The winter kitchen: from freezer and jar
From November to March, silverbeet lives in the freezer and in jars. Four dinners where frozen, pickled, and fermented silverbeet slides straight in instead of fresh.
The bed is asleep, but the freezer shelf is full of flat green pucks, and the fridge holds the jars of pickled and fermented stems. The winter kitchen is about knowing the substitution rules, because well-preserved silverbeet is not a fallback, it is an ingredient with strengths of its own.
Frozen silverbeet is already blanched. That means it goes straight into any wet dish without thawing, and that it must be thawed and squeezed hard before going into a dry one. Pickled and fermented stems are winter's fresh element: acid and bite where the fresh leaf is missing. Each note below says exactly how the swap is done.
The recipes
Silverbeet & Red Lentil Dal
Two frozen pucks straight into the pot for the last five minutes replace the fresh leaves completely.
White Bean Stew with Silverbeet & Tomato
Frozen silverbeet goes straight from bag to pot; the tomato sauce thaws it in minutes.
Creamy Silverbeet & Potato Gratin
Thawed, firmly squeezed frozen silverbeet settles between the potato layers just like fresh.
Silverbeet Pasta with Pine Nuts & Raisins
Thawed, squeezed leaves are folded in with the pasta, and pickled stems on top bring the acid the lemon would otherwise provide.
Tips
- One freezer puck of around 100 grams equals roughly 250 grams of fresh silverbeet; convert accordingly.
- For wet dishes the puck goes into the pot frozen. For dry dishes it must be thawed and squeezed hard.
- Pickled stems are winter's fresh element, and the brine in the jar is a ready-made vinaigrette base.