Originally posted by Jess – October 21, 2015
The kids are in school, and I have two hours all to myself. I see laundry in my future, but not before cooking up these beet greens and Swiss chard.
My usual plate to tummy approach with Swiss chard is a butter cream sauce of some sort. It’s my mom’s favorite, so I often make her a plate when she comes for a visit (sometimes she’ll even take it as payment for watching the kids!) A simple reduction of heavy cream butter and a pinch of salt does the trick, but on days I’m feeling gourmet, I’ll whip up a Beurre Blanc, or “White Butter” sauce. This sauce is a classic staple and excellent with just about any CSA veggie, (particularly those you might not be so fond of!) There are many renditions but the basic staple ingredients include white wine, vinegar and/or citrus, shallot and butter. Epicurious has a good recipe with which to start, and from there you can try substituting a bit of lemon or lime juice for the vinegar, reducing or adding more cream to change the consistency, etc. The sauce is also a canvas on which to paint the herb or spice combination of your choosing, or just leave it simple and let the veggies do the talking!
Today I have a bottle of red wine that will be going the way of the dodo before I have a moment to enjoy it, so I’ve decided to try a Beurre Rouge instead. As it’s my first time out of the gate with this sauce, I’ve decided to try Martha Stewart’s recipe.
Here’s the red wine, vinegar and shallot, ready to reduce.
Meanwhile, the chard and beet greens are coarsely chopped and wilting with the help of a bit of chicken stock.
Reduced!
Wilted and tender!
In goes the cold and cubed butter. If things start to go awry, just remove the pan from the heat and keep stirring, adding more butter until the creaminess returns to the sauce.
All went well, but these greens need a little help holding up to the richness of this sauce. They are screaming to me “reheat me at dinnertime and slap a ‘Dellmonico steak on me” and that’s what I’m going to do.