Leafy Greens

Pasta sends me to sleep. Actually, it always has. It’s just that for years I failed to make the connection between my postprandial tiredness and what had been on my plate. I now take my dough of flour, eggs, and water in much smaller quantities, using it as the supporting actor rather than the lead. The result is a fresher, less heavy plate, yet somehow just as comforting. In many cases the pasta is padded out with vegetables: spinach, mushrooms, tomatoes, eggplants, peas, cavolo nero, or broccoli. Members of the broccoli family work rather well with pasta, the folds and hollows of the cooked dough neatly holding onto crumbs of green vegetable. In what follows, we get a lot of pleasure for very little work: a plateful of soothing carbs with a creamy, cheesy sauce and masses of lightly cooked green vegetables. In short, a cheap, quick weekday supper.

A good contrast here between the sweetly warm beets, nutty hemp, and tangy goat cheese. Any crisp, slightly bitter salad leaf will work. The English-grown ivory and crimson chicory, crunchy, juicy, and appealing to the eye, works well but the classic white would be just as welcome.

Watercress (shown below) gives these mashed potatoes a peppery bite. They are a perfect accompaniment to fish, chicken, and mushroom entrées. Try serving them with the Grape and Ginger–Glazed Chicken (page 56). If you have leftovers, add hot stock to make a warming soup. Alternatively, whisk in milk or cream and serve as the classic cold potato soup vichyssoise.

I like to eat leafy greens every day, and this is an easy, delicious way to prepare them. Use any leafy green like kale, collard greens, chard (shown opposite), or beet greens. The cooking time for spinach will be a little shorter. These greens make a great side to most main dishes. Paired with brown rice or quinoa they make a simple, healthy lunch. I like to add an entire bunch of fresh chopped parsley just before the pan comes off the heat.

These poblanos are stuffed with tempeh, a traditional Indonesian food made from fermented soybeans. Tempeh tastes rich and meaty when seasoned and cooked properly. The chiles can be either grilled or roasted. You can prepare the filling and even stuff the chiles the night before cooking. For a memorable summer meal, serve with Pickled Mango and Habanero Relish or Mango and Habanero Salsa Cruda (page 183) and grilled corn on the cob.

A paillard is a piece of meat that has been pounded thin and seared. The purée in this recipe is fragrant and colorful, with a powerful tomatoey tang. Leftover purée can be used as a dip for vegetables or tossed with pasta. Do not reuse any purée that came in contact with the raw chicken without first boiling it for one minute. Start this recipe early in the day to allow the tomatoes and nuts enough time to soak.

Lemony sorrel brightens the flavor of spot prawns, large shrimp that can be served with the head and tail on or peeled. To remove the shell, use scissors to cut down the back to the tail tip. Like all shrimp, prawns only take a minute or two to cook, and after that can become tough. Millet provides a fluffy bed that soaks up the sauce. Start this recipe the night before serving so that the millet can soak.

This lighter take on cold spinach soup gets its rich texture from potatoes instead of the traditional cream. Lamb’s quarters grow wild and are sometimes considered a weed, but they taste like chard or spinach when cooked. Pea shoots are the young leaves and tendrils of pea plants (shown below). Long used in Chinese cooking, pea shoots have a strong, fresh pea flavor.

Enoki mushrooms are also known as “snowpuffs” or “golden needle” mushrooms because of their long, stretched stems and white caps. They come to us from Japan, where they are served raw or lightly cooked. Enoki are usually sold refrigerated in sealed plastic packets of 3.5 to 7 ounces. Despite their delicate appearance, they have a surprisingly meaty texture, especially when roasted. Mirin, or rice wine, is a sweet Japanese cooking wine that has a low alcohol content. If you can’t find mirin, substitute a tablespoon of honey mixed with a drop of white wine.

Nettles—weeds that grow throughout the United States—are like something out of a scary children’s story. Their leaves are serrated like teeth and they’re covered with spiky hairs that sting on contact. But the sting is fleeting, and the antidote is the juice of the nettles’ own leaves. Boiled briefly, nettles turn into a rich green vegetable much like spinach. Farmed bay scallops are a good seafood choice because they don’t require antibiotics or other chemical treatment and they clean the surrounding water by filtering out matter.

Barley replaces the traditional Arborio rice here for a textured, nutty-tasting whole-grain risotto. Soaking the barley overnight reduces its cooking time. Gold beets have a sweet, mellow flavor. When roasted with the skin intact, their beautiful color is preserved. Wait to salt the risotto until you’ve added the ricotta salata; as the name implies, it is quite salty. This aged ricotta does not melt, but instead retains a pleasant firm chewiness.

This rustic dish makes a wonderful cold-weather meal when paired with a green salad. Instead of the usual white top made of potatoes, this shepherd’s pie gets a toasted orange hue from winter squash, a common ingredient in Greek and Italian cuisine. You can substitute pumpkin, red kuri squash, or kabocha squash for the butternut. Gremolata, a fresh Italian condiment of parsley, lemon zest, and garlic, adds a bright citrus note.

This pretty scarlet salad is enhanced by dulse (shown opposite), a sea vegetable with a rich, meaty taste—try toasted dulse in place of bacon in a DLT! Several eco-friendly companies along the North American Atlantic coast harvest dulse by hand in small boats, dry it outside, and sell it with minimal packaging. When toasting dulse, pass it back and forth a few times over a flame and then let it cool. The texture should be crisp and crackly. If the dulse is still soft, repeat this process until it breaks up easily. Toasting it gently and gradually prevents burning.

Pretty pink grapefruits add zing and color to salads. Supreming citrus fruits (see the pictures on page 97) gives you seed- and rind-free sections that are ready to eat with no fuss, and the process releases a considerable amount of juice, which you’ll use as the base of the dressing. Once you have peeled the celery root, soak it in water with a little bit of lemon juice to keep it from turning brown.

Pockets made from fried tofu skins are convenient for making a quick finger food for parties, and they don’t require any dipping sauce. Find the pockets in Japanese markets in the dry foods or refrigerated section; they come preseasoned with sugar and soy. You’ll find kimchi, the sweet and spicy fermented cabbage condiment, at the same store. Although it originated in Korea, kimchi is also very popular in Japan.

Yuba, also called tofu skin, is sturdy and easy to work with. Its crisp texture when baked makes it an ideal wrapper for spring rolls. Find dried or frozen yuba sheets at Japanese food stores.

In many parts of the world, breakfast is a savory affair. Throughout Asia, hearty congee is a favorite morning dish, eaten with condiments ranging from stir-fried pork to fried garlic. This version gets a citrus zing from lemongrass (shown below) and ginger. Normally made with white rice, the grain most widely available in Asia, congee can be made using any whole grain. Soaking the rice overnight cuts the cooking time in half.

Take a break from cooking and make a satisfying meal from raw fruits and vegetables. This drink takes about twelve minutes to make from start to finish. It’s a great way to get your greens without any work, and I like the slightly fibrous texture the greens impart. The smoothie is good for two days if you want to have it for a few meals. After storing it overnight in the refrigerator, just reblend it for a few seconds. As different fruits come into season, try berries instead of oranges, or a ripe peach instead of the banana. In hot weather, blend in several ice cubes.

This savory mushroom dish is the vegetarian equivalent of a steak dinner. The rich taste and dense texture of the portobellos are complemented by creamy parsnips and lightly cooked greens.

Red lentils are quick-cooking beans, making them an obvious choice for last-minute meals. Their texture is starchier than regular lentils, and they have a light, sweet taste reminiscent of potatoes. For a creamier soup, add a dollop of Cucumber Yogurt (page 184). For a hint of spice, serve it with the Cilantro-Jalapeño Sauce (page 184).