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Nasturtium Cigarettes
Make fish relish as above, using any cold boiled white fish in place of tuna, if you like, but in any case add a couple of minced anchovies and spread the mixture generously on beautiful big nasturtium leaves from which the stems have been clipped. Roll into thick cigarettes, tie tight with thread, cut off ends so they're all of a size and steep in a hot sauce of vinegar and white wine already boiled with a bay leaf, a chili pepper, a bit of thyme and some salt. Arrange on a plate, pour a few spoonfuls of olive oil over, garnish with nasturtium flowers and chill.
I CAN TUNA
A cold hors d'oeuvre built on the peppery bite of full-grown nasturtium leaves, which stand in for pastry or bread. The recipe leans on a fish relish given earlier in the section, so a few quantities have to be supplied.
- The relish"as above" points back to the fish relish given earlier in the section; the recipe's own ingredient line reads "1 can tuna," so a drained tin of tuna, or an equal weight of flaked cold boiled white fish, worked to a spreadable paste. The two minced anchovies are called for here rather than left optional, so season with salt cautiously.
- Choosing leavesThe recipe asks for "beautiful big" leaves, so use the largest, most mature ones on the plant; small young leaves tear when rolled. No quantity or number of servings is given.
- The marinade, unmeasuredNo proportions are given. Equal parts white wine vinegar and dry white wine, in a volume just sufficient to cover the rolls in a shallow dish, is the usual reading. Boil it with the bay leaf, one small dried chili, a sprig of thyme and a pinch of salt for two or three minutes, then pour it over while it is still hot.
- Why hot liquidThe heat most likely serves to collapse and soften the leaf so it clings to the filling rather than to cook anything, though the recipe does not say so. No steeping time is given, and "steep" may imply longer than a few minutes.
- ThreadUse plain cotton kitchen twine or unwaxed cotton thread, not nylon or a coloured sewing thread that can bleed. The recipe does not say whether the ties come off before serving.
- TrimmingCut the ends after tying and before the marinade, as written. A single clean slice through the bundle with a thin sharp knife gives the uniform cigarette look the name depends on.
- Finishing and servingDrain the rolls before plating so the olive oil sits on them. The recipe garnishes with the flowers before chilling rather than after, and specifies neither a chilling time nor what to do with the leftover marinade.
- Sourcing the plantNasturtium leaves and flowers are not a supermarket item. Grow them yourself or buy from a grower selling edible flowers, and avoid anything from an ornamental bedding display, which is likely to have been sprayed.
Nasturtium (Tropaeolum majus) reached Europe from South America -- T. minus in the later sixteenth century, T. majus later -- and the name, borrowed from the cress genus, is traditionally derived from the Latin for "nose-twister" on account of the mustard-oil sharpness of the leaves and seeds, the same family of compounds that makes watercress and radish hot. Cooks have long treated it as a kitchen plant rather than a purely decorative one: the green seed pods pickled as a caper substitute, the flowers scattered on salads, the leaves used as a peppery green. Wrapping a savoury paste in a leaf and steeping it in a hot vinegar-and-wine marinade is loosely comparable to escabeche and to stuffed vine leaves.