Blog | Canalside Community Food - Part 17

Still got that salsify from a week or so ago hanging about in your fridge? These strange, shaggy parsnip-lookalikes have a mild, delicate flavour that is sometimes compared to oysters. Here is a simple way to prepare them. Serve them as a side in place of potatoes; they’re much lighter but very satisfying.

Salsify with Butter and Herbs

Ingredients
Salsify
Lemon juice
Butter
Fresh herbs, such as parsley, chives or dill, chopped
Salt and pepper

Preparation
Fill a bowl with cold water and add a tablespoon or so of lemon juice. This ‘acidulated water’ will stop the salsify from turning brown once it’s peeled. Bring a pot of water to the boil.
Peel the salsify and trim off the ends. As you proceed, drop the peeled parsnips into the acidulated water.
Drop the peeled salsify into the boiling water, turn down the heat a little, and simmer for 7-12 minutes, or until tender when pierced with a fork.
Drain and cut into 1-inch chunks. Dress with butter and herbs. Season to taste with salt and pepper and serve.

Most years we experiment with a new vegetable; sometimes this works a treat (New Zealand spinach) and sometimes not so well (salsify – although it does have a few fans). For 2020 we have 2 new vegetables coming to the farm: huauzontle (pronounced wah-ZONT-lay), also known as Aztec broccoli, is the spinach family’s answer to broccoli – you eat the unopened flower heads; and amaranth, which we did actually sow in 2016 but never got around to planting out, so as they say, if at first you don’t succeed, fail, fail again… this is leaf amaranth rather than the varieties grown for the quinoa-like seed that you might have seen for sale in wholefood shops.

This week I’ll keep it simple with one I’ve been saving up. My first winter at Canalside I felt almost overwhelmed by the number of potatoes I had to get through – there’s only so much mash one man can eat! That all changed when I worked out how to make good oven chips from scratch. Serve with whatever you want but for me there always has to be mayonnaise involved when it comes to oven chips…

Ingredients:
Potato (2-3 medium size per person)
Salt, pepper, oil

Method:
Put oven on about 220degC, put baking tray in to heat up with plenty of oil. Clean potatoes and peel if desired. Put kettle on to boil. Cut into 1.5cm thick slices, then lay these out and cut into chips. Next, boil the chips for about 4 minutes in a pan (par-boiling).

Drain potatoes and then put a lid on the pan and give a really good shake – this is key to rough up surface and make some crispy chips!

Get tray out of oven, and liberally salt and pepper, put chips on tray and apply more salt pepper and oil on top. Bake for about 20 minutes or until they look good to eat.

Variations: Add herbs/spices such as rosemary, thyme, fennel seeds, paprika (or any combination of). Patatas bravas: Same recipe but cut to 2cm chunks, add plenty of paprika when baking and serve with a pureed tomato sauce.

Gochujang, Korean chile paste, is warm and flavourful without being mouth-numbing. It adds a richness and complexity to roasted carrots and cabbage. The proportions of the two vegetables is not terribly important, and you might even want a bit more of the gochujang-cumin-ginger mixture. You could serve this with almost anything, from roast chicken to a potato pancake. It’s nice topped with yoghurt, too.

Roasted Carrot and Cabbage with Gochujang
Serves 2-4 as a side dish

Ingredients
750g carrots, peeled
750g white cabbage
3 tablespoons rapeseed oil
1.5 tablespoons gochujang paste
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon salt
4 cloves garlic, peeled and grated
3cm fresh ginger, peeled and grated
2 tablespoons more rapeseed oil
1 tablespoon white vinegar (I used rice wine vinegar; the original recipe calls for white wine vinegar)

Preparation
Preheat the oven to 220C. You will need two large baking trays and Meera Sodha recommends lining them with foil.
Cut the carrots lengthwise in half or quarters (depending on the size) to make long batons. Cut the cabbage into 2cm wedges. Place them in a large mixing bowl, or directly onto your two baking trays.
In a small bowl, mix the 3 tablespoons oil, gochujang, cumin, salt, garlic, and ginger. Pour over the vegetables and mix with your hands so that the marinade gets everywhere.
Spread the vegetables across the two trays. Make sure the carrots and cabbage are in a single layer, then bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until the vegetables are tender and blackened at the edges.
Meanwhile, put 2 tablespoons of oil and the vinegar into a large serving bowl. When the carrots and cabbage are roasted, transfer them to the bowl while still hot and toss them in the oil and vinegar and serve.

Recipe adapted from Meera Sodha, East (2019).

Salsify… I had no idea, but after a bit of googling and an interesting independent article / waitrose advert ( https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/salsify-root-vegetable-taste-recipe-what-is-it-waitrose-albert-bartlett-a8631251.html ) I’ve picked out a gratin recipe after realising that I’ve yet to make one this winter despite it being a weekly staple last year (that would be because I worked out how to make good oven chips instead!). I think this could be turned into a full meal rather than a side dish if you add sliced boiled potatoes and increase the quantities for the sauce and breadcrumbs.

Leek and Salsify Gratin

Ingredients
SALSIFY
400g of salsify root
Lemon juice & water in a bowl
300ml of milk
1 bay leaf
LEEKS
330g of leek, washed and sliced into 1cm rings
20g of butter
olive oil
2 garlic cloves, sliced
SAUCE
40g of butter
40g of flour
1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce, (optional – omit to make vegetarian)
1 tsp Dijon mustard
Tabasco, to taste
100g of mature cheddar, grated
salt
freshly ground black pepper
CRUMB TOPPING
20g of Parmesan, (swap for vegetarian hard cheese if preferred)
20g of Panko breadcrumbs
freshly ground black pepper

Method
Wash the salsify, scrubbing off any soil, then peel and trim the ends of each baton. Immediately place the peeled salsify into the bowl of lemon water to stop it from going brown

Bring the milk to the boil in a pan with a bay leaf and add the salsify batons. Simmer for 6–8 minutes until cooked al dente, then drain and set aside (reserve the milk for later)

Heat a splash of olive oil in a pan with the butter and sauté the leeks and sliced garlic until soft but not coloured

In a separate pan, make the cheese sauce. Melt the butter then stir in the flour. Cook until golden and slightly foaming, then slowly whisk in the warm milk reserved from poaching the salsify, continuously whisking to prevent lumps

Stir in the grated cheddar. Once melted and smooth, season with the mustard, Worcestershire sauce (if using), Tabasco, salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 180°C/gas mark 4

Trim the salsify to the size of the ovenproof dish you’ll be using. Roughly slice any trimmings and add to the pan with the leeks

Pour ¾ of the sauce into the leeks and stir to combine, then transfer to an ovenproof dish

Place the trimmed salsify into the remaining sauce and stir to coat. Neatly arrange the salsify on top of the leeks

Mix together the ingredients for the crumb and sprinkle evenly over the salsify. Bake for 25–30 minutes until golden and serve

Taken from: https://www.greatbritishchefs.com/recipes/leek-and-salsify-gratin-recipe

Here is an excellent topping for punchy vegetables such as kale. The key ingredient is fresh turmeric root, which you can get at Gaia, on Regent Place in Leamington, and doubtless elsewhere. You whizz up the turmeric with cashew butter, the juice of a few of the clementines you have hanging around from Christmas, and a bit of mustard.

The original recipe (from The First Mess) combined this with raw, shredded Brussels sprouts, toasted sesame seeds, sliced spring onions and fresh dill to make a very good slaw but I think this will go well on top of anything in the brassica family. This recipe is dedicated to the nice person at Canalside just before Christmas who swapped his unwanted kale for my unwanted rosemary.

Super Turmeric Sauce
serves 2

Ingredients
2 tablespoons cashew butter
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
juice of 3 clementines
2 inch piece of fresh turmeric, peeled
5 tbsp olive oil

Preparation
Combine the ingredients in a blender and whizz until smooth.

Recipe adapted from The First Mess, where you can find the recipe for the Brussels sprouts slaw, and also a salty maple-roasted squash and ginger rice which goes very well with it.

It seems like every sprouts recipe in existence starts with “sprouts are now one of my favourite christmas foods…” but however cliche it is, I agree since I started experimenting with different ideas. In past years I’ve used Jamie Oliver’s squashed brussels recipe but this year I want to keep it veggie so I’ve gone for the recipe below. I might experiment with boiling, frying and squashing the sprouts before the roast as per the Jamie recipe though.

Maple Balsamic Sprouts
Ingredients:
4 cups (350g) Brussels sprouts, halved
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 red onion, thinly sliced
2-3 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon dried rosemary
salt and pepper, to taste
1/3 cup (40g) hazelnuts, roasted chopped

Maple Balsamic Glaze
3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 teaspoon maple syrup

Instructions
Preheat the oven to 220 C
Wash and half the Brussels Sprouts and toss them with oil, onions, garlic, rosemary, salt, and pepper. Spread onto a baking sheet in a single layer and bake for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally, until browned on the outside and tender on the inside.
Stir together balsamic vinegar and maple syrup and set aside.
Remove from oven and toss with hazelnuts and maple balsamic glaze.
Serve warm.

Taken from: https://www.mydarlingvegan.com/maple-balsamic-brussels-sprouts-with-hazelnuts-and-rosemary/

This is an absolute flavour bomb. The combination of onion, spice and pumpkin is delicious, fresh and complex, with a savoury depth that you will savour. Serve with rice, and a garnish of fresh coriander, if you like, for a little touch of green.
If you want to make this vegetarian, you can apparently replace the fish sauce with an equal amount of Japanese miso, but I used fish sauce

Burmese Golden Pumpkin Curry (Shwe Hpayone-thi Chet)
Servings 2 as a main

Ingredients
100 ml rapeseed oil or other neutral-tasting oil
2 teaspoon ground turmeric
2 teaspoon ground coriander
2 teaspoon ground cumin
2 teaspoon paprika
16 fresh or dried curry leaves
3 medium onions, sliced
3 spring onion, green and white parts, shredded
4-6 garlic cloves, sliced
3 cm piece of ginger, peeled and grated
1 small squash or pumpkin, peeled and cubed
1 tablespoon sugar
4 tablespoons fish sauce

Instructions
Heat the oil in a saucepan over a high heat. Add the turmeric, coriander, cumin, paprika and curry leaves to the oil and allow to sizzle for a few seconds. 
Now turn the heat down to medium and add the onions, spring onion, garlic and ginger and fry for 10 minutes, until fragrant and the onions have wilted and some have crisped up.
Add the squash, sugar, and 300ml of water. Stir well. Cover and cook for 25 minutes, or until the squash is tender. Add the fish sauce, stir again and serve with rice.

Recipe adapted from Mimi Aye, Mandalay: Recipes and Tales from a Burmese Kitchen (2019).

Also available online at https://www.kaveyeats.com/2019/11/mimi-ayes-golden-pumpkin-curry.html

Dom says, “One of my favourite jobs in the yearly calendar is covering up our carrots with straw to protect them from the worst of the winter frosts. Volunteers and growers tackled this job with relish on Wednesday, rolling some big bales down the field with the usual thrilling risk that some of them might gain momentum and end up in the canal (bales, not volunteers). “

I don’t think I’ve ever eaten a Jerusalem Artichoke before, but they’re coming in the share next week! After a bit of searching around it seems like roasting is the most common way to eat them and this recipe sounds like a good introduction. Anyone who’s had them before please feel free to suggest other ideas!

Ingredients (scalable)

• 800g Jerusalem artichokes
• 1 garlic bulb, cut down the middle
• 1 tbsp rosemary leaves, chopped
• 3 tbsp rapeseed (or other) oil
• pinch ground mace (Comes from nutmeg shells, so I will probably just substitute nutmeg)
• 20g butter
• 2 tsp lemon juice

Method
Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Soak the artichokes in cold water for 20 mins or so to loosen any dirt, then scrub them with a scourer, being sure to remove any grit. Halve the small ones and quarter the bigger ones, and put them in a roasting tin with the split garlic bulb and rosemary. Coat everything with the oil and season. Roast for 45-50 mins until tender inside and crispy outside.

To finish, squeeze the softened garlic cloves from their skins and toss with the roasted artichokes, along with the mace, butter and lemon juice.

Taken from https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/crispy-jerusalem-artichokes-roasted-garlic-rosemary