Chard hearts in sauce with egg and mashed potatoes, a complete recipe
Last Updated on
Total: 1 h 10 min Diners: 4
In my house, this has been a recipe “from grandmother to mother”, one of those recipes that today unfortunately we are losing because less and less is cooked. It is true that chard is gradually falling into disuse, totally defeated by spinach, but it is a tremendously versatile and delicious vegetable. Where are the mythical chard esparragás of southern Spain?
In this recipe we will use the whole chard making it a fun dish, which people will not relate to a nondescript vegetable dish, with a tremendously appetizing sauce that could also serve to cook some meatballs in it, sprinkle some chicken fillets or be the condiment for some chard, prawn and corn cakes.
It is important to cook the stalks and the chard leaves separately but the good thing is that the same pot will help us to cook everything, also the potatoes and the eggs, using only that utensil in addition to the frying pan where we will fry the stalks and make the sauce. The hard-boiled egg is optional, you could also add some diced ham or bacon instead. But this is a vegetarian recipe that we could very easily convert into vegan without losing any flavor.
Chard chard with egg and puree
Ingredients
Ingredients
. Bunch of chard, 1 pc Eggs, 2 pc + 2 pc Flour, 100 g + 2 tablespoons Olive oil, 200 ml Onion, 1 large or 2 medium Onion, 1 large or 2 medium Sweet paprika, 1 or 2 teaspoons Oloroso wine, a splash Chicken stock, 500 ml Salt, c/s Ground black pepper, c/s Potato, 3 pc Butter, 80 g Cream, 60 ml
Step 1
Clean the chard by separating the stem from the leaves. Wash everything very well because it is very possible that there are traces of soil between the stems and leaves or even some bugs. If we see that the stems have very hard parts, peel them with the help of a peeler. Cut the stems into stalks about six centimeters long. Cook the stalks in boiling salted water for about 20 minutes, until tender. Add the potatoes to the same saucepan and cook the eggs. The eggs will only have to cook for ten minutes, after this time you will have to take them out and cool them quickly in a bowl with cold water and some ice if possible.
Step 2
Meanwhile, chop the leaves and peel and chop the onion into small squares to have it ready to make the sauce. Peel the eggs, cut them into quarters and keep them covered with plastic wrap so they do not oxidize.
Step 3
When the pencas are tender, remove them from the water and drain well. In their place, put the chopped chard leaves and let cook for about 10 minutes, when we also see that they have softened completely.
When the potatoes are soft, remove them.
Step 4
In a large frying pan place the oil and prepare in a deep dish two beaten eggs and the flour. Dip the pencas first in the flour and then in the egg and fry over medium-high heat, we want them to brown quickly. We can make “packages” of stalks, booklets, put a couple of them together so that the whole is thicker. When they are browned on both sides, remove to absorbent paper. Whenever we are going to fry it is advisable to let it happen on one side, do not touch, and when we see that it has already browned well on that side, turn it over. Do not be dizzy and touching without stopping, come on.
Step 5
In the same pan, with the residual oil, fry the onion over low heat. We don’t want it to brown but to be very tender.
Add then the flour and cook it too, stirring with a whisk for a couple of minutes over low heat. We need the flour to cook and lose the raw flavor so that it can be used as a thickener, but it does not bring unpleasant flavor. We don’t want to turn up the heat either because it would brown.
Step 6
Add the paprika and stir well. Then wet with the oloroso or red or white wine and let it evaporate watching how everything starts to condense by the action of the flour. Then add the chicken or vegetable stock and let the sauce bind well, stirring constantly with a whisk so that there are no lumps. Add salt and black pepper.
Step 7
While the onion is poaching (step 5), take the opportunity to make the mashed potatoes by peeling them while they are still hot and mashing them with the butter and cream. The ideal is not to use neither blender nor food processor to avoid a gummy puree. What I sometimes do, when I don’t have a potato masher at hand, is to use the arm blender without turning it on, simply mashing with the arm of the blender. Add the well-drained chard leaves to the puree, mix until everything is homogeneous and season with salt.
Step 8
Serve the puree on one side and the pencas with the sauce and the hard-boiled egg dipped in it on the other. At my house, they bathed the stalks in all the sauce, but I prefer to drizzle it over the top at the last moment, in good quantity, so that the batter keeps the crunchy texture.
