Rocket
"My wife and one of my kids think that rocket just tastes like a slightly stronger lettuce but I and the other kids think that it’s the vilest, bitterest, most astringent evil ever given salad-leaf form. Is she just more middle-class than the rest of us?" A Guardian reader
Amongst the bounteous selection of goodies I had from my gardening friend the other day were two types of rocket. I have long used them up, not very imaginatively as components of a green salad. Anyway I do like rocket especially the peppery one - which is the one on the right. So I thought I would 'do' rocket.
It's very trendy after all. Yes I know it's been around since forever and it has been used by most of the world forever but the English (I still count myself as English really) barely knew of its existence until fairly recently. So much so that back in 1978 when Jane Grigson wrote her Vegetable Book she was able to say:
"Rocket as an unremarkable item of salads is now eaten only in Mediterranean countries. John Evelyn grew it once in his kitchen garden, along with corn salad, clary, purslane, and all the other greens we have sadly allowed to disappear from our salad bowls."
Elizabeth David also ignores it. But nowadays it is everywhere, most often as a kind of garnish to a pizza, a pasta dish or anything really, and in trendy salads - it's sort of the modern day parsley in that respect. But you can actually do a lot more with it than just scatter it decoratively over your trendy salad of this and that. And there are hundreds and hundreds of suggestions for salads that feature rocket - though the prosciutto shown here is a common accompaniment.
Monika gave me two kinds of rocket - the two shown above, which as far as I can see are not that closely related as they have different botanical names, although I believe they are ultimately both from the family of cabbages. So I looked for botanical drawings of them both to see the differences. The one on the left is eruca sativa and the one on the right is diplotaxus tenufolia which is otherwise known as wild rocket and is spicier.
There is also rucola cultivata but I think this is a technical misnomer and is really eruca sativa. And let me say that even 'wild rocket' is now cultivated. Indeed you can easily grow it in your garden. I have even done it. I used to think that it was called rocket because it grows very rapidly, so rapidly in fact that if you don't watch out it will bolt and go to seed before you have harvested it. The trick is to cut it all the time. I saw one suggestion that you harvest the leaves, chop them in a food processor, mix with water and freeze like ice blocks for future use. Monika's plants were huge and leafy - mine were very small and they bolted because they were so small I didn't think them worth cutting. You can eat the flowers though - and the seeds too. The Indians make an oil from the seeds called taramira which is used for pickling and cooking. However, the name 'rocket' comes from the French roquette, which is a diminutive of the latin eruca which was a plant in the cabbage family (as is rocket). Arugula as it is sometimes known in some posh places is derived from the Italian diminutive of eruca - 'rucola'.
And yes, of course it's healthy. For a complete rundown of its health benefits go to Arugula nutrition facts - on the Nutrition Facts Blog, which I think may be one of those messianic sites, but it did quote various worthy sources. There was a lot of chemistry there, and I confess my eyes glaze over a bit when I get bombarded with a whole lot of chemical words. Basically I think it has Vitamins A, C and K and also folate and potassium, but not necessarily as much as other greens. But yes it's good for you.
When it comes to cooking it really it is the Italians who have consistently cooked with it throughout history who have most suggestions for using it, including for a drink that is used rather like limoncello and which is called rucolino. It comes from the island of Ischia, off Naples.
So I had a look through my recipe books and online and came to the conclusion that there are literally hundreds of recipes out there if you choose to look, with rocket pesto top of the list, although I vaguely remember Felicity Cloake saying about something - 'please not rocket pesto', but I can't remember where that was, so just see it as an indication that not everyone thinks rocket pesto is a great thing. The Italians, and the Greeks too - well really just about all the Mediterranean nations make great use of the greens that grow wild on their rocky hillsides. And rocket is one of these. They put them in salads and soups, stuff things with them and add them to vegetable dishes and pasta. There is one traditional Sicilian dish called Cavatieddi con la rucola which is "simply pasta with some thick tomato sauce, pecorino and lots of finely chopped rocket." I think it's supposed to be made with a particular kind of Sicilian pasta called cavatelli but I'm sure you could make it with any kind of pasta. Lots of pecorino seems to be important too.
Some other simple rocket dishes I found were:
Rocket and oregano pizza - from Stephanie Alexander's Cook's Companion and reproduced on The Vegan Kitchen Garden website. A pretty simple recipe and I guess you don't have to make the pizza dough yourself if you don't want to, which would make it even simpler.
Also from Stephanie Alexander one of her quick things in the side margins - Quick pasta with garlic and rocket. Toss a sliced garlic clove, best-quality parmesan cheese, rocket leaves or garden-fresh parsley and good extra virgin olive oil with hot pasta. Now what could be easier than that?
Stephanie's friend Maggie Beer has, of course, a much more complicated dish from her friend Victoria Blumenstein, but I thought the sauce was interesting - Stuffed eggplant with verjuice, rocket and preserved lemon sauce. The eggplant is stuffed with barley, olives, onion, mint, parsley and lemon but the sauce is simpler and made as follows:
3 quarters preserved lemon, flesh removed, rind rinsed and roughly chopped
1/3 cup verjuice
1 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 cups rocket leaves, trimmed
1/2 teaspoon sugar or to taste, if needed
Place lemons and verjuice in a blender or food processor and blend until lemon is finely chopped: the appearance should be slightly gelatinous. Add olive oil, then rocket, a little at a time, blending well before adding the next batch. The olive oil must cover the blade or the sauce will oxidise. If the sauce is a bit too sharp, adjust by adding sugar.
From the Silver Spoon comes Rocket and Taleggio pie. This website says it comes from a different book but it's exactly the same recipe.
And a last very simple pasta from Ruth Rogers and Rose Gray in my Silver Spoon book.
Tagliatelle with crème fraîche and rocket.
250ml crème fraîche
finely grated rind and juice of 2 lemons
320g egg tagliatelle
150g rocket leaves, coarsely chopped
150g Parmesan cheese, freshly grated
salt and pepper
Pour the crème fraîche into a bowl, stir in the lemon rind and juice and season with salt and pepper. Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil, add the tagliatelle and cook until al dente, then drain and return to the pan. Pour the lemon and cream sauce over the pasta, add the rocket and half the Parmesan and toss to combine. Serve with the remaining Parmesan.
So there you go - plant some now - they will grow easily from seed, even for me - and start spicing up your salads and everything else.
