Vignarola

[spacedlaw]

A little treat – the perfect detox food – for the vegetarian and vegans among us. And for vegetable lovers all around.
This dish is simple but rely on fresh vegetables. As such it can only be made for a couple of weeks as it calls for the fragile collaboration of winter’s last artichokes and spring first harvest of fava beans and peas.



The recipe itself is simple – clean and slice all the vegetables and cook them like a green version of the Ratatouille – but, due to the variety of greens involved, quite labour intensive. However, I can promise you the result is well worth the time spent on preparation work.
There are no real rules about what goes in or not and how much and for how long you should cook it: it’s all a matter of personal taste and – of course – of availability on the market.



3 spring onions
1 small stalk of fresh garlic
A pinch of thyme leaves
Olive oil
6 small artichokes
A glass of dry white wine
Half a kilo of fresh fava beans in the pod
Half a kilo of peas in the pod
Two handfuls of green beans (a bit excessive but I love them)
6 leaves of Roman lettuce
Lemon juice
8 leaves of mint
A sprig of parsley

A simmering pot of water.
A large pan.

Start by shelling the peas. Clean the pods and stuff them in your simmering pot of water to make vegetable broth.
Then shell the fava beans. Do not use the pods for the broth (I don’t think it would be good – they are bitter).
Bring a saucepan of water to the boil and blanch the beans for one minute only. Drain and put into cold water. Peel the beans to get only the tender flesh:



Clean the spring onions and cut off most of the green, which can be added to the broth. Cut the onions in vertical slices as shown here:



Wash your parley, cut off the stalks and add them to the broth.
Clean your green beans and pre-cook them in the broth for about 10 minutes (use a cooking bag or basket, so you can retrieve them more easily).

Next, prepare the artichokes: Fill a deep dish with cold water and add the lemon juice. Put on thin rubber gloves if you have them as this will protect your fingers from being stained by the artichokes.
Take off the outer hard leaves of each artichoke until you arrive to the tender ones. Cut off the top (sometimes spiky) of the leaves and sever the bud from its stalk, making sure you cut all the green part left at the bottom of the bud. Plunge in the dish of acidulated water. If you are mad about artichokes like me, you can trim the stalks to their tender core and get these into the water as well. Cut each artichoke in eight and cut away the choke. Return to the acidulated water.

Wash and dry your salad leaves, cutting away the harder parts of the spine and cut the leaves in strips. Set aside.
Chop the mint and parley together. Set aside.

Time to bring this thing together:

In a large pan, pour some oil and heat gently.
Add the thyme and a few slices of the fresh garlic (as much as you like - fresh (new) garlic can be substituted by the normal stuff). Add the spring onions and roast gently for a few minutes, adding a little salt to get the moisture oil. Add the drained artichokes and stir to coat them in oil. Add the glass of wine and – just - cover with broth. Put a lid on your pan and cook gently for 15 minutes.

After that time add the shelled peas. Put the lid on again and simmer for 5 minutes.
Add the green beans and simmer for 10 minutes.
Add the salad leaves and simmer for 10 minutes.
Give it a good stir. If you like your vegetable more cooked, continue to cook until desired consistency.
Add the fava beans, the mint and parley and cook for 3 minutes.

Give it a last stir and serve hot. There is some broth at the bottom of the pan, which you can serve with the vegetables or reserve and return to your main broth pan.
Add salt and pepper to taste and a splash of olive oil.



Some people like to add pancetta dolce to this dish – it is introduced at the beginning with the artichokes. I do believe that one could easily add sausage meat as well. But believe me this is tasty enough like this.
If you aren’t vegetarian, I can recommend eating it with slices of rustic bread covered in stracchino on the side. The flavours are perfect together.
At this period, the first wild asparagus are coming out as well so they can be added (as in this recipe from Edda Onorato, which was my guideline for preparing this dish). I have seen it prepared with champignons as well. And garnished with croutons. Really: anything goes. As long as it’s fresh and seasonal.

Having just written that…
Although this dish is MEANT to be done with only fresh products, it is served all year long in some Roman restaurants, which means that frozen vegetables are used for that purpose.
So if it is springtime where you are but you cannot find the fresh ingredients, you could imitate them (and that’s assuming you can get frozen artichoke heart where you are – not a certainty – and fava beans) or use a mixture of both fresh and frozen. This of course has the advantage of cutting down drastically on the preparation time and to offer peas which are all the same size and will cook therefore more evenly.
But still.
Only to be used in desperate cases.