Ruby Chard
At a time of year when everything seems drab and grey, the scarlet stems of ruby chard backlit by the winter’s sun are like a tonic to the soul.
Also known as rhubarb chard, this is the most beautiful thing on my allotment at the moment. Sometimes I take a detour over to the bed where it’s growing just to look at it and drink in those sumptuous colours. The burnished coppery red of the leaves, shot with glowing fiery veins of blood, warms me like a little furnace against all that winter chill.
In fact I use it in my ornamental garden at home as well as at the allotment, since it’s just as good as any purple-leaved heuchera and because you just pick a few leaves at a time, it’s got a presence for most of the winter. Plus the pigeons leave it alone (except when it’s really tiny and tender) and so do the slugs, mostly.
Chard is one of the few vegetables you can have in the garden all year round. I make two sowings: one in spring, to grow through the summer, and one in about August to give me a second crop which takes over just as the summer stuff is getting tired. Funnily enough, it’s this sowing – for a winter crop – which does better: I think it’s because the temperatures are cooler and the soil is more damp - all the spinach family, even easy-going chard, struggle if it gets too dry.
And if I had to give up one or the other, I’d give up the summer crop. In summer, there’s loads to eat: you can have your pick of beans, peas, carrots, tomatoes, salads, real spinach…. (better stop there, I’m making myself hungry, not to mention nostalgic). But now, it’s basically brassicas all the way: cabbage, kale, cabbage, sprouts, cabbage, and if we’re lucky some broccoli come March (and then some more cabbage).
So light, crunchy and leafy greens in winter are something akin to manna from heaven. And what leafy greens: with overtones of the delicate, slightly peppery flavour of spinach, ruby chard has an earthy, rich, almost beetroot-like flavour all its own.
Like all chards, it’s a heavier vegetable than spinach – the leaves are thicker and hold their shape better on cooking, though like spinach they do collapse in volume (so I pick a whole bagful and it’s still only just enough for supper for four). But the great thing about chards are the stems: with ruby chard these are blood-red, so they look great on the plate, and they’re as fresh and crunchy as celery. The secret is to strip the leaf from the central stem and then put the stems in the steamer first, adding the leaf after five minutes have passed. Serve stems and leaf mixed in together for a side vegetable that combines colour, textures and flavour. It steals the show every time.
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