Canadian · Side
Hodge Podge
- Easy
- 20 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
Leads with richness that coats and comforts, fresh herbs arguing happily on top, closing toasted and warm.
Ingredients
- 500 g new potatoes, walnut-sized, skins on
- 250 g baby carrots, halved lengthwise
- 200 g yellow wax beans, topped
- 200 g green beans, topped
- 200 g shelled green peas
- 300 ml water
- 1 tsp salt
- 80 g butter, in pieces
- 250 ml 35 percent cream
- white pepper
- 2 tbsp chopped chives
The skills inside
Steaming: basket, leaf and lid
Allergen screen
Found: dairy · nuts
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Put the potatoes and carrots in a wide pot with the water and salt, cover, and cook at a low boil until a knife enters a potato against slight resistance, about 12 minutes. 12 min
- Lay the wax and green beans on top, cover again and steam 5 minutes until they have lost their raw snap but still squeak against the tooth, adding the peas for the last 2 minutes. 5 min
- Do not drain. Drop in the butter and swirl the pot until it disappears into the starchy liquor and the whole thing turns cloudy.
- Pour in the cream, bring it only to the point where the surface shivers, and take it straight off the heat.
- Season with white pepper, check the salt and scatter the chives over.
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the technique it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Steaming: basket, leaf and lid 130 recipes
- Steam was running before the food went in: the water at a rolling boil and vapour coming steadily through the basket, rather than the whole thing warming up together.
- Nothing touches the water at any point: the food sits clear of it throughout, and the level neither drops enough to boil dry nor rises enough to wet it.
- The lid stayed on. Every lift costs the chamber its heat, and the number of lifts should be as close to none as the dish allows.
- Lifted out, the surface is glossy and plump with its colour heightened rather than dulled: greens brighter than they went in, not olive.
- Cooked through with the shape intact: it yields at the centre without having slumped or split, and there is no more than a spoonful of clean condensate beneath it.
Where it goes wrong The lid was loose or dripping and the condensate fell back onto the food, so it arrives waterlogged and pale with its seasoning washed down into the bottom of the dish.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Sauvignon Blanc (Sancerre)
- Also Right
- Grüner Veltliner
- From the Taps
- Berliner weisse
- Zero-Proof
- Cucumber-lime water
Green plates want green wines: vinaigrette’s acid meets its match, and the difficult vegetables surrender to Grüner.
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