R E C I P E S

Chard Stalks with Anchovy

By Edward Behr

With this recipe, the bland, fleshy stalks of chard are boosted by a very savory sauce that, depending on your expectations when you read the ingredients, is surprisingly good. Often in France, only the stalks of chard are appreciated and used in cooking, and the stalks can be very wide. Yet the green leaves are highly useful, and in many places they’re cooked, separately boiled, used as stuffing, as the base of a gratin, an ingredient for soup, or the filling for a savory or sweet tart. They’re frequently mixed with or used interchangeably with beet greens or spinach, such as combined with pine nuts and raisins. Chard stalks resemble those of cardoons, and the names have the same root. Our English word comes from the French carde (or cardon), which comes from the Occitan cardo, meaning cardoon, and comes in turn from the Latin for thistle. The cardoon is a thistle, where chard belongs to the species as beets. (The modern French word for chard is blette; the stalks are côtes de blettes).

Chard is popular in Provence, and the flavors of garlic, anchovy, and saffron are Provençal. Plenty of recipes combine chard or cardoon stalks with anchovies, but none that I find are quite like this one of Richard Olney’s, which appears in his Simple French Food and, in slightly different form (without the saffron), in his Provence the Beautiful Cookbook. The first book is essential to any cook with an interest in French food; the second is for me the best Provençal cookbook. Choose thick but not too mature stalks, which may have strings, though I don’t have that problem with the chard I grow.

White stalks used to be the dominant kind, but yellow, orange, and red are equally good. The proportions in this recipe are flexible. And if you like you can add some hot pepper to the court bouillon. Instead of putting the parsley in the court bouillon, you can mash the leaves in a mortar with the garlic and anchovy, or sprinkle the chopped leaves on the finished dish. The mortar turns the garlic into a paste whose powerful flavor is only partly diminished by the cooking that follows.

for the court bouillon

2 quarts (2 liters) water

1 onion, chopped

2 or more branches parsley

1 branch fresh thyme

1 bay leaf

half a dozen peppercorns

1 tablespoon vinegar

a little salt

1¼ to 1½ pounds (at least 500 gr) chard stalks, cut in 4-inch lengths (about half the weight of a bundle of chard is leaves)

for the sauce

1 or 2 cloves garlic

salt
2 anchovy filets (preferably in salt, taken from the bone and rinsed)

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons flour

3 cups of the strained court bouillon

a pinch of saffron threads, enough for just a hint of saffron flavor

Put the water on to boil with all the ingredients of the court bouillon, and simmer it for half an hour. Strain the liquid, discarding the flavorings, and boil the chard talks in the liquid until tender — 10 to 12 minutes. Put them in a gratin dish.

Mash the garlic with a pinch of salt in a mortar and reduce it to a paste; then add and reduce the anchovy filets. If you don’t have a mortar, chop the garlic very fine and then smear it with the edge of the blade to make a paste; chop the anchovy filets very fine and combine them with the garlic.

In a saucepan, stir together the olive oil and flour, and cook them for a minute over low heat. Add the anchovy-garlic paste, and, little by little, whisking, add three cups of the strained court bouillon, taking care to avoid lumps and making sure the sauce bubbles before you stop whisking. Add the saffron. Cover and simmer 20 minutes. Taste the sauce and add salt if needed. Pour the sauce over the chard and bake at 425° F (225° C) until bubbling and golden around the edges, about 20 minutes. Serves 4 to 6, or 2 to 3 as the center of a meal.


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