Friday Food Finds
18: Summer Condiments Edition
I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with summer vegetable cooking. On the one hand, the vegetables right now are so incredibly fresh and flavorful. On the other hand, if you’re someone who hates wasting food as much as I do, there’s a lot of guilt that comes with throwing away carrot tops, fennel stalks, and other such vegetable trimmings.
Some people do a really good job with saving and freezing these various veggie odds and ends to turn into stock. I am not one of those people. I like the idea enough, and maybe I will adopt it one of these days. For now, I’m more of a proponent of using these fresh trimmings at their flavor peak — that is to say, now.
This year, I’ve been having fun harnessing vegetable flavor in condiments. I started with an Onion Top Pesto a couple of weeks ago when I found the season’s first onions at a local farm stand. I then went on to try a Fennel Aioli and a Carrot Tops Salad Dressing when I sought creative uses for fragrant fennel fronds and vibrant carrot trimmings.
As pungent as it might sound, the Green Onion Pesto from Christine at Cook the Story is actually a fairly mild pesto that adds just a kiss of green onion flavor and a hint of sweetness to whatever it touches. I’ve used it as a spread on a sandwich wrap, and added it to a panful of sautéed summer squash. I’ll most certainly use it in pasta soon, and I’m guessing it’ll probably make its way onto pizza at some point too. It seems almost more versatile than standard basil pesto, since you can pretty much use it in any dish in which you would use onions.
While I’m not typically a big fennel fan, I do like it in mellow doses. And that’s exactly what the Fennel Aioli from Kaleb Wyse at Better Homes and Gardens delivered. The anise-y fennel was just distinguishable enough for me, though someone with more of a palate for the flavor might find it lacking.
This was my first experience making an aioli/mayonnaise from a whole egg rather than just the yolk. When I first tried it on an open-faced tomato sandwich, I appreciated the way the egg white cut the richness a little. Added to a fried chicken sandwich however, the aioli got lost both in flavor and mouthfeel.
This is what I would call a delicate condiment that should be used accordingly. It would go swimmingly with some crusty bread alongside a fish soup, in my opinion.
Stronger on the aromatic scale is the Carrot Tops Salad Dressing from Claudia Carici at Creative in My Kitchen. Based on consistency and astringency, I would call this a spread (as Claudia does suggest) more than a salad dressing, though it could work as a dressing for a heartier grain or bean-based salad. For lettuce or other tender vegetables you’d need to cut the dressing with a little more lemon juice to make it drizzle-able.
I enjoyed this spread on two slices of bread before building the green-themed sandwich shown above. It brought tremendous flavor to the sandwich and beautifully complemented the carrot romesco that one of our local farms makes. I could also see using this in place of basil pesto in a pasta salad or stirring it into some yogurt, sour cream, or mayonnaise to make a green veggie dip. Again, there’s lots of versatility with just this single condiment
One last recipe I want to share with you this week ventures a little off the theme. Though because it’s also a condiment, and because I did actually use leftover vegetable scraps to make it, I’m including it in today’s collection. I came across this Pea and White Bean Hummus from the Filippo Berio website the other day when searching for a way to use up the leftover pea pulp I had from making a pea soup. It turns out there was just the right amount of pulp for the hummus, and I quickly had myself a meal of the slightly sweet bean spread.
My hummus turned out not as vibrantly green as the photo on the Filippo Berio website, but otherwise I was quite happy with how well it highlighted the flavors of both the beans and the peas. It’s not quite as rich and moreish as a chickpea hummus I think — the best word I can use to describe it is “thin” — but I certainly enjoyed it as a veggie dip, as a base for a myriad of toppings, and as a spread for toast with some thin slices of radish on top. If you ignore your expectations of hummus, this is absolutely a delectable condiment in its own right.
To get the most out of this hummus, I recommend using home-cooked beans to start, following the Bean Cooking Guide from Primary Beans. That’ll ensure you add the most flavor possible to your hummus.
I hope I’ve inspired you to try adding a condiment or two to your refrigerator this week. At the least I hope that if you do tend to throw away or compost your veggie trimmings, you’ll consider putting them to use some other way.
One of my favorite uses for the tops of veggies like turnips, radishes, kohlrabi, beets, etc… is to sauté them in a little butter or cooking oil, squeeze out any excess moisture, chop them up, and throw them into a little béchamel or other dairy or vegan cream sauce for creamed greens. I think I’ve used up to three different kinds of greens at once that way!
What are your tricks for using up the odds and ends from veggies? I’m ever curious!
Best,
Charlotte