Romanesco!!!

The queen of the vegetables, worthy as a table display, the Romanesco is as delicious as it is beautiful. Although it is actually a type of cauliflower it is frequently referred to as a broccoli and takes on a milder flavor than either.

Romanescos always get a double take, some (like us) think it is beautiful and some think that it is too strange-looking or alien to eat. (What?!?) Regardless, it is intriguing as an example of an edible fractal spiral.

We hope you enjoy it as Lee foresees that this will be the only opportunity this year to try this from the GRUB farm. The rest will mature in the beginning of 2010.

Around the GRUB house we find it hard to eat it any other way than steamed whole and presented whole. We often serve ourselves by gently plucking branchlets off the head.

In a large pot pour in a couple inches of water and then place a steamer basket (if you have one) down and bring to a boil. Once the water is boiling, place the romanesco stem side down (leaves removed) into the pot and cover. Cook for a short amount of time, until just barely soft. Some folks may even dip the head into cold water to stop the cooking process. If it is cooked too long, it will still taste good, but it will lose some of its beauty in presentation and texture. Once plucked and on the plate, we usually just add a little butter. Right now I am salivating at the thought of melting some butter with lemon thyme to drizzle over or even with a squirt of lemon! MMM!

Otherwise you can use it raw as crudités or replace it for cauliflower or broccoli in any recipe.

Scanning the internet I saw mention of the Italian recipe “concept” known as “Misto Fritto” which seems to translate something like “mixed fried” things. The basic recipe is that pieces of food (vegetables, seafood, meat, garbanzo beans) are battered and fried and served with a sauce. This sounds delicious and so I will share a recipe here, but it sort of seems sad to hide the romanesco in batter, but here it goes anyway. I pulled the best tips out of various recipes, but it is easy to put your own touches into it.

Misto Fritto di Verdura (basic steps)

Choose your vegetables and cut into pieces, usually larger than bite-sized. Keep each of these separate because the different types may require different frying times, cook the hardier pieces first. Some suggestions are romanesco, broccoli, green beans, podded peas (snow or sugar snap), summer squash, green onion (roots and green cut off), peeled cloves of garlic, and peppers.

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Place cookie sheet with towel in oven. (This will keep the pieces warm while the other batches are being cooked.)

Make the batter. Dipping the veggies in cornstarch or flour is sufficient. I was attracted to a beer batter recipe from Tyler Florence:

• 2 cups all purpose flour, plus more for dusting
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 12 ounces beer, pilsner or ale
• 1 egg yolk
• (My addition would be 1tsp of dried lemon thyme)

Put flour into a bowl and season with salt and pepper. Stir in the beer, 1/2 half at a time, whisking to work out any lumps. Add the egg yolk and mix well to combine. The batter should be the consistency of heavy cream.

Batter the veggies, fry up until golden brown, drain and them add to the cookie sheet in the oven. The directions for the batter recipe above continues:

In a wok or deep fat fryer, heat a couple of inches of oil to 375 degrees F. Rinse and dry all ingredients to be fried. Fry the ingredients in the order listed. Coat ingredients with flour, shaking off the excess. Dip in batter and immediately place into hot oil. Do not overcrowd pan.

Season with salt and pepper and decide on a sauce. Many recipes just recommend squeezing lemon over it, some have mayonnaise-based dips/sauces.

Feijoas!

Your GRUB farmers got a chance to wander off the land this week to visit some generous folks with more fruit than they could consume. This week we were able to add persimmons (more on this in another edition) and feijoas.

These little green fruits, also known as pineapple guavas, come off of an awesome drought tolerant, evergreen (well, ever-silver) shrub. It is highly recommended in landscaping for aesthetic purposes, plus it gives you the added bonus of having raspberry candy flavored blossoms in the spring and then fruit in the fall and winter. Although originating from higher elevations in Brazil, they are well adapted to our climate.

Feijoas are most often eaten fresh. They are especially tasty when the middle of the fruit has ripened to a clear jelly. To help ripen them you can put them in a paper bag with an apple at room temp for a few days. The easiest way to eat them in this state is to cut in half and scoop out the flesh with a spoon.

A few other ways to consider using it are in chutneys, smoothies or infused in vodka.

FEIJOA-CHICKEN CURRY (from 5 a Day website)

• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 4 chicken breasts, skinned, boned, & cut into bite-sized chunks (or use tofu chunks)
• 1 1/2 cups carrots, thinly sliced
• 1 cup red, yellow, or green bell pepper, cubed
• 1 cup onion, thinly sliced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 4 to 5 ripe feijoas, peeled, halved, and cut into slices
• 1 Tbsp curry powder
• 1/4 tsp allspice
• 1/8 tsp pepper
• 1 Tbsp cornstarch
• One 14 1/2-oz. can low sodium chicken broth

In a skillet, heat 2 tablespoons oil. Sauté chicken 3 minutes or until nearly done; remove from pan. Heat remaining oil in skillet; sauté carrots, bell pepper, onion, and garlic for 5 minutes or till carrots are nearly tender. Add chicken back to skillet with feijoas, curry powder, salt, allspice, and pepper.

Stir cornstarch into chicken broth; pour into skillet with chicken mixture. Bring to boiling; reduce heat. Simmer, covered, 20 minutes.