Cooking with the tender greens of springtime

I think of Swiss chard and the other hefty greens (collards, kale) as late summer/early autumn vegetables but it turns out that spring is actually prime time for eating them. Ed Erbacher of Salisbury, who occasionally supplies The Journal with oddments from his garden, stopped by this week with a bag full of crinkly, red-tinted leaves. His request: that we find a method for cooking the chard that would remove some of its earthy bitterness.

The nice thing with spring chard is that it is exquisitely tender, more like baby spinach than the leathery chard leaves of fall.

And of course there are nutrition advantages to eating chard. It is literally off the charts when it comes to nutrition. A cup of cooked chard provides more than 300 percent of your daily recommended does of vitamin K (this isn’t a vitamin you hear a lot about but it keeps your bones healthy); and it provides more than 100 percent of your daily dose of vitamin A, which is one of the really excellent vitamins. It has high concentrations of beta-carotene, which protects your eyes and eyesight and fights cancer; and it helps protect your lungs from damage caused by cigarette smoke (first- or secondhand smoke).

Chard is also loaded with magnesium, which works in partnership with calcium to keep your muscles, bones and nerves in tiptop shape.

The classic way to eat swiss chard and other greens is to saute them with olive oil and either garlic or onion or both, then squeeze lemon juice on top and serve them with fish or roasted meats or atop a custard or salad.

You can also try them in this recipe adapted from one published in 2007 in Food and Wine magazine. Remove the stems from a couple handfuls of chard and then slice two cups of chard in a food processor. Add four lightly beaten eggs, two pounds of ricotta (preferably the excellent Four Brothers fresh ricotta, available at Four Brothers, the Boathouse in Lakeville and Jam Food in Sharon) and 1/4 cup grated Parmesan. Process until it turns into a beautiful green paste.

Add two cups white flour in three batches, and a pinch of nutmeg. (Note: Store-bought ricotta tends to be wetter than fresh ricotta; keep adding flour until the batter is no longer runny.)

Remove to a floured board and knead a few times if you can (it’ll be very wet). Then put the batter into a bowl and remove one quarter of it into a heavy-weight plastic bag; refrigerate the rest. Seal the top. Boil a pot of salted water. Cut one corner off the plastic bag and squeeze the batter out into the boiling water; cut off 1-inch pieces. Boil them in batches until they float, about four or five minutes, then scoop up the dumplings with a slotted spoon and let them sit on a cookie sheet. Then sauté them in butter with chopped sage leaves and serve.

Note: They can be frozen after the boiling step. To serve, just sauté in butter without defrosting.

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