Last year we sowed red mustard leaves, Brassica juncea ‘Osaka Purple’, in neat rows in our salad bed in the vegetable garden. This year it is coming up all over the vegetable gardens and beyond. The large floppy red leaves are mottled green and the flowers are yellow and typical of the cabbage family.
It grows easily and rapidly, their hot flavour is delicious when mixed with salad greens, but there is always too many of them. The majority of the plants end up going to seed and hence, their random and rapacious appearances grabbing land and spreading faster than Genghis Khan. So what to do with all these lovely leaves? The answer, perhaps it is stuffed leaves with pin head oats…
INGREDIENTS
– 12 large red mustard leaves
– 1 Onion, chopped finely
-1/2 Chilli chopped
– 1/2 cup of pinhead oats
– Dessert spoon of honey
– Handful of raisins
– 1/2 cup of water
– Oil for frying
METHOD
1. Remove the base of the leaf stalk, and put the leaves in a steamer to wilt the leaves. This makes them easier to roll. Place them face down on a flat surface.
2. Fry the onions until they are soft. Add the chopped chilli and the oats. Fry to toast the oats, stir continuously, about ten minutes.
3. Add the water, raisins and honey, and cook until the oats are softened slightly, about 15 mins.
4. Remove from heat and put a heaped dessert spoonful of the oat mixture on each leaf.
5. Roll the leaves around the mixture and fold in the ends.
6. Place the rolls into a Pyrex dish, you can stack them if you need to, cover them with water and place on the lid.
7. Put in a heated oven 190 Celcius and cook for an hour. Check occasionally to make sure the water does not boil away completely. Add a little if needed.
8. When done, remove from oven dish and transfer to a serving dish. Drizzle over some rapeseed oil.
Serve hot or cold.
Ciaran The Gardener 