What is your opinion on this: are we given permission to continue to cook wintery meals? I mean, what kind of season is this? Spring (definitely here yesterday) or still winter (like today)? The problem is that we do not know OR knowing how the weather can play devilish tricks, we should all be careful. Besides, we have a saying in French (totally pointless when translated since the beauty of it lies in the rhymes, ah, but I will say it all the same):
En avril,
Ne te découvre pas d’un fil,
En mai,
Fais ce qu’il te plaît.
Ok, I will translate, no need to panic here.
In April,
Don’t remove a thread from you (does this make sense at all?),
In May,
Do as you please.
So since we are still in March, you see my point? No rush! We have plenty of time to think about spring (well I started some spring dishes before, didn’t I?) In other words, I cheated! However, I do believe that we should not tease Monsieur the weather (it must be masculine for sure), and adopt behaviors by which we start wearing flip-flops and shorts yet. The confusing part might sometimes come from what you see in the streets. For example, if you wander around on an American university campus, you might encounter creatures wearing long shorts and sandals while it is 10 C outside. I have seen it. And it confuses me since the next thing I do is get home to get changed in a t-shirt and a skirt with bare legs. I go outside feeling freer. For the first hour I am fine. An hour later I realize I was tricked!
So it might not be spring where I live now but of course, it is all relative. Spring here is fall there, right? In places like Italy for example, in Ilva‘s world, spring is much more advanced than it is here in Boston. Ilva’s shots are so beautiful and tempting that I have recently developed the habit by which, every day, I check Expedia’s or Orbitz’s airfare tickets to Italy. At Lucullian Delights, not only do you see beautiful daily nature shots, but you seem to eat so well!
Spring being resistant, my food tastes vary from comfy food to fresh, cold foods. I decided once more to make good use of my food magazines, so reliable in providing a flow of ideas. What shall I make tonight? I just don’t know what it is: looking at a food magazine has this Je ne sais quoi which always cheers me up. De la magie!. This time around, the magazine I used as a reference was Elle à table from which I extracted the recipe that follows. I made some tiny changes, such as use less butter and cream. Many recipes tend to put twice as much as I do. Mais il ne faut pas pousser, quand même et restons raisonnables! (We should not push it and stay sensible!)
This dish revealed smoothness and sweetness, with root vegetables swimming in a nice saffron broth. Adding the cream gave to the broth a faint soft orange colour, which was sure to attract my eye right away. Did I say I liked it?
You need:
- 200 g fresh spring carrots
- 300 g celeriac (celery root)
- 200 g parsnips
- 250 g rutabaga
- 1 dose saffron
- 30 g butter
- 1 garlic clove
- Bunch of arugula
- 3 tbsp cream
- 30 cl chicken stock
Steps:
- Melt the butter in a heavy bottomed pot.
- When melted and frothy, add the saffron and cook for a mn.
- Peel the vegetables.
- Cut the carrots (or leave whole with a tiny piece of green if small, they look nicer) and parsnips in long sticks, the celery and rutabaga in small cube-like pieces.
- Add the vegetables and cook for a few mns.
- Add the broth and bring to a simmer.
- Cook until the vegetables are softer but still firm.
- Add the cream and prolong the cooking time for 5 mns.
- Then away from heat, add the coarsely chopped arugula.
Serve immediately! And dip bread in it. It is one of the best part.
