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Halibut with Lemon Herb Salt

Where is your sacred place where you can calm your mind, relax, be alone, disconnect the noise, think through daily happenings, or seek solace? For me, it is my garden. I may crawl under a fruit tree or hide behind a lush growth of raised beds in order to find a peaceful space now and then.

A few years ago, I got a little ahead of myself and had too many gardens to look after (thanks to my friends who trusted me and offered me their piece of land). This caused me to have to divide my attention amongst each garden. It goes without saying that I did not have time to truly appreciate any of them, but instead felt constant frustration and pressure to catch up with the growth of the vegetation.

After dropping all the other gardens in order to concentrate exclusively on my own garden at home, I began to truly re-appreciate the reality of having a garden. I spend more time there now, especially when I need to calm my mind. Stroking the leaves of herbs, feeling the grass on the back of my feet, thinning spinach seedlings, eating, weeding unwanted plants and picking slugs (oh, so satisfying!), listening to birds, feeling the warmth of light, smelling the air… I cannot list all that I experience in this space. It is sacred. It is a natural medicine. I hope everyone out there can have access to such a place or find their own place to call sacred where they can be themselves…alone.

herb_salt

Lemon Herb Salt

Herb salt is so easy to make yet so useful, and makes a great homemade gift for your foodie friends. You can use any herb of your choice, aside from those mentioned below, as long as it has a solid texture (eg. rosemary, oregano, lavender and even lovage). I use herbs that have begun to spill onto a garden pathway, out of control! Use for any recipes that call for salt, but if you perform this substitution you might want to omit garlic and lemon.

Makes a small jar

2 garlic cloves, peeled and sprouts discarded

2 tablespoons Kosher salt

½ to 2/3 cup mixture of marjoram, sage and thyme

Lemon zest from 1 organic lemon

Wash the lemon and herbs well and pat dry. Strip leaves from the herbs and discard or compost hard stalks.

Roughly chop garlic on a large cutting board. Add the salt and continue to mince garlic until it becomes fine textured. This will transfer the aroma of garlic to salt.

Grate lemon over the mixture, add herbs, and continue to mince.

Spread the salt mixture on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and dry until garlic and herbs are crisp. I place weights on the corners of the paper so that I prevent the salt mixture from being blown away by accident, especially when I dry it outside.

Store in an airtight container.

Halibut with Lemon Herb Salt

Serves 2

2 pieces halibut, washed and patted dry

Freshly ground black pepper

Lemon Herb Salt

1 tablespoon butter

1 teaspoon olive oil

Sprinkle black pepper and lemon herb salt both sides of the halibut pieces.

Warm up a well-seasoned or non-stick pan over medium high heat, and add the butter and oil.

When the butter is hot, fry one side of the fish until it turns golden, pressing gently down on the pan in order to encourage the herb salt to stay intact.

Flip and repeat until the centre of the fish becomes opaque and flakey.

Serve with green salad.

Rainbow Swiss Chard Quiche

Nothing brightens up my garden like rainbow Swiss chard. Their dark ruby- red and Canary yellow stalks keep their colour even after being cooked, therefore they earn the best spot in the garden every year along a highly trafficked pathway. What a special way to welcome guests to our front door. They are temptations like those found in a candy store, but thankfully they are healthy ones. Rainbow swiss chard can be cooked the same way as spinach. Bake, sauté, boil, steam and eat as much as you want. They won’t give you a sugar rush!

When I have an abundance of chard, I normally store it for winter. Or if you do succession sowing during summer months, at the latest in early August, the chard can stay in your garden with a protection in the Lower Mainland area (plant hardiness zone 8) all winter long.

If you store the abundance, just blanch in boiling water for about 2 minutes, dunk in cold water and squeeze out the excess moisture. Then, cut into an inch length and freeze in a plastic bag in a small portion. You can throw chard into lasagna, stew, soup, or pie etc., and it is indeed one of my favourite items for our macaroni and cheese dish in winter months because it’s flavours are reminiscent of summer memories.

Rainbow Swiss Chard Quiche

Makes 9-inch pie dish (I use an Emile Henry 9 inch fluted pie dish)

Dough

1½ cups all-purpose flour

¼ teaspoon salt

½ cup cold butter, cubed

1 egg yolk

1 teaspoon vinegar

Ice water

Extra butter and flour for the pie dish

Filling

6 slices bacon strips

5 stalks rainbow Swiss chard, chopped into 1/2 inch pieces

3 big leaves of rainbow Swiss chard, chopped into thin strips

A sprig of thyme

½ teaspoon freshly ground pepper

¼ teaspoon salt

5 eggs + 1 egg white

1 cup milk

½ cup heavy cream

2 tablespoons Dijon mustard

¾ cup Gruyère cheese, shuredded

Butter the pan and dust with some flour, then remove excess flour. Keep it refrigerated.

In a large bowl, whisk the flour with salt. Place the butter and the flour mixture in a food processor, and pulse until fine crumbles form, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary (you can do this by using a pastry blender or 2 knives in a large bowl). In a measuring cup, whisk the egg yolk with vinegar and add enough ice water to make 1/3 cup. Drizzle over dry ingredients and pulse until the mixture just starts to come together into a ball. Gently press the ball into a disk, wrap with a piece of plastic and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes or until chilled.

On a floured surface, roll out the dough to ¼ inch thickness. Fold twice gently, transfer to a prepared pie dish and unfold to cover the dish leaving a 1-inch overhang. Fold the edge inside the rim and flute if using a pie dish. Prick all over with a fork and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 400F. Line the pie shell with a piece of parchment paper and fill with pie weights or dried beans. Bake in the bottom third of the oven until the rim is light golden for about 15 minutes.

Remove weights and parchment paper, then let cool on a rack.

In a large skillet, fry the bacon over medium high heat until crisp. Drain fat from the pan. Sauté the chard and thyme until softened about 3 to 4 minutes, and add salt and pepper to taste.

In a large bowl, whisk together eggs, milk, and cream. Crumble the bacon and add to the egg mixture along with the chard.

Brush mustard over the pie shell and sprinkle with the Gruyère cheese evenly. Pour in the egg mixture.

Bake in the centre of a 375F oven for about 35 minutes, or until cooked. Let cool on a rack for 10 minutes. Serve immediately (if you would like to make ahead, let cool, cover and refrigerate up to 24 hours. Reheat in a 350F oven for about 20 minutes).

Dough recipe adapted from Canadian Living Magazine

Rosemary Garlic Roast Chicken

A gloomy sky recently took the edge off the previous days of scorching heat. An unexpected sudden shower even washed away the neighbouring streets. I love the smell of asphalt when rain hits. There’s something liberating and something unchanged about it. Loud thunder reminds me of the humid Japanese typhoon seasons of my childhood. Only our summer here in Vancouver is much drier.

One of things I like about the Vancouver region is that we can cook pretty much anything in any season. We can have fresh tomato salsa one afternoon and stew the next day. There are no set rules, per se. It’s because summer can take a sudden turn, and I consider we’ve been lucky this year to have had two extra weeks of sun that we didn’t have last year. Today, it felt right to do a roast chicken, something cozy and homey in contrast to the stormy evening. I roasted just harvested carrots and French pole beans to accompany the poultry. While listening to the thunder, we served some red wine and warm garlicky whole chicken. It’s still pouring outside, providing much needed rain drops for every food grower.

Rosemary Garlic Roast Chicken

Serves 2 plus leftover for next day’s sandwich

1 Free range organic chicken

A few sprigs rosemary, cut into 1 inch lengths

A few sprigs thyme

2 garlic cloves, cut into sticks

2 tablespoons butter, room temperature

1/3 cup olive oil

Salt and pepper

15 baby carrots, leaves removed

A big handful of pole beans and/or bush beans

Take out the chicken from a refrigerator about half an hour before cooking. In the meantime, prepare the vegetables.

Preheat the oven to 350F. Wash the chicken inside out and pat dry. Lay the bird chest up in a roasting pan and rub it with butter and olive oil before giving a gentle massage to the bird. Cut ten or so slits in the chest and insert a piece of rosemary and garlic in each slit. Fill the cavity with the rest of the garlic and rosemary.

Roast the chicken in the oven for about one hour and twenty minutes, basting often (spoon the grease from the bottom of the pan and pour over the chicken) about every 25 minutes. Then add the vegetables and thyme around the chicken, and baste the grease over them. Continue roasting until thoroughly cooked for about another 40 minutes or longer depending on the size of a chicken.

Take the pan out of the oven and transfer the chicken and the vegetables to a serving plate. Cover the bird with a piece of aluminum foil and rest for 15 minutes. Reserve the grease from the pan for making gravy sauce (recipe below).

Gravy Sauce

The grease from the bottom of the roasting pan

1 cup chicken broth

2 tablespoons white wine

Flour

Salt and pepper

Combine the grease, chicken broth and wine in a medium pan over medium heat. Reduce to half. Add flour in a small amount and stir well till your favourite consistency is achieved. Adjust with salt and pepper.

Serve immediately with the rosemary garlic roast chicken.