Cardoon | miso & walnut | parsley by Herbivore

Ingredients

8 medium stems of cardoon

olive oil

salt

50g chopped onion

2 cloves garlic, sliced.

1⁄2 green small green chilli, chopped fine.

75g walnuts, chopped.

1 tbsp mirin

1 tbsp soy sauce

75g white miso

75g water

juice of one lime

25g flat leaf parsley (a handful), large pieces of stalk removed

Method

To prepare the cardoons chop away leaves and any root attached to the stems and cut them into even sized lengths.

Bring a large pan of water to the boil and season with enough salt to make it as salty as the sea (taste it to check). Have another pan or bowl of cold water ready.

Drop the cardoon stalks in and cook on a rolling boil for 7 or 8 minutes – check one with the point of a knife to see if it is tender. Leave them for too long and they will be tasteless, but taken out too soon they can taste bitter and be tough. Once cooked, drain them and plunge straight into the cold water.

Take a sharp knife or vegetable peeler and remove any small thistle spikes you find on the stems and peel away the strings of tough flesh on the ridges, cutting down the stem away from you. It might feel like you are wasting too much of your valuable vegetable but the outer layers are very fibrous and not nice to chew through.

Toss the cooked cardoons with olive oil and a little salt and roast on a

tray in an oven at 200c until they begin to brown – probably about 12 or

15 minutes but keep an eye on them and rely on your senses.

To make the sauce, saute the chopped onion in olive oil over a medium heat until it softens and begins to colour slightly.

Add the garlic and chilli and cook for a few minutes more, stirring often.

Add the walnuts, soy, mirin, water and miso and lower the heat.

Let it all cook together slowly for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking.

Blend the sauce with a hand blender or in a food processor and season with the juice of the lime. This sauce can be made in advance and gently reheated with a splash more water when needed.

To make the parsley puree, blanch the leaves in boiling water as you did for the cardoon stalks (reserving a few leaves to chop as a garnish), cooking for a few minutes before refreshing in cold water.

Blend the cooked leaves with 2 tbsp olive oil and the lemon juice.

To serve, spoon some of the puree onto a plate in an attractive stripe, place four of the roasted cardoons along it and spoon over the heated miso sauce. Sprinkle a few of the reserved chopped parsley leaves over the miso sauce if your heart sinks at the thought of eating something so brown.