Brown Butter Tzatziki Rainbow Chard

This dish features rainbow chard and puts it in the spotlight, highlighting it’s flavour and turning the volume all the way up on it. The rainbow chard is paired with a brown butter tzatziki from zucchini, chives and mint. Fresh garlic and lemon uplift the yogurt base even more, balancing and flavouring the dish to the highest ability.

My veggie garden has been taking off with an abundance of rainbow chard — which brings me so much joy to have pink, red, yellow and green stalks of rainbow chard in my fridge just waiting to be used.

I posted about my rainbow chard over on Instagram and found that a lot of people find them beautiful, though have no idea how to make them taste good. This is my response to anyone who is doubtful of rainbow chard or would like inspiration on how to bring out the best in it.

The leaves and stalks should be cooked differently, in my opinion, since the leaves are tender while the stalks are fiberous — as stalks naturally are. Seperate the stalks from the leaves and fry them seperately.

The combination of charred/roasted/grilled veg + yogurt/labneh + brown butter is always a winner. Add lots of fresh herbs like chives, mint and dill. Grate garlic into the yogurt and add salt. Do this with any vegetable and it will be banging.

Typically, tzatziki is made with grated cucumber, though for this recipe I wanted something heartier to pair with the rainbow chard. Grated zucchini is light and playful, similar to cucumber, though it adds a depth that cucumber doesn’t have. Salting the grated zucchini will draw out it’s moisture, leaving us with an amplified zucchini flavour that we barely had to do anything to — it’s great! Or should I say, grate?

Enjoy this dish as a side alongside your dinner. It would go really well alongside roast chicken or fresh fish.

Ingredients:

8 rainbow chard stalks, various colours

1 zucchini, about 190g, grated

1/2 tsp cooking salt

5 tbsp plain greek yogurt, unsweetened, 50g

50g unsalted butter

2 garlic cloves, grated

juice of 1/2 a lemon

1 tbsp + 1 tsp neutral oil for high heat, ex. rice bran oil

pinch of salt x 3

handful of chives, chopped

handful of mint, finely sliced, half reserved for garnish

Method:

Grate a zucchini and place in a colander with a mixing bowl beneath it to catch water as it drains. Sprinkle 1/2 tsp of fine cooking salt and stir to distribute the salt. Leave it to drain of it’s water for at least 15 minutes. Discard of the liquid once it’s done.

Chop chives and slice mint into paper thin strips, add to a small bowl and set aside. Save half of the mint to use as a garnish.

Separate the rainbow chard stalks from it’s leaves by cutting right below the leaves. Separate the leaves and stalks into two separate piles. Stack the leaves on top of each other, fold in half lengthwise and thinly slice the leaves into long ribbons. Keep the stalks long, about the length of your hand. You may need to cut them in half if they’re extra long stalks.

In a small pan over low-medium heat, add butter and continue stirring until it turns a golden brown. Once it turns golden, pour the brown butter into a small bowl and set aside to cool. Once cooled, strain through a fine mesh strainer to remove the dark milk solids, leaving us with a silky brown butter.

In the same pan, wipe off the excess brown butter with a paper towel. Once clean, turn the heat to high and get the pan really, really hot. It should begin to smoke! Once it starts to smoke lightly, drizzle in 1 tbsp neutral oil and drop in the rainbow chard stalks only. Fry them on all sides, letting them get crispy on the pan without stirring too much. Sprinkle with salt. It should take about 3-4 minutes before you take them off the heat onto a plate to cool.

After you have removed the stalks, leave the heat on, and in the same pan, add in the ribbons of rainbow chard leaves. Drizzle in 1 tsp of neutral oil and a sprinkle of salt. Cook the leaves down until they are crispy and shriveled. Allow them to crisp and brown slightly by not stirring too much, otherwise they won’t get crispy. It should take 4 minutes or so before you transfer to a plate to cool.

In a medium mixing bowl, combine yogurt, chives, mint, garlic, lemon, zucchini and mix to combine. Leave in the fridge until ready to serve.

To plate: To a large plate, layer yogurt with the crispy rainbow chard ribbons/leaves by adding 1 tbsp of yogurt to the center of the plate, then 1 tbsp of rainbow chard ribbons, 1 tbsp of yogurt and 1 tbsp of ribbons. Smear around the center of the plate, creating the base for the stalks. Add stalks to the center, drizzle over brown butter, sprinkle reserved mint and a pinch of salt.

Delicious!