Famous chefs at fine restaurants whip up five-star meals using vegetables and herbs they grow in nearby gourmet gardens. They create each day’s menu based on the garden-grown vegetables and herbs that are ready to harvest.
Now it’s time to stretch your own culinary skills with some gourmet gardening too.
The first step into the gourmet garden is planting familiar produce, but selecting unusual varieties. Instead of using green beans, choose brilliant purple beans. Look for chocolate sweet peppers, flavored basil or unusual greens. Plant an expensive specialty spice such as saffron or grow your own hard-to- find herb plants, like stevia, and then use them in your cooking.
Here are some veggies no gourmet garden is complete without.
Mâche. Also known as corn salad, mâche has tender green leaves that contain more iron than spinach and add a nutlike taste to fresh salads. Use them alone, mix them with other greens, or steam and serve them as a vegetable.
Plant mâche early in the season by sowing seeds ½-inch deep. After that, you have a choice: Thin plants to several inches apart, or just eat the seedlings. Harvest before plants go to seed when the weather warms.
Arugula. Also known as rocket, this is another must-have for the gourmet garden. These spicy greens add a tart, peppery dimension to green or fruit salads. You can also use arugula in place of basil for pizzas, bruschetta and other Italian dishes, such as a tangy lemon and arugula pesto. Plant the seeds now in vegetable beds or containers, and keep sowing through the season for a continuous supply. Myway is an early-maturing variety that won’t bolt when the weather turns hot.
Amaranth serves double duty in the garden as a beautiful plant with edible leaves and seeds. Once considered a weed, amaranth is now valued as a high-protein food and a good source of fiber. The tender green leaves of varieties like Autumn Palette taste like a sweet spinach and can be enjoyed in salads, sauteed, steamed or used in stir-fry recipes; the seeds can be eaten as a snack or ground into a gluten-free flour.
Kohlrabi looks like a cross between a turnip and a small cabbage. Varieties like Grand Duke or Early White Vienna are easy to grow, and the leaves and bulbs are sweet when eaten raw or cooked.
Kohlrabi varieties have either purple or green skin with crunchy white flesh. Peel and discard the skin, and slice into slivers for salads or into rounds to use as chips with dips. Kohlrabi makes beautiful stir-fry dishes or can be cubed and roasted with squash for even more flavor. Sow seeds or transplant into the garden now and again in midsummer. Harvest when bulbs are 2 to 3 inches in diameter.
Tomatillo. Classic Mexican dishes need this tomato cousin’s lively taste. Wait for the soil and weather to warm, then add a few plants to the garden alongside their Italian relations. Watch for the small, green or purple tomato-like fruits to form; tomatillos are ready to harvest when the fruits are firm and green and the papery husks turn light brown. To use them in cooking, peel the husks and roast, grill or simmer them into a chile verde sauce. You can use them raw in salsa, guacamole or gazpacho.
Pak choi (also called bok choy) is a versatile veggie from the cabbage family. Its crunchy white stalks and long green leaves are perfect for many Asian fusion recipes. Plant miniature varieties, such as Baby Green Fortune, that mature in about 45 days. Direct seed, or transplant them when the threat of frost has passed.
Herbes de Provence. To add a French flair to meals, grow your own version by planting all the herbs in this traditional blend. Include summer savory, fennel, rosemary, basil, thyme, marjoram, tarragon and lavender. Mix the dried herbs together in equal amounts, and use to season fish or chicken before grilling or add to vegetable dishes during cooking.
Bon appetit!
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