Hello ragazzi!. Annalena hopes you remember her, and that she has not become obsolete. She will be honest with you: the task of keeping up the blog had exhausted her. So she walked away. She's walking back, on a limited basis. You will see short spurts of lots of recipe presentation, but the daily postings, are probably a thing of the past. When she makes something she thins you should have, she will post. And she has a few. This is one, a recipe from one of the greatest of American chefs, David Tanis.
Swiss chard is Annalena's "go to" green. Did you know that swiss chard is actually beet greens? Yes, it is. The beets are inconsequential , and Annalena has never seen them vended. The leaves, however... OH MY. They are readily available, year round, very easy to cook, very economical, and very good for you. If you are a spinach lover, you should acquaint yourself with these, immediately. And once you do, you will make creative dishes, like this.
See, swiss chard cooks like spinach, which means it's easy. Unlike spinach, the leaves are large. So they can be used for something like this. The list of ingredients is short, the technique is not involved, and they are good. Shall we begin?
First, we need to cook the swiss chard. That means cutting the very large stem off, at the base of the leaves, and then dropping them whole, into boiling salted water:
Normally, we chop these leaves up to use them for vegetable side dishes. Not so here. You will need 6 large ones. Annalena suggests you double that quantity. Like grape leaves not all will be useful, and you will be patching with the recipe.
You should now gather your other ingredients:
What you also do not see is the yogurt. FULL FAT GREEK YOGURT. Seriously, ragazzi, this dish will not work with the non fat variety. You need 2 cups of it. You also need a quarter cup of corn meal, but to be honest, this will work without it.
You will now slice about 1/2 cup of scallions, and grate the garlic. Also take about a hefty teaspoon of zest off of the lemon. Have garlic, salt and pepper at the ready. Mix the scallions, the herbs, the lemon, the garlic, the cornmeal if you are using it, into the yogurt. Distribute it evenly:
And now, the fun begins. You will need 6 ramekins, about 1 cup. Chances are, you will not have these. And if you don't, get out your muffin pan. See how much it holds, and then make allowances. For example, 8 ramekins 1 cup each, is 8 cups volume. If your muffin tins hold 3/4 of a cup (pour water into one), you will need to use 8 of them, because 8, 3/4 cup tins will hold 6 cups.
See why we made extra chard?
Okay, now turn your oven to 400, and then brush olive oil all over your chosen vessel. After you've done that, line each one with a chard leaf:
Push the leaves down into the ramekin. Some will be larger than others of course, and you will have to exercise some judgement, but not just yet.
Now, fill each leaf with yogurt mixture. As always when filling a multiplicity of containers, start small and finish big, so that they are filled evenly:
You'll now fold the larger leaves over the filling, and if you can't cover them completely, use some smaller leaves. It's all good:
Put these in the oven, at 400 for 20 minutes. If you use ramekins, use a baking sheet. You don't have to if you use a muffin tin, but Annalena recommends it.
After 20 minutes , you will be tempted to act immediately. Don't. These are very hot. They will come out of the tins or ramekins very easily, with a big spoon to guide you, or just turning them over in your hand. They will have baked up very firmly, so you won't need to worry about them falling apart:
Aren't they pretty? Like a little Christmas present: what could POSSIBLY be inside?
Ok, Annalena is getting a little carried away, but still. Then you turn them over, move aside the leaves, and display your delicious filling:
Annalena ate these hot, and also at room temperature. She likes them better at room temperature. The stems can be a bit tough, but that's ok. Do eat the liner. They leaves are delicious.
So there you have it. You may even want to double the recipe if you're entertaining, because these are, ultimately, one of the "oooh" and "ah" dishes , and they really don't involve much work.
Good to see you all, ragazzi. Now, Annalena will be checking to see: who's still there?
