Instant Pot Collar Green Sag Paneer

Tomorrow promises to be a beautiful autumn day, so be sure to visit the Fairmount Neighborhood Farmers Market for its last day of its tenth season. The market will be open between 10 am - 2 pm on the corner of Agate and 19th Ave. You'll find plenty of fall fruits and vegetables from Camas Swale Farm.

Camas Swale has abundant collard greens, which are delicious roasted in a low oven. I also like to use them in sag paneer, as opposed to spinach which I find always cook down to a tiny portion that fits into a single dessert bowl. This time I converted my my stovetop recipe for the Instant Pot, which was able to reduce an enormous pile of leaves into a fragrantly spiced puree in a matter of minutes.

Instant Pot Collard Green Sag Paneer

2 bunches collard greens (or kale), washed, stripped from stems, and chopped
4 cloves garlic, diced
1 to 2 fresh hot chili, diced
4 roma tomatoes, chopped
1 medium onion, diced
1/2 inch ginger root, diced
2 Tbsp grape seed or canola oil
1 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp black mustard seeds
1/2 tsp fenugreek seeds
salt to taste
8 ounces paneer cheese, chopped into small cubes
2 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp garam masala

1.Turn the instant pot to sautee. When warm, add the oil, and then the cumin seeds, mustard seeds, and fenugreek and let them sizzle for a few seconds until fragrant. Add the chopped onion, garlic, ginger, and chili pepper and cook, stirring for a couple minutes. Then add the chopped tomato and cook down a couple minutes longer until they have collapsed and released their juice. Press cancel.


2. Add the collard greens or kale and a generous pinch of salt and give the contents a stir. The liquid from the tomatoes and rinsed greens should be enough, but if it seems very dry, add a Tbsp or two of water. Seal the lid, and program the instant pot to cook at high pressure for 2 minutes. When the cooking is complete, press cancel and carefully release the pressure. 

3. Stir in the coriander and garam masala. Use an immersion blender to puree the greens into a smooth paste. Taste and season with salt if needed. Stir in the cubed paneer cheese and transfer to a serving bowl.

Caramelized Carrot Soup

This Sunday at the Fairmount Neighborhood Farmers Market you will find fresh eggs and pastured chicken, beef, pork, and lamb from Fair Valley Farm and Fog Hollow Farm, baked goods made with local whole grains from WildFlour Oven, fresh cut flower bouquets from Tiger Lily Art Company, and plenty of fresh produce from Camas Swale Farm, including root vegetables such as potatoes, beets, and carrots. 

My recent infatuation with pressure cooking, now that I am a proud owner of an Instant Pot, led me to this recipe for a caramelized carrot soup from modernist cuisine. The idea is that in a pressure cooker, vegetables can reach high temperatures while remaining moist, achieving the cooking reactions of roasting without drying them out. A pinch of baking soda creates an alkaline environment, which encourages the Maillard reaction of browning. The full recipe calls for a stick of butter, which I halved, and freshly extracted carrot juice, which I substituted with a ginger and lemon grass broth I had in the freezer. The soup was intensely flavorful and made a delicious accompaniment to a sandwich of baked tofu, bacon, and pickled daikon.

Caramelized Carrot Soup

Adapted from modernist cuisine

500 g carrot (about 10 medium)
4 Tbsp butter
1/4 cup water
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 cups carrot juice or broth, or more to desired consistency
squeeze of lemon or lime juice

In a pressure cooker use the saute setting to melt the butter. Stir in the carrots to coat with butter. Add in the water, baking soda, and salt. Cook the contents at high pressure for 20 minutes. Release the pressure naturally or after a few minutes. Puree the caramelized carrots with carrot juice or broth to desired consistency. Taste and add salt as needed. Finish with a squeeze of lemon or lime juice.

Tomato Braised Celery

This Sunday at the Fairmount Neighborhood Farmers Market you will find fresh eggs and pastured chicken, beef, pork, and lamb from Fair Valley Farm and Fog Hollow Farm, fresh cut flower bouquets from Tiger Lily Art Company, and plenty of fresh produce from Camas Swale Farm including sweet corn, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, delicata squash, potatoes, leeks, and celery.

Celery is typically relegated to a supporting role in soups and stews, but apparently for Victorians it was a luxury ingredient displayed ostentatiously in special celery vases. For my beautiful Camas Swale celery bunch, I took inspiration from this tribute to long-cooked vegetables by Samit Nosrat in the New York Times, which reminded me of a Marcella Hazan recipe, deemed genius by food52. Hazan's recipe calls for pancetta to add some umami to the tomatoey braising liquid, but I opted for a few anchovy fillets because I love the flavors of celery and seafood.

If you, like me, happen to have momentarily succumb to the illusion that a kitchen appliance will solve all of your problems associated with anxieties about the impending school year, noxious smoke-filled air, and natural disasters related to climate change, and you recently invested in an Instant Pot, you could use it for this recipe. You could also cook this on the stove top. Either way, it is delicious and very soothing. 

Tomato Braised Celery

adapted from Marcella Hazan

1 bunch celery
2 large shallots, peeled and diced
1/4 cup olive oil
4 anchovy fillets in oil
15 ounce can of peeled and diced plum tomatoes, with their juice
red pepper flakes to taste
salt to tatse

1. Cut off the celery's leafy tops, saving the leaves for another use, and detach all the stalks from their base. Use a peeler to pare away most of the strings, and cut the stalks into pieces about 3 inches long (cutting on a diagonal looks nice). Alternately, if you plan on cooking long past tender (an hour or more), you can skip peeling the strings. 

2. Heat a saute pan over medium heat. Put in the oil and the anchovies and cook, breaking up the anchovies, until they dissolve into the oil. Add the red pepper flakes and stir, and then add the diced shallots. Cook until the shallots are cooked through and golden. 

3. Add the tomatoes with their juice, the celery, and salt, and toss thoroughly to coat well. Adjust heat to cook at a steady simmer, and put a cover on the pan. After 15 minutes check the celery, cooking it until it feels tender when prodded with a fork. The longer you cook them, the softer and sweeter they will become. If while the celery is cooking, the pan juices become insufficient, replenish with 2 to 3 tablespoons of water as needed. If on the contrary, when the celery is done, the pan juices are watery, uncover, raise the heat to high, and boil the juices away rapidly.

To make in an Instant Pot:
Perform step 2 using the Saute function. Press cancel, add the remaining ingredients for step 3, then cook with the pressure cooker function on low pressure for 15 minutes and allow the pressure to release naturally.