GL food writers
A great dish to prepare in advance
Two friend of ours were helping us take care of our handicapped daughter and my post-operative husband this weekend by doing some of the cooking. This is more than help: David in particular is a wonderful cook and even his simplest dishes are always delicious. When he heard we had a vegetarian friend visiting the next evening he offered to prepare lentils with cumin, which could be cooked ahead and reheated gently or eaten cold. We had enough to try it both ways and while I preferred them warm, they were very good cold.
There are many variations on this dish, but the recipe below has the virtue of simplicity.
Cumin with dried green lentils
- 1 cup dried green lentils, available in Swiss supermarkets (do not soak)
- 1-1/2 cups broth, chicken or vegetable
- 1 onion, finely chopped
- 3 cloves garlic
- 1/2 tsp cumin powder
- 1 tsp salt (if you are using salted broth or cubes, reduce this to taste)
Sauté the onion slowly over low heat, using Colza oil, for 10 minutes until translucent. Add the garlic towards the end and stir, taking care not to let the garlic brown. Add the lentils and liquid, plus the cumin and salt and simmer very gently for 20-25 minutes, stirring frequently, until the lentils are tender but not mushy.
Jonell Galloway
John Dory, Italian green wild asparagus and blood orange sauce
One of my favorite ways of creating tasty but healthy dishes is using fruit and vegetables as sauce. There are millions of ways to do this, depending mainly on the season.
Oranges are abundant at the moment, so I’ve been using a lot of orange juice to liven up dishes. It adds a burst of flavor, yet requires no cream or butter, thus making it low in calories and high in fiber.
The season is short for wild Italian asparagus, so take advantage of it in April and May.
RECIPE
Ingredients
Serves 3 or 4
One bunch wild Italian green asparagus or similar extra-thin green asparagusThick filet of John Dory, 700 to 900 grams / 1 1/2 lbs./2 lbs., 5 cm / 2 in. thick
Juice of one blood orange, with pulp to add fiber (two if you like a lot of sauce)
Olive oil Salt and pepper
Instructions
Preheat grill or broiler.
Place John Dory on a roasting tin or broiler pan, skin side up.
Wash asparagus. If ends are woody, cut off woody part.
Jonell Galloway
By Ellen Wallace
Asparagus served warm with a sauce of fresh herbs marinated in olive oil and Saillon quince vinegar, with Valais Petite Arvine wine
Most of us don’t have the luxury of going out into the garden, picking the asparagus, then cooking it within minutes, which gives a heavenly vegetable.
The best alternative, and this is the season for it, is to go to the farmer’s door early in the morning to buy freshly picked stalks, then cook them for lunch. Canton Geneva has several farmers who sell directly but be forewarned that they are likely to be sold out by 10:00 at the height of the season!
Canton Valais is famous for its asparagus and Saillon is renowned as the Valais capital, with green and white equally popular.
Jonell Galloway
I always get really excited when the strawberries and rhubarb come on the market. For me it’s literally like “breaking news.” They’re really the first local fruit.
Photo courtesy of Happy Hoarfrost.
One of my favorite dishes is strawberry and rhubarb compote. It’s healthy, full of fiber and vitamins; it’s also versatile and can be used in many ways.
In addition, it’s about as easy as you can get.
RECIPE
Basic principle and technique
Compote is just stewed fruit, so it’s not tricky like a cake or soufflé.
Just chop up equal weights of rhubarb and strawberries and put them in an appropriate size saucepan.
Jonell Galloway
Recipe: Lacquered pork tenderloin, roast potatoes and wild garlic leaves
Lacquered pork tenderloin with roast potatoes and wild garlic or ramson.
Lacquered pork tenderloin with roast potatoes and wild garlic or ramson.
Ingredients
Serves 4
800-gram / 1 3/4-lb pork tenderloin roast (“filet mignon de porc”)5 T. honey 30 grams / 2 T. butter 2 t. Colman’s mustard powder or 2 T. whole-grain mustard 2 T. coriander seeds Beans of one vanilla pod Olive oil Salt and pepper to taste 12 small raclette or new potatoes, unpeeled 237 ml / 1 cup thick veal or chicken stock (“fond de veau” or “fond de volaille”) 2 bunches wild garlic leaves (“ail des ours”)
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Jonell Galloway
Recipe: prime rib steak, smashed russet potatoes and wild garlic leaves
Serves 2
Ingredients
1 prime rib steak with bone, large enough for two people (about 600 grams / 1 1/3 lbs) (in French, “côte de boeuf”)8 small to medium russet potatoes, scrubbed well 1 cup thick veal stock (or you can use the “fond de veau” powder you find in France) Salt and pepper to taste 150 g / 10 T. low-fat Greek yogurt 1 bunch of wild garlic leaves (in French “ail des ours”; in English, called by many names, including ramson (Allium ursinum))
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Jonell Galloway
Recipe
Ingredients
Photo courtesy of Five Prime.
Preheat grill or broiler.
Cut stalk end of fennel out, then slice thinly in the lengthwise direction.
Scrub potatoes, but do not skin. Slice thinly.
Jonell Galloway
Swiss Sérac cheese, a fresh cow’s milk cheese made with whey
Whey cheese is produced when the curds are separated from the whey to make cheese. Ricotta is also a whey cheese, but unlike Sérac, it is often made with sheep’s milk. As a result, you can use your local cheesemonger’s Sérac in most recipes that call for ricotta.
Photo courtesy of Fribourg Region tourist office.
Sérac is made in most regions of Switzerland, and each region has its own version. Some regions smoke it; others flavor it with herbs, spices or pepper.
Sérac cheese is soft and creamy in texture, so it is easy to spread it on bread to make a healthy sandwich or snack, but Sérac is not only a snack cheese. It can also be used to make healthy, quick meals, such as the recipe below. In the summertime, I often use it like mozzarella, with tomatoes and basil or other Italian-inspired recipes.
It is a great way of teaching your children to eat healthy snacks. Top it with fresh fruit to make a healthy, low-fat dessert, or use it for between-meal snacks on chunky whole-grain bread.
Since it is a fresh milk cheese, it does not keep, and should be eaten shortly after purchasing. Because it is made from fresh milk whey, it is also naturally low in fat. In Switzerland, it would have about a 3.8% fat content, the same as milk.
Read more…
Jonell Galloway
Recipes using seasonal ingredients found in Switzerland in February
Papet vaudois, a Swiss sausage and leek specialty from canton Vaud.
Worry no more mushroom barley soup with crusty garlic toast at Spirit of Pistoulet.
Easy duck confit recipe at The Rambling Epicure.
Fat-free Swiss carrot cake at Swiss Foodies.
Moroccan-style chicken pie at Epicurious.
Cabbage, collard greens, red onion, and blood orange coleslaw at The Rambling Epicure.
Double-chocolate walnut biscotti at The Rambling Epicure.
Curried squash or pumpkin soup at Swiss Foodies and Simply Recipes.
Jonell Galloway
Creative ways to use vinegar in cooking, in place of fats
I’m a vinegar collector. I have orange vinegar, walnut vinegar, grapefruit vinegar, a long list of Balsamic vinegars of various origins and ages, and lots of other more common ones.
In Switzerland and France, there is such an impressive variety of artisanal vinegars (a well as oils) that it is easy to build up quite a collection and use it in creative ways to liven up winter vegetables, bland grilled meats, or salads. The beauty of it is that you can often use vinegar to add flavor, and thereby avoid the more traditional use of butter or meat bases, which contain fat. It is a good way to reduce fat in your general cooking habits.
Photo courtesy of FivePrime.
A tasty, good quality vinegar is an easy way to add flavor to an otherwise unappetizing vegetable or meat. After cooking meat or fish, I often deglaze the frying pan with a nice vinegar, then pour the glaze over the beast in question, along with a drizzle of good quality olive oil. It makes for a much healthier sauce than cream or butter and adds flare to the dish.
With magret de canard, or duck breast, which can have quite a fatty taste, I pour off most of the fat, and then deglaze the drippings with Balsamic or sherry vinegar. Raspberry also works well with duck, and you can add a few crushed raspberries to the sauce as well. The vinegar helps cut the fatty film you often feel in your mouth after eating. Raspberry vinegar is also a perfect compliment to calves’ liver.