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This week's veg box
Jan. 5th, 2006 03:32 pmI've missed my veg box from Riverford. There was no delivery last week because of Christmas, so I was down to the storage vegetables - onions, potatoes, squash, roots in general.
Today they're back. It was a fruit+veg box this week, I have one of those in alternate weeks and as well as fruit it tends to contain more unusual vegetables than the small vegetable box I get in the intervening weeks. Because we are now in the dead time for agricultural produce this means that only 40% of the box is UK-grown. I believe in local produce where possible but I'm not so austere that I want to stick with basic roots and iron rations every January. So I'm happy to have the exotic stuff - which I'mn assured arrives here by boat.
This week's box contains:
The garlic is a substitute for the promised ginger, which is a bit of a bummer as I have plenty of garlic in but no ginger at the moment.
Cavalo nero, or black cale, is my absolute favourite food discovery of the past year. In fact kale in general has been a revelation, but the cavalo nero is something a bit special. (This is from somebody who until ten years ago loathed anything vaguely cabbage-like, except for pickled red cabbage. The turning point came when I was working on a contract for BP Finance in Moorgate, and had lunches in the excellent subsidised canteen in the Finsbury Circus corporate HQ. I helped myself to a generous dollop of what I took to be pickled red cabbage. Only when I came to taste it it wasn't pickled. My brain sent a message to my stomach to be revolted, but my taste buds overruled my brain on this occasion. It was glorious, just the soft side of crunchy with the most subtle hint of cumin. It was my brassicene conversion!)
The way I cook black and any other kind of kale is this: I tear the green bits from the stalks and toss them into the empty washing-up bowl, discarding the stalks. Then I pour a kettleful of boiling water on the leaves and let them steep for five minutes. Then I drain the bowl through a colander, hold the colander under cold running water for a minutre, and squeeze the liquid out of the leaves. Then I toss them for a minute in some hot olive oil in which a chopped garlic clove has been frying. That's all!
The presence of a white cabbage reminds me that it's time to make bigos, the Polish national dish. I made one last year that took three days to make and a week to eat, getting better and better with every passing day. This year I'm hoping to use my own kiszona kapusta (sauerkraut), as I have a bucket currently festering in my kitchen. Watch this blog for more details.
Today they're back. It was a fruit+veg box this week, I have one of those in alternate weeks and as well as fruit it tends to contain more unusual vegetables than the small vegetable box I get in the intervening weeks. Because we are now in the dead time for agricultural produce this means that only 40% of the box is UK-grown. I believe in local produce where possible but I'm not so austere that I want to stick with basic roots and iron rations every January. So I'm happy to have the exotic stuff - which I'mn assured arrives here by boat.
This week's box contains:
- A box of mushrooms - the ones with a brown crusty cap;
- A box of four tomatoes;
- A huge celeriac;
- A white cabbage;
- Two small avocados;
- A bag of cavalo nero (black kale);
- Two garlic bulbs;
- Five large Braeburn apples;
- Six oranges (Maroc);
- Seven bananas of unspecified provenance.
The garlic is a substitute for the promised ginger, which is a bit of a bummer as I have plenty of garlic in but no ginger at the moment.
Cavalo nero, or black cale, is my absolute favourite food discovery of the past year. In fact kale in general has been a revelation, but the cavalo nero is something a bit special. (This is from somebody who until ten years ago loathed anything vaguely cabbage-like, except for pickled red cabbage. The turning point came when I was working on a contract for BP Finance in Moorgate, and had lunches in the excellent subsidised canteen in the Finsbury Circus corporate HQ. I helped myself to a generous dollop of what I took to be pickled red cabbage. Only when I came to taste it it wasn't pickled. My brain sent a message to my stomach to be revolted, but my taste buds overruled my brain on this occasion. It was glorious, just the soft side of crunchy with the most subtle hint of cumin. It was my brassicene conversion!)
The way I cook black and any other kind of kale is this: I tear the green bits from the stalks and toss them into the empty washing-up bowl, discarding the stalks. Then I pour a kettleful of boiling water on the leaves and let them steep for five minutes. Then I drain the bowl through a colander, hold the colander under cold running water for a minutre, and squeeze the liquid out of the leaves. Then I toss them for a minute in some hot olive oil in which a chopped garlic clove has been frying. That's all!
The presence of a white cabbage reminds me that it's time to make bigos, the Polish national dish. I made one last year that took three days to make and a week to eat, getting better and better with every passing day. This year I'm hoping to use my own kiszona kapusta (sauerkraut), as I have a bucket currently festering in my kitchen. Watch this blog for more details.
