heat oil in pot over medium-high heat and cook onions and garlic for about 5 minutes and until onions start to soften. Add carrots, leeks and celery and cook for additional 6-7 minutes until vegetables are softened.

Add the tomato paste and cook for 2 minutes with stirring. Add vegetable broth, green lentils, white wine, sherry wine vinegar, lemon juice and sachet and bring to simmer. Cook for about 40 minutes until lentils are tender.

Remove sachet and puree half of soup in a blender. Season with salt and white pepper to taste.

Recipe adapted from “The CIA Book of Soups”

Serves 8:
2 tbsp oil
1 onion, finely diced
1 garlic clove, minced
3 carrots, finely diced
2 leeks, finely diced
3 celery stalks, finely diced
1 tbsp tomato paste
7 cups vegetable broth
300 g (12 oz) green lentils
¼ cup white wine
2 tbsp sherry wine vinegar
juice of half a lemon
Sachet: 2 sprigs fresh thyme, 1bay leaf, ¼ tsp caraway seeds tied in a cheesecloth