CSA Roundup and how tapioca kicked my butt
My desktop is cluttered with photos from food that I haven’t written about yet, so here we go…. The pasta in the top left corner had smoked pork jowl lardons, broccoli, fava beans, green onions, and basil. It was tossed with an egg and a generous slosh of pasta water and was so utterly fresh, sweet, and fragrant that I actually hummed with glee as I ate it.
The ice cream is the vanilla recipe from David Lebovitz’s book The Perfect Scoop. It was rich and satisfying and I’m looking forward to making the anise flavored version this weekend.
The blueberry galette was made with berries from our first fruit share. I froze the other 8 pints so that we can have galette all year. You can find my crust recipe here and the filling is just a pint of berries and 1/3 cup of sugar.
Lastly is a zesty escarole and sausage ragout that is laden with garlic chunks, cremini mushrooms, red pepper chunks and onion. It was all given a fast spin around a hot pan and served up with some freshly grated parmesan reggiano and a side of zucchini that I passed through the mandolin so it would look like linguine. I tossed it in a hot pan with some olive oil, sea salt, and pepper and topped it with the parm too. These types of meals are common summer fare around here and are so well suited to CSA shares that even though their flavor and freshness are exceptional we tend to take them for granted…until around the end of October when we would love to have a huge head of sweet, sweet escarole. Such is life…
Our CSA share today included swiss chard and a russian kale. Anyone that gets a CSA share knows that storage of the produce can sometimes be an issue…refrigerators are only so big and other items must be accommodated too. I take the time to storage the produce in a way that makes my prep work simpler and also takes up less space. In this case I cut out the center quills, which also cuts the leaf in half. I cut the leaves in half again and gently pack them and the quills into a ziploc lined with paper towel (to absorb any excess water). This way they take up less room and are just a quick chop away from being ready to cook. As I was working through the chard I noticed it smelled just like beets. I just looked it up on Wikipedia and they belong to the same species…beets are grown for their roots and chard for their leaves. Who knew?
I promised Dexter I would make him bubble tea and then after reading this article in the NYT’s Sunday Magazine I thought…how hard can it be? I had the tapioca pearls in the pantry so I got busy one afternoon. Let me tell you, that tapioca kicked my ass! I stirred those [multiple expletives deleted] pearls for so long I thought I was going to keel over. When they were done, or more truthfully…when I gave up, they sucked. My mom said I should have used instant but I don’t use instant anything…I’ll never make tapioca again! Has anyone else made anything with large pearl tapioca? What is up with this stuff…or is it just me?
I have triumphed in growing a few California Poppies in my lush Wisconsin Flower garden. Sure it’s taken several years and hundreds, if not thousands of seeds…but HA HA…I did it. Now, if I could just get my Acanthus Mollis to flourish.
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11 Responses to “CSA Roundup and how tapioca kicked my butt”
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Did you soak the tapioca before hand?
Pearl tapioca is awful. In theory, I love it. In practice, the centre WILL NOT COOK, no matter what - pre-soaking, multiple cookings, WHATever.
Actually, I suspect that it’s one of those things that if it is at all old, forget it.
my mother always cooked them using the chinese mun method, where you get the water (with tapioca) boiling, then cover and turn off the flame, letting the pot sit on the hot burner (or in an insulated jacket) so that the tapioca can gently cook in the hot water. you may have to repeat a few times to fully cook.
also *wave* howdy! i just moved to CA from Madison, and i do so miss the brats, curds, and fish fries!
Wow Vanessa, quite the post! We went to a potluck tonight–nothing fancy. I used most of a bag of CSA salad mix which I served with a shallot/champagne vinaigrette and made a zucchini frittata. Tomorrow I’ll have to use the chard, etc, in a more interesting manner. The bluberries are divine! We freeze most of ours too. One box just got shoveled into our faces directly this afternoon…
Now that you have successfully grown poppies - they will be everywhere, evermore LOL
My experience is hard to start; hard to stop!
Great post with all of the yummy recipes.
FYI - never touched tapioca in my life - after that, not about to start now!
my mom owns a tea shop so i’ve been making tapiocas forever!
you have to get the right type of tapiocas. they’re brownish looking ones and you can find them in asian supermarkets. there’s the “dry” kind (packaged like normal tapiocas) or “moist” ones, which can be found in the refrigerated section.
then you cook it like the “mun” method some reader had told you already. you boil lots of water, pour the tapiocas in, boil, then cover and simmer at low heat. dont cover the whole pot or it’ll boil over. do this for a while then pour in brown sugar (lots of brown sugar). simmer a little longer. taste the pearls. you dont want the pearl to be overcooked…it needs to have that chewy consistency. after you’re done, drain it out and run COLD water over it and drain again. the cold water makes it keep it’s chewy consistency. usually it’ll take 1 to 1.5 hrs.
hope that helps!
I’ve no idea about wet or dry tapioca - I just buy the dried balls in a vacuum sealed pack, dump them in boiling water till they are soft all the way through when bitten, then rinsed in cold water and submerged in cold water till needed. :D Hope your next time works better!
Do you wash the swiss chard and kale before you cut and store it like that?
noisyspoon, Ferdzy, Jeffje, Emily, and Ellie: thank you all for the tips on cooking tapioca. If I ever get the urge to do it again I’ll return to this post and either chicken out or succeed because of your help. Thanks.
MadLisa, I cooked the brocolli your way and it was fabulous.
Katiez, I can only hope that they’ll spread well. It is a bit cool here inthe summer for them…but I will persist.
kacey, no I didn’t wash it. Our CSA delivers everything pretty clean but I’ll rinse it off right before I cook it…the water that clings to the leaves is useful when cooking it and not so good when storing it. Thanks for reading!
This was a really interesting post- tapioca pearl tea is quite popular in our area and I love it, but it’s often too sweet for me so I’d love to make it myself. I’m going to check out our local Chinese market and try it… although 1 1/2 hours… ouch…
I also love kale and have similar issues with storing it. I should really try prepping it this way…
Thanks for the fun read!
-Sea
There are now quick cooking large tapioca pearls in the market (found in Asian groceries) that need to be boiled for 5-15 mins. only. The packaging will indicate that. They can be multi-colored or brownish. They are so easy to cook! Add to your simple sugar syrup tinged with ginger with Asian gelatine for ‘Gulaman (jello) & Sago (tapioca pearls), a refreshing Filipino drink; or use with all the other great tasting drinks/desserts that require tapioca pearls.
Regards, G.