Reminiscences of the past...or how to be fooled by your Granny.

When me and my cousins were no more than wee kids, my granny made us eat the doomed chards in a rice soup called by her “Rice with flags”, that way, we were fooled into eat the vegetables with pleasure...truth to be told...my cousins were the ones who needed to be fooled, I’ve always loved vegetables!!!!

With my cousin Ximo

Me and my grannie

The game consisted in picking up a chard with the spoon and toast: For Spain!! or For Whateverland!!! and then, country after country, without noticing we ate all the vegs. Then I though it was pretty stupid, nowadays I think it was really clever!

I don’t know why, but this recipe is what “comfort food” is for me, a warmer for cold days, and also something to feed the soul with tender care when you need to. Probably as all the dishes our grannies prepare, and maybe because it always made me feel better. 

Being from Valencia, rice is something that I’m used to eat almost as much as Asian people. All our principal dishes or traditional meals are around rice, so probably this recipe will be the first based on rice of many. Someday I’ll explain somethings about rice that I think are very interesting (for example how it gave me the creeps to watch the chef of my job in Ireland cook the rice...it’ll give me nightmares for years!)

I’m going to talk about this recipe as “rice with flags” instead of “rice with chards” because it’ll always be more appealing. And because you can also make it with spinach, I had to do it once, because while poaching the chards, I was talking with one of my cousins and I became distracted, so the chards ended up all burnt and I didn’t had any more chards at home.

Some people don’t like chards, even if they like vegetables. Is like a very uninspiring green leaf that once cooked is like eating a boiled tablecloth, with an oxidised taste and a terrible brownish colour. This is because it is overcooked!!! Green vegetables had to cook just enough to lose that crispy texture of the raw leaf, but they have to keep their beuatiful color. Remember, color means vitamins, flavour means minerals. Both of them very important in our diet!! If you cook the vegetables less, they’ll keep the flavour, so you’ll need less salt to season them, and then it’ll be healthier for you!

After the boring and educative part...let’s get our hands dirty!!!

Here you have the recipe (I forgot to tell, but almost all the recipes will be for 4 servings):

180 gr of rice (Japonica, not Indica, or more simple, not Basmati kind of rice, use the one for pudding)

Japonica Rice

Indica Rice

500 gr of chards
2 garlic cloves
1 medium ripe tomato
80 gr of cooked beans (not baked, just white beans boiled)
1 tsp of sweet paprika
2 threads of saffron
4 tbsp of olive oil
1 L of water
Salt to taste.

- Chop as finely as you can the garlic cloves and reserve
- Grate the tomato.
- In a saucepan, pour the oil and add the garlic. Turn on the fire, but it has to be very low, or the garlic will burn. Let it cook less than a minute
- Add the paprika and stirr it quickly with a spoon, then add the grated tomato and let it boil.
- Cut the chard leaves into bits of two fingers wide and add to the saucepan. Season with a bit of salt and remove. Put the lid on and let it cook until the chards reduce their initial volume to a third.
- Add the water and let it simmer for fifteen minutes. Taste and add more salt if needed. Take into account that the rice and beans will make the soup a bit bland, so you’ll need a bit more salt than you think.
- Add the saffron threads and the rice.

VERY IMPORTANT

- The rice has to be cooked exactly like this: The water has to boil quickly during the first 10 minutes, then slowly for the next five. Stirr it from time to time to avoid the rice to stick to the bottom of the saucepan
- When you have to lower the fire, add the beans.
- Try the rice, if its to hard to your taste, let it cook for another two minutes, and proceed the same way until it is to your taste. For me fifteen, twenty minutes would be perfect, but I can’t stand the rice overcooked. I’m that special!!^^
- Serve into a deep plate and enjoy!!!

The rice with flags I made for the ocasion...some people add snails, but I don't like them, they're slimy and you have to cook them alive!

Hope you’ll like it! It is one of my favourite traditional spanish recipes!!! (But someday I’ll explain one that for me is repulsive, but is really tasty, in regard of one of my followers!!!)

PS: Although I already have a job, I'll keep on with the recipes, I'm enjoying it a lot!

The day I wanted to make watercress soup and I ended with lamb's lettuce and rocket soup

Even though sometimes a recipe is clear in your mind, and you’re determined to do it, because it’s perfect for the occasion, the circumstances of the day can make you change your mind.

I love watercress soup. I think is perfect warm for a cold day and chilled for the summer. The flavour is delicate, kind of herbal, a bit spicy and very refreshing. Watercress soup is known as a classy recipe, and I’m sure the Regency people of my beloved Jane Austen’s novels ate it frequently.

I crossed paths with watercress soup when I was a very small girl, when I read The Witches, by Roald Dahl. There is a banquet at the end of the book where watercress soup is served and it has a poison in it that turns people (witches in this case) into mice. So it was a soup I’ve always wanted to cook. Just for trying the mice thing...

The Witches, by Roald Dahl

And I did!! For a very special occasion. Our first annual “Scottish Dinner”. It was really tasty and lovely, thankfully, the people remained people, so no dangerous side effects for the soup. So I really wanted to make it again for my dad last week.

Watercress soup

And here is when circumstances became bitches. I went, as happily as one can go, to the supermarket with the intention to buy some watercress, but there wasn’t any!!! I was very pissed off, when the inspiration made me see the light!!! I was going to make a rocket soup!!! I like rocket, but its flavour is really intense, so I had to make it a bit mild for another kind of tastes, then I saw the lamb’s lettuce, and I decided to mix it.

Here is the recipe:

100 gr of rocket

100 gr of lamb’s lettuce

1 medium onion

1 medium potato

1 glass of skimmed milk

2 tbsp of olive oil

Salt and pepper at taste

- Chop the onion finely and make it sweat with the oil and a bit of salt in a heavy bottom saucepan, with the lid closed.

- Then add the potato, cutted in small cubes and let it cook in a low fire, for the water contained at the onion be able to start cooking the potato.

- When the potato starts to be cooked, you will see it because the edges will become a bit translucent, add the lamb’s lettuce and let it shrink a bit, then add the rocket, and stirr it from time to time and let it cook gently.

- Add the milk, and let it simmer for about ten minutes.

- Taste it and add the salt and pepper, allowing the mix to boil before tasting it again in case it needs more.

- With a food processor (sincerely, Thermomix is my lady!), puree it until you have a smooth soup.

-Strain it for being sure about the smooth texture and keep it warm for winter or let it cool for summertime.

After doing all of this I ended with a incredibly green soup with a strong flavour. It was tasty and maybe a bit bitter, but we loved it!!! And we even found a parmesan aftertaste!!!! I’m exploring the possibilities with this soup, and if my friends allow me, I’ll make it again for them, maybe with some crunchy serrano ham garnishing it??? Or with a parmesan tuile?? Let the imagination flow!