voila’: the marriage of veggie virtue and cheesy decadence

Since I posted this picture on Instagram and Facebook I have had a load of requests to provide the recipe for my Chard Gratin.  I usually don’t have time to photograph my meals with a tripod and stuff so Instagram has been a godsend. Having said that it is not a vehicle for actual recipes.  Please forgive the image quality… but here is the recipe.

The back story is that the other day I had trouble shutting the fridge because I had two huge bunches of chard spilling out of the veg drawer.  I had whizzed round my local farmer’s market (which I have done almost every Wednesday since 2006) and bought too much – because first I bought from my usual stall as it looked lusty if imperfect and I felt in the mood for chard.  Then I saw better chard at another stall, it was less gnarled and less stalky and not white chard but red – so I bought it there too… and then to my annoyance on a little way I saw an amazingly kick-arse rainbow-coloured bunch at a third stall.  It was the super-model of chard.  It was an utter firework of ochre and magenta and forest green and was so tender and unblemished that I had to get it too.  Sometimes I can be so superficial that I will buy a thing for its beauty alone.  I also went to the market hungry which is not recommended.  In any case I knew I would find some or other use for – probably a soup or something that would wilt it all right down it and since I felt a detox was imminent  I just paid up and hurried home.

After a few attempts at steaming it and serving it with just olive oil and lemon zest, maldon sea salt, pepper and garlic, my husband protested.  Sighing: “It’s too much like hard work.  It feels like punishment… like chewing on tin foil.  Ugh.”  At this point I realized I had to come up with a better, more lovable recipe.

In my mind I was thinking melted cheese makes everything better, especially for blokes.  I had a sexy image of a “gratin / tartiflette-style” dish but I had no idea if it would work.  Alternatively a soup.  To check I thought I’d see if I could find any in my vast cookbook library.  I flicked through about 5 books –  fyi, Hemsley and Hemsley had not one chard reference in the index – which I found rather surprising.  Sarah Raven’s “Garden Cookbook” (which I LOVE) had both a soup with coconut milk which appealed to me – but which was overruled by my husband – and a one pot dish which was a chard gratin with mussels (latter optional).  I had recently made my first bechamel (I know, I know) to give a more comforting, luxurious layer to a potato topping for my shepherd’s pie.  (It actually tastes nothing like a British shepherd’s pie and more like a ragu’ al bolognese with mince as the key ingredient and potato gratin on the top, I’ll provide this  recipe shortly) and was utterly taken aback at how easy bechamel is to make.  Raven’s recipe called for cream on the chard and also Parmesan and a browning sesh under the grill.  I didn’t have any cream and I liked the idea of something rich-seeming but not so dairy-tasting so figured I could hybridize and rustle up my own chard gratin with bechamel and then grizzle the cheesy bits on the top.

Anchovies breaking down into a wonderfully savoury sauce when fried in olive oil (and garlic)

What takes this recipe up a notch is the anchovy element.  Even my American, anchovy-hating husband has come round to loving them after 10 years of me secreting them into dish after dish.  If they are broken down by frying gently in olive oil, they disintegrate into a wonderful granular dressing and provide a wonderful stock-like flavour and savoury kick that very little else can match.  As this it the only non-veggie element to the dish, when  cooking for veggie friends I tend to flex in with capers in their stead.  Capers don’t break up and dissolve like anchovies do, but when blitzed in a chopper or finely sliced by hand, are great for mimicking that salty, marine-like flavour and punchy tang.

Here are some step by step images of how various stages of the recipe should look:

Cut the chard stalks in to 1cm chunks then…

…add the stalks to the pan of salted boiling water and cover…

after a couple of minutes add the ribboned chard leaves to the boiling stems and cover again

gently fry your anchovies and garlic and chillies (optional)

…and then throw in with the drained and dried chard and combine well

make your roux… it will bubble and look like this. Don’t let it burn, stir it every now and then while the flour cooks through (4-5 minutes)

add the milk gradually, stirring it in as you go to give this creamy kind of texture.

You will need a baking dish (ceramic or glass or cast iron) that is approximately 30cm in diameter. I like to use anchovies - particularly chilli-marinated ones I have found on ocado and alsobrought back from my hols in Italy, but you can choose the less fiery option, or recreate it by using fresh chillies. I also have tried putting anchovies in the base for my bechamel roux and in the dressing of the greens for the base and find this is more to my taste, but you can skip doubling up on the anchovies if you are not that into them and just salt your bechamel instead. If you are catering for vegetarians, then capers are a good swap for anchovies. I tend to make my bechamel by eye, and if I have some left over, it does form a skin when cold, but it can be re-used the next day if you remove this and whisk it back into to life with some love and heat. Incidentally, I have recently re-worked this recipe to finish of the remaining chard and left over bechamel and put a layer of finely sliced potato across the top and the bechamel and cheese on that. The kids ate it more willingly this way : )