Thank goodness for garlic... Part Two

When I was a child, growing up in South London, garlic was the epitome of foreignness. My mother wouldn't have touched it with a bargepole. It was one of those things, like snails, that the French ate, and therefore decidely beyond the pale. (When I got older, I did once point out that she would eat winkles at every chance she got, but received the reply, "Yes, but they're food.")

Back to garlic. Suffice to say that I had to wait till I left home before I discovered what it could do for food - eating it was one of those daring, "forbidden" new experiences which awaited me when I got to university.(Don't get excited - the others were things like curry and stirfries. Food plays a large part in my memories of uni.) And I was immediately hooked.

One of the reasons I'm obsessing over garlic at the moment is that it's the featured plant on this month's page of the garden calendar that I found under the Christmas tree this year. Santa (in the guise of my sister-in-law) brings me one every year. It's always garden related, and it gets pride of place in the kitchen all year. This year the focus is on herbs and spices, and January is garlic.

I talked in Part One of this post about how useful it is to deter insects and fungi in the garden. But of course, as well as being good for plants, it's equally good for us. Leaving aside its folkloristic reputation of protecting against the plague and vampires (though it might not hurt to take the odd plait with you next time you happen to be in Transylvania), it's recognised as being good for the heart, and as protecting against some forms of cancer. This in addition of course to the anti-bacterial properties - something I tried out at Christmas when I managed to slice open my finger with a knife I'd been using to chop the stuff. Can't say it was the pleasantest experience I've ever had, but boy did that cut stay clean...

What was I making at the time? Garlic bread - one of those totally simple foods that always tastes as if it originated in heaven. I always make it to accompany roast chicken and turkey - I'll leave you to guess which I was cooking on Christmas day - but it goes well with a lot of pasta dishes, peppers, all sorts of things.

The easiest way to make it is just to make some vertical slashes in a baguette type loaf (or whatever you can get that's similar), and stuff each slash with a slice of butter and a slice of raw garlic. However, an alternative is to soften the butter first, crush the garlic, and mix the two together along with some finely chopped herbs - I usually use chives or parsley. Then stuff the cuts in the bread with the mix, as before.

Wrap the lot in foil and pop it in the oven at about 400F/200C/gas mark 6 for about ten minutes till the crust is crispy and golden.

OK - it's not the recipe to use if you've got a cholesterol problem or are trying to lose weight. Garlic is often touted as a way to lower cholesterol, but recent research doesn't seem to support the claim. I suspect this sort of garlic bread, with its heavy dependence on butter, was originally a French recipe. If you want something a bit more healthy, there is of course the Italian version, bruschetta, which is just slices of toasted bread plus garlic and tomato. I love Italian food, and much of the best of it are the traditional recipes of the poorer part of the population - one of the most delicious things I ever tasted was Panzanella - a "salad" made with stale bread, oil and tomatoes - a recipe invented so as not to waste left-over bread.

But back to bruschetta. To make bruschetta properly, you need unsalted Tuscan bread and to toast it over an open fire. If that's not possible, use what you can - but bear in mind that you need a trip to Italy if you're going to really understand what's so great about it. Rub a clove of garlic into the toasted bread, dribble some good olive oil over the top, add a bit of salt and a round of very thinly sliced tomato sprinkled with oregano. If all the ingredients are fresh and good quality, it's heaven.

Pumpkin Soup for Hallowe'en

Yes, I know I'm the only person left in the world who still puts an apostrophe in Hallowe'en, but then I even use full words and capital letters in my SMSs...

It's crept up on me unawares this year. It's not an Italian tradition, and until recently passed unobserved. But then about ten years ago pumpkins started appearing in the shops at the end of October, as well as other Hallowe'en themed goods.

Until this year. Suddenly nothing. Not a pumpkin in sight, no witches, ghosties and ghouls... Nothing. Is it because shopkeepers found it hadn't caught on enough to make it profitable? Or have the Catholic church's criticisms put people off? Not sure.

Oh well. Even if I've not seen any Hallowe'en pumkins in the shops, there are plenty of the edible kind around. And last night I made a pumpkin soup that came out so well that I thought I'd share the recipe - which I rather made up as I went along, so apologies if the quantities are a bit approximate.

You need :

1 medium size onion
1 leek
Olive oil
Butter
A hot pepper (optional)
Half a pumpkin
A few potatoes
A handful of borlotti beans
Vegetable or chicken stock
Curry powder (optional)
A handful of peas
Milk

1. Add the oil and the butter to a heavy bottomed pan and place over a medium heat.

2. Peel and chop the onion and the leek. Add to the pan and fry for a couple of minutes. Then cover, turn down the heat and let them "sweat" - ie they should cook slowly in the oil/butter and their own liquid, turning transparent without browning.

3. If you want to add in the hot pepper, chop and add it at this point. I did - mainly because I wanted to use the pepper's I'd grown on the balcony this summer. But I'm not a great fan of hot peppers, so I think in future I'd omit it. I felt it swamped the other flavours rather. Decide depending on your palate.



4. Meanwhile, peel and dice the pumpkin and the potatoes. Add them to the pan once the leeks and onions seem transparent, and fry for a couple of minutes - keep them covered and turn them occasionally.

5. Add the stock. I nearly always have home-made stock in the freezer, which I swear by as the base of any soup, but yesterday I found I didn't. So I added cold water and sprinkled in a vegetable stock cube. It worked.

6. While the stock is still cold, add the pumpkin, potatoes and borlotti beans. I used fresh beans, but if you use dry you'll need to have soaked them for at least eight hours previously. If you use canned (not advised) drain and rinse them first to get rid of the salt. At this point it should look like this ...

7. Add a small amount of curry powder - again this depends on how much you like it. If you're turning your nose up at the idea of ready mixed curry powder, it probably means you're into Indian spices and can produce a much better blend yourself. Feel free.

8. Simmer for about 45 minutes - or until the beans are cooked. Then tip the lot into a blender and blend until smooth.

9. Tip it back into the pan and add the peas (I used frozen). Simmer until cooked.

10. Add the milk, and salt and pepper to taste. Cook over a low heat (don't boil) for another few minutes.

11. Don a witch's or wizard' hat and enjoy with some good crusty bread.

Even with the pepper it was great, and I'm looking forward to trying it again without.

Happy Hallowe'en.

Yummy, yummy - 200 times yummy

I don't usually "do" recipes. But this is a special post. The Balcony Garden reaches 200 posts today, so I thought it was time to do something a bit different.

This winter I discovered Swiss Chard. I can't imagine why I'd never tried it before - I've seen it in the supermarket for years. Perhaps because the heads of chard always looked so big - and as I'm the only person in the family who will eat greens, buying large quantities usually means throwing half the stuff away.

But then I saw it in Germany, while we were there for Christmas. In Germany it's called Mangold. And that reminded me of mandrakes.

Now if you're a Harry Potter fan you'll know that mandrakes are plants which are (in mythology) supposed to shriek when you pull them out of the earth. J K Rowling turns their roots into babies' faces as well. Of course, mandrakes are absolutely not connected to Mangolds except in my mind - which, every time I saw them in the supermarket, kept imagining the root under the base of the plant as a screaming baby.

So in the end I had to try them. And they have quickly zoomed to my number one favourite type of greens. I've not yet got round to planting any, but this article from The Guardian says chard can happily be grown in containers, so they're on my list. Chard likes limey conditions and is tolerant of heat and cold - ideal here. It's also a good container vegetable because you don't have to eat it all in one go. Harvest the outer leaves, and the younger, internal ones will keep on growing to give a second crop, and a third, and a fourth. Again ideal for balcony garden where space is at a premium, and large veg which are only going to provide one meal are sometimes a luxury you can't afford. There are different types of chard - some with red ribs, some with yellow - which I've not yet tried. But the white ribbed version is certainly not to miss.

So - here are a couple of recipes.

First of all, don't worry about having too much. Chard is like spinach. You cook an incredible quantity of raw leaves and they reduce down to a spoonful. And anyway it keeps - it's just as good the next day.

The basic recipe is dead simple. You can eat the whole thing, rib and all, or strip the green leaf from the central white rib. Wash the leaves well, cut them into small bits, and pop them into a saucepan with only a tiny amount of extra water - enough to cover the bottom of the pan but no more. Then add a bit of salt and dribble some good olive oil over the top. Cook over a low heat until the leaves "melt" down.

Like that, they're great as a vegetable to accompany a meat dish or to eat on their own. But for me, the best bit is using up the leftovers the next day as ...

Spaghetti with Gorgonzola and Chard


Gorgonzola Dolce has to be the cheese of the Gods. Don't confuse it with Gorgonzola Piccante, which is the older and much stronger version - similar to other blue cheeses such as Stilton.

Gorgonzola Dolce (dolce means "sweet") is soft and creamy with a mild taste. It's no more than two months old, and when out of the fridge for a while should be soft and runny. I could live on it.


Melted down over a low heat in a pan, then combined with some previously cooked chard, it's a wonderful sauce for spaghetti. (We exaggerated a bit with the cheese in the photo above - don't use half so much.)


And apart from the fact that it tastes wonderful, chard is also good for you. It's high in vitamins K, A and C as well as containing various other vitamins and minerals essential for health (see here for a breakdown).

So - for our 200th anniversary, I haven't baked a cake. But if you want to celebrate with me - try some chard.