Chard on a plate at Mesón Sabor Andaluz.
Image provided by the restaurant.Francis Rosso Studio
It has fibrous stalks, delicious leaves and was born on the shores of the Mediterranean.
It is believed that its name is of Phoenician origin and it is known that the Greeks and Romans cultivated it, although those who definitely promoted it were the Arabs.
Today, a bastion of the Mediterranean diet, chard is a product rooted in Spanish tradition that has the province of Cádiz at the head of its national production.
Although this vegetable seems to have been cornered for use in traditional stews, a handful of young chefs are now promoting it in haute cuisine.
“They are wonderful, but putting them on a tasting menu is risky because not everyone accepts them,” says Cristina Cánovas, chef at the Palodú restaurant in Málaga.
Whether with cutting-edge techniques or in a stew with chickpeas, you have to eat them.
“They have many benefits, from fiber to vitamins and minerals,” explains Jara Pérez, researcher at the CSIC Institute of Food and Nutrition Science and Technology.
Properties
Chard is an unknown product on half the planet.
Although it is consumed in some places in Asia or the United States—where it arrived in the 19th century—its epicenter is Europe, whose main producers are Germany, France, Italy and Holland.
Its great contribution to the diet is fiber.
“They have a lot and in a country like Spain, where the average diet has 30% less fiber than we should consume, it is something that should not be underestimated,” adds Pérez.
It also has vitamins A and C, as well as folates, another vitamin compound.
It has iodine, magnesium, iron and potassium.
“Clearly, they are important for health, like all green leafy vegetables,” insists Julia Wärnberg, doctor in Nutrition and professor at the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Malaga, who has been researching diet for almost two decades. Mediterranean, with chard as a common ingredient.
Red chard, from Exiled Cultivation.
Rich in vitamins and minerals and with a more intense flavor than other varieties. Mirta Rojo
Oxalic acid and calcium are also present in its leaves, generating one of its few weak points: combined they produce oxalates, which form what is known as kidney stones.
When boiling the leaves, part of them is eliminated, since both compounds are transferred to the cooking broth, which is why it is advisable to discard it after boiling them.
“But there is no need to be afraid.
"We don't eat so much chard that that water is toxic, especially compared to other things we usually drink," says Wärnberg, who points to sugary soft drinks or potato chips among many other products.
“It's not worth being afraid of this vegetable and then having three
Coca-Colas
,” he clarifies.
Raw everything is joy when enjoying them in small quantities.
In huge quantities, you have to be careful.
This is what happens with the trend of drinking so-called green smoothies every day: it is difficult to be aware of the large amount of leaves that are drunk and it can be a problem—according to both researchers—due to the high presence of oxalates.
The European Food Safety Authority, in fact, considers this type of smoothies an emerging health risk.
Consumption - cooked or raw - should also be avoided in children under one year of age and only small doses offered up to three years of age, as is the case with spinach.
Where are they grown in Spain
There are chard plantations in practically all provinces, including the islands.
In the Cádiz municipality of Sanlúcar de Barrameda, the Cultivo Desterrado team hosts one of the most unique in its Navazo, a traditional system where the land is irrigated naturally coinciding with the rise and fall of the tide.
“The salinity and high PH of this water is ideal for them: here they are in their element,” details Rafael Monge, promoter of this project born in 2017. Their small production is part of the 8,000 tons that Cádiz produces each year of this vegetable, according to the Ministry of Agriculture.
The figure allows it to lead the national harvest with an advantage: the Cadiz territory alone generates twice as much as all of Galicia.
More information
Why is good white asparagus so expensive?
Andalusia, Valencia, Murcia, Catalonia and Navarra are the main regions of Spanish production, which reaches 57,000 tons annually.
Humble numbers well below celery, lettuce and many other vegetables (it barely surpasses borage, endives, thistles or collards).
The reason is that it is a minority crop that occupies just over 2,100 hectares, a territory that has remained practically unchanged in the last decade.
The only thing that has evolved is its price at origin: it has gone from 37 cents in 2011 to 51 cents in 2021, the last year with published data.
The rise in production costs is one of the factors for this increase, but also that "the sector is becoming more and more professional and these prices are getting closer to what should be paid to the farmer," explains Simón Ubeira, one of the four partners of the organic farming cooperative O Alcouve da Moura, south of Pontevedra and close to the border with Portugal
(Almost) all year round in season
The chard is grateful.
It is wary of high temperatures and winter frosts, but it asks for water – the vast majority is irrigated – and celebrates the constant rain: that is why in Galicia its yield per hectare is triple that of drier territories like Andalusia.
“In hot weather it grows poorly and grows fungus.
And since there are short summers here, it tends to develop very well for longer,” Ubeira emphasizes.
Farmers say that its reproduction by seed is quite simple, that it is usually collected leaf by leaf so that the bush can be harvested again - it takes four months to reach its optimal state - and that it grows non-stop, hence its season. extend from fall to winter and spring.
It also survives summer with the right conditions.
“We have almost the entire year.
Sometimes, even unintentionally: they leave practically alone,” says Cristóbal González, one of the promoters of the Extiércol project, an organic crop located in Cuevas del Becerro, near the Serranía de Ronda (Málaga).
The most common in the markets is the white stalk, with varieties that have wider stems and others that are much narrower.
There are also them with red or yellow stalks.
“And they hybridize with each other, naturally, so you end up with a fairly great diversity and orchards that look like a rainbow,” adds Cristóbal Hevilla, a farmer from Coín, in the Guadalhorce Valley of Malaga.
The color is due to the presence of betalains – a group of compounds that also give color to beets – which include reddish and yellowish substances for which antioxidant effects have been described, although there is still a lot of research ahead to corroborate this.
There is also a more unique variety, sea chard, more similar to the one that grew wild in the south and north of the Mediterranean and that the Cultivo Desterrado team has rescued in their Navazo.
Now it is one of the most demanded in the gastronomic restaurants it serves.
For all types of kitchens
With several awards under his arm, chef Pedro Aguilera is one of Cultivo Desterrado's clients.
“Our menu is incredibly green,” proclaims the Cádiz chef, who celebrates chard: “It is a great product that is not valued enough.”
As an appetizer on the menu at his Mesón Sabor Andaluz—in the quiet Cadiz town of San José del Valle—he serves a leaf boiled for a short time, which is accompanied with a dressing made from a classic refried recipe—garlic, chili pepper, vinegar and oil. — and a mash of bread, parsley and almond, which is reduced with the broth of some chickpeas cooked with cumin and bay leaf.
“When customers try it, the phrase they repeat most is that it is the first chard they have ever eaten,” Aguilera is surprised.
Chard is part of the appetizer at the Mesón Sabor Andaluz restaurant.
Photo provided by the cook.FRANCISROSSO
“Not everyone accepts it, but we believe it is an important product and that is why we also include it in our menu,” explains Cristina Cánovas, from the Palodú kitchen, in the center of Málaga.
In its case, the stalks are cooked at low temperature with sesame oil, while the leaves are sautéed with garlic and then turned into juice in the blender.
Both preparations are served with pig's ear, also at low temperature and toasted in the oven.
Pencas at low temperature with chard and pig's ear juice.
Dish from the Palodú restaurant, in Malaga, in a photo provided by the establishment.
"All vegetables are laborious and chard too: you have to clean them, remove the fiber, give them the exact cooking point... It requires more care than meat in the pan, perhaps that is why they are used less in restaurants," adds Aitor Sua, chef at the Trèsde restaurant, in the Madrid neighborhood of La Latina.
His current menu—which changes every so often to the rhythm of seasonal products—includes a stew of artichokes and chard from Tudela made with an Iberian velouté sauce.
Recipes
Traditional cuisine offers countless recipes, such as Extremaduran, Basque or Galician chard, three different proposals and a common point in the use of potatoes.
In Cádiz, the Jerez cabbage is a classic and in the Guadalhorce Valley of Malaga, the elderly remember proposals as unique as the chanquetes from the garden: all you have to do is boil the stalks slightly, cut them into small strips and give them the Pescaíto treatment, that is, flour them with a little salt and fry them.
When the stem is very wide, you can fry it like a schnitzel or use two as a sandwich: it is filled with ham and cheese, stuffed and fried like Saint James.
It can also be cut into thin strips to make vegetable spaghetti;
use as filling for puff pastry;
to wrap and fill with lamb;
serve in cream with lacón;
in tortilla;
or as the main ingredient for a bechamel and gratin them.
There are a thousand options, although one of the most classic recipes is a spoon recipe: nothing like a good plate of chard with chickpeas to warm up the winter days.
Four simple recipes
Chard cream with lacón
Puff pastry bags with chard and blue cheese
Stuffed chard stalks
Basque chard
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