Meatless Mondays - Swiss Chard (Krautstiel) Pesto

I just realised recently that I’ve been pretty ignorant when it comes to vegetable shopping. When I first started cooking (fresh out of college and finally got a real kitchen in a share house), my champion dish was always the Mie Goreng. From all the vegetable choices out there, for some reason I have always stuck to zucchinis, capsicum and mushrooms which I always put in my Mie Goreng. This became a habit and for a long time these were the only three veggies I would even think of buying!

Until I came to Switzerland and discovered the wonders of good old-fashioned produce markets, with all the weird and wonderful veggies that I’ve never seen before (or failed to see). Things like kales, fresh artichokes, endives and swiss chards!

This week I’m attempting my first Swiss chard recipe (Krautstiel auf Deutsch). To me, it kinda looks like a weird love child of beetroot, spinach and rhubarb. When I was trying to explain this vegetable to my Swiss colleague, I felt a bit better when he didn’t know what it was either. He was like “Krautstiel? What is that? Doesn’t every kraut (cabbage-like veggies) have a stiel (stem) anyway?”.

Swiss Chard / krautstiel has a slightly bitter taste. I tried using it in salad but wasn’t a big fan of it. So I decided to make it into a very green version of pesto. The addition of herbs and cheese successfully dampened down the bitterness.

Here are some ideas to use the Swiss chard pesto:

• Pesto pasta: the most obvious answer. Mix in 2 tablespoons of pesto into a bowl of cooked pasta
• Marinade: spread 1-2 tablespoons of pesto on the surface of food to grill (e.g. tofu, fish, chicken). Leave to marinade for 1 hour. Grill or bake until cooked

Here is my experimental Swiss chard pesto recipe!

Ingredients:

Swiss chard, approx. 4 stems with leaves

Breadcrumbs, from 1 slice of bread

¼ cup parmesan cheese, grated

1 clove of garlic

1/3 cup olive oil

1 teaspoon oregano

1 teaspoon basil

½ cup pine nuts

Generous sprinkle of salt and pepper to taste

Method:

Place all ingredients in a food processor and whizz into a paste. If the paste is too clumpy, add a bit more oil to loosen up the mixture.