Braised Spring Vegetables - (Menestra De Legumbres)

Yield > 4
Keys : Vegetables Spanish Spain European Mediterranean Spanish
Ingredients :
1 cup Shelled baby broad beans
2 cup Shelled spring peas
12 x Pea pods
16 x Tiny new potatoes
4 x Young artichokes
12 x White asparagus tips
2 x Tender lettuce leaves
chopped fine
1 sm Onion minced
1 med Onion sliced thin
Salt to taste
4 cup Meat stock or beef bouillon
2 slc Lean bacon or salt pork thick
slices, cubed
1 slc Cured ham thick slice
4 slc Cured ham thin slices
1 tbl Butter rounded tbsp
7 tbl Olive oil
1 tbl Flour rounded tbsp
Flour for dusting
1 x Egg beaten
1 x Lemon cut in half
1/2 tsp Sugar
OPTIONAL
4 x Eggs
Boiling salted water for
poaching
1 tbl Vinegar for poaching
Method :
• The Broad Beans: In a large saucepan, slowly fry one
thick slice of lean bacon or salt pork cut into cubes in 1
tablespoon olive oil. When bacon has become soft, add a small
minced onion. After the onion takes on color, put in a cup of
shelled broad beans with 1/2 teaspoon sugar and two leaves of
chopped lettuce. Let the beans fry for 1 to 2 minutes. Pour in 3
cups of meat stock or bouillon and cook beans at a slow boil
for 2 hours uncovered. Add meat stock or bouillon as liquid
evaporates. Season with salt when almost cooked.
• The Peas And Potatoes: Break the ends off a dozen
peapods and put them to boil in 6 cups of water. Heat 2
tablespoons olive oil in a small skillet. Slowly fry a thick slice of
lean bacon or salt pork cut in cubes. When it has browned a
little, put in a thinly sliced medium onion. Stir and shake the
pan while the onion fries until soft and golden, but not brown.
Pour off excess grease before adding 1 rounded tablespoon
flour. Immediately pour contents of skillet into water in which
pea shells are boiling. Boil for 30 minutes. Force through a
sieve into another saucepan. Add shelled peas and peeled new
potatoes. Bring to a boil and simmer for 2 hours. After 1 hour,
add to the peas and potatoes a cubed slice of cured ham fried
for 2 to 3 minutes in 1 rounded tablespoon butter. Add a little
meat stock or bouillon as liquid in which peas and potatoes are
cooking evaporates.
• The Asparagus: Scrape off tough outer fibers, cut off
thick part of stalk, and cook until tender in boiling salted
water. If prepared in advance, keep in its own cooking liquid;
reheat in the same liquid before serving.
• The Artichokes: Peel off all coarse exterior leaves until
only the tender center part remains. Cut the choke to a
miximum height of 2-inches. Clean in cold water, rub with half
a lemon, and cook in boiling salted water to which you have
added the juice of half a lemon and the two squeezed lemon
halves. Cook until the leaves can be pulled off easily. If
prepared in advance, keep in its own cooking liquid. Before
serving, cut each artichoke in eight parts, dip in flour, then in
beaten egg, and fry in 4 tablespoons hot olive oil.
• To Serve: Place a portion of each vegetable on each
plate. Fry one piece of cured ham per person and serve it on
top of the broad beans. If you wish to have the 'menestra' with
egg, poach one egg per person in boiling water to which you
have added 1 tablespoon vinegar. Break each egg into a
saucer and slide it into the boiling water. Scoop eggs out 4
minutes later and immediately place them in a pan of cold
water. Trim the ragged edges with a knife or kitchen shears.
Serve the egg on top of the peas and potatoes.
• Comments: The 'menestra', a favorite Basque dish, is
made only when the spring vegetables are young and tender:
in April, May, and June.
• This recipe is from Casa Nicolasa in San Sebastian. The
peas, whose pods are only 1 1/2-inches long, must come from
a certain strip of land on one specific mountain behind the
town; the broad beans are the size of a shirt button, and the
potatoes measure 1-inch in diameter at most. Pounds and
pounds of the tiny fresh vegetables are shelled and peeled for
each portion.