Creamed Chard Pappardelle

Celebrate this characterful vegetable

Chard is one of my favourite vegetables, aside from its joyous colour chard offers versatility and a depth of flavour that other leafy greens lack. As a member of the beetroot family it is more robust to cope with a variety of cooking techniques. Here in lies its beauty! 

Chard is without doubt a ‘2for1’ vegetable, the stems and the leaves. The stems can be stringy in older plants but still tender enough to simply fry. They stand up to longer cooking methods and soften without disintegrating. In a similar way the leaves can easily be a substitute for spinach while also standing up to long cooks in rich sauces.

This recipe celebrates both in a very simple style. The stems are slowly fried with a little toasted garlic to bring a sweet nutty crunch, then the leaves cooked in seconds with some crème fraiche to make a sauce. An easy hand cut pasta brings it all together.


Serves 2
Preparation time: 10 minutes (or 1 hour if making your own pasta)
Cooking time: 10 minutes
Pasta Ingredients:
200g ‘00’ flour
2 whole eggs
… or buy your favourite

Ingredients:
2 cloves garlic
rapeseed oil
1/2 bag of SLF rainbow chard
Sea salt flakes
100g crème fraiche
fresh ground black pepper
A few good shavings of nutmeg

1. If you are making the pasta, combine the eggs and flour in a processor or by hand to form a dough. Work the dough for a few minutes until smooth and springy. Cover and leave to rest for 1 hour. 

2. Once the pasta has rested, flatten out to a rectangle by hand. If using a pasta machine, begin on ‘0’ setting and gradually work down to ‘7’. If rolling by hand begin stretching the dough with a rolling pin until it stops springing back and is just under a millimetre thick. 

3. To make the pappardelle shape, simply cut thick ribbons by hand. These should be rough and ready so there is no need for a ruler. 

4. Bring a large saucepan of water to the boil with a lid.

5. In the meantime, peel and slice the garlic, then toast in a generous puddle of oil in a large frying pan over a low heat. 

6. While the garlic is toasting, remove the stalks from the chard and finely slice. Cut the leaves in half down the spine and cut into chunks.

7. Once the garlic is lightly golden and fragrant, add the chard stalks, turn the heat up slightly and gently fry for a few minutes. Season with salt.

8. The water should be boiling by now, add the pasta and cook. Fresh pasta will only take a couple of minutes to cook so be ready to eat. 

9. Turn the heat up to maximum under the chard and add the leaves followed by the crème fraiche. 

10. The crème fraiche should be bubbling and leave slightly wilted as the pasta is cooked. Using tongs or a pasta spoon, add the pasta to the chard with a healthy amount of the pasta water that is clinging on. Mix well and season with black pepper and nutmeg.

Serve with grated Witheridge in Hay or your favourite strong hard cheese, and a lightly dressed side salad.

Chef Notes:
1. Don’t drain the pasta, simply pull it from the boiling water. This carries with it some of the boiling water to make the sauce. 
2. If using dried pasta, cook in advance of making the sauce then add after the crème fraiche. 

Robin Popham
Chef at ‘Create Terroir’ and Sandy Lane Farm veg box customer