Recipes From the Root Cellar_ 270 Fresh Ways to Enjoy Winter Vegetables - Andrea Chesman [2]
Time for Experimenting and Slow Cooking
I think of summer as time for salad suppers, quick sautés and stir-fries, and grazing meals of fresh-picked corn, sliced tomatoes, and other raw vegetables, perhaps accompanied by breads and cheeses. Winter meals, on the other hand, are often slow-simmered soups and stews, braised meats, and bean pots. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to tackle a new recipe or cooking technique, or to put something in the oven that will cook for hours. The extra heat provided by the active oven is welcome in the winter kitchen.
Slow cooking is sometimes needed to bring out the best in winter vegetables. Winter squashes, potatoes, and rutabagas aren’t really edible raw. Turnips harvested young are delicious sliced raw and added to a salad instead of radishes. Turnips pulled up from the root cellar may be bitter or starchy raw, but delicious cooked. Likewise, a freshly harvested carrot is so sweet and juicy it is a shame to cook it. By late winter, however, much of the sugar has been converted to starch, and carrots may taste best cooked.
But don’t avoid winter vegetables because they seem too time-consuming to prepare. Shredded root vegetables and winter squash, as well as hearty greens, cook quickly and are terrific in sautés and stir-fries. That’s where some of the experimentation comes in. Trying out new flavorings and sauces keeps the sautés and stir-fries fresh tasting and interesting.
About the Recipes
I try to use what is known as “market measures” in my recipes. I don’t call for “2 cups shredded carrots” when I can avoid it. Instead I call for “2 carrots, shredded.” I don’t want you stuck with half of a peeled carrot. (Okay, the peeled carrot will get eaten pretty quickly if left on the cutting board, but half of a celery root is just going to sit there.) You can figure that I am talking about an average-size carrot, so if you have only tiny carrots, use two or three. If you have only large carrots, don’t hesitate to use the whole thing. If it makes a difference, I will let you know.
The same goes for shallots. Have you noticed how variable the size of a shallot has become? When I first started cooking, I found shallots sold as two small bulbs to a pack in the supermarket. Now I buy shallots at a natural foods store, and they are usually quite large and often contain two or more small bulbs within one skin. Don’t fret about sizes. Just use whatever comes to hand — the recipe will work out regardless.
Market measures for greens are a little tricky. I have found that a “bunch” of kale from the farmers’ market in the fall is more generous than a bunch of kale at a store later in the season. I could call for a certain number of stems, but the outer stems may contain double the volume of leaves of an inner stem, and a slightly wilted stem has less volume than a freshly harvested stem. In many recipes you can use the entire bunch, regardless of the measure called for in the recipe, but greens require a lot of space, and the volume of the entire bunch may be more than your pot can hold with the other ingredients. Where it matters, I have called for a cup measure. If you should harvest too much of a green, or even strip too many leaves off the stems, keep the extra greens in a well-sealed bag for a few days in the refrigerator. They should survive nicely. When you measure the greens, lightly pack them into the measuring cup.
Canned Tomatoes
Canned tomatoes are an integral part of the winter kitchen. It’s no surprise that people can more tomatoes than any