By Guest Blogger Jessie Lin

Experimenting with Swiss Chard

One of my goals starting this spring season is use as many local ingredients as I can in my cooking.  Luckily for me I have a Farmer’s Market that is about a 15 minutes walk from my apartment.  I am also a part of a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program which for $120 gets me a half share of food every week including fruits vegetables and legumes for 8 weeks.

This is an exciting challenge and opportunity for me.  Using what is local and in season allows me to be creative and alter recipes that I have with some ingredients that I have never used or seen before.

For my first share of CSA, I picked up some Swiss Chard.  This leafy vegetable looks almost like the skinny cousin of rhubarb.  It’s has red stems and has similar characteristics to that of spinach, although the two plants are unrelated.  Swiss chard can be used in both savory and sweet dishes.  In France, it is often cooked with eggs in dishes such as frittatas.

I bought some ramekins the other day, so I’ve been craving to make a baked egg or soufflé type of dish.  I came across a spinach baked eggs recipe the other day which called for onions and spinach as its main ingredients.  Since I only had Swiss Chard and some green onions that I got from the Farmer’s Market, I decided to improvise.

I first sautéed a bunch of green onions with some garlic and olive oil.  I then chopped off the leafy parts of the Swiss Chard.  After the green onions softened, I added the leafy chard into the pan.  After that’s cooked, I added about 2 TBSP of milk (heavy cream would work better, but since I didn’t have any, I turned to my handy milk carton.)  Turn off the heat and put the vegetables in a butter ramekin.  Make a little well and crack an egg on top of it.  I baked it at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes.
The dish came out bubbling.  I sprinkled some paprika on top of the finished product just to give it a nice presentation.

Taste test:  The egg whites were a bit over cooked, so I should probably reduce the baking time to 10 minutes next time.  The yolk however, was perfectly cooked.  The sweetness of the green onions complemented the Swiss Chard.  It was nice and creamy.

This is a very simple dish that you can try with different variations.  Any leafy vegetables would do.  Try it with buttermilk, heavy cream, or whole milk.  Everyone has different taste buds.  What might taste good to me might not be for you.  This is one of the joys of cooking; we can alter all the ingredients to our liking!

Ingredients for 2 servings:

• One bunch of green onions

• 1 clove of garlic

• 1 TBSP Olive Oil

• Half a bunch of Swiss Chard (Leafy paft only)

• 2 TBSP of heavy cream or whole milk

• 2 Eggs (one for each ramekin)

• 1/2 TBSP butter (for greasing ramekins)

• Salt and Pepper to taste

• Dash of Paprika