Hi, this is Chef John and today, we are playing with flowers.
Those beautiful colorful petals are actually Nasturtium. Now, for those of you that don’t know, Nasturtium is actually kind of a ground cover, a really pretty flower in my opinion. Some people consider them weeds, but what they’re great for, you see that corner of my garden? It’s kind of junky. It’s where I throw the dead sticks and leaves and everyone’s got a corner at their garden. This is a great plant for that because it just kind of covers—it covers it and grows on top of it. And the flowers are so beautiful they really range from yellow to gold to orange to blood red, so I get kind of a variety there. So I picked a few and what we’re going to do is we’re going to rinse those off because they can have little bugs in them and if you’re going to serve this beautiful salad to your significant other, little bugs crawling around is going to be kind of a mood wrecker.
If you’re not going to use this right away, here’s a tip. What you want to do is you want to gather them up. See how I cut—get that little stem on there, wrap them up in a damp paper towel, almost like you’re making a little—what’s that, a boutonniere, a bouquet? Those things we had for the prom? I forgot the term. Corsage. Man, that was a long time ago. And you’re going to put your little corsage with the damp paper towel in a zip lock bag and that will keep like for a day. So if you have to prep these ahead of time—now, I don’t even know why I showed you that. Just pick them when you need them. By the way, these are probably growing somewhere in the neighborhood and you didn’t even know it.
By the way, very important. If you’re doing this for a lover, you have to do this test. She loves me, she loves me not, she loves me, she loves me not—uh-oh, oh, she loves me. See, I thought so. But anyway, that’s traditional.
So those who passed the test, we are now on to our salad and here is our mixed green salad. It’s not terrible; it’s just kind of boring. There’s nothing wrong with that. Don’t feel bad. But for that special romantic dinner, you know what I’m saying? For that special romantic occasion, I know Valentine’s Day is a long time ago but anytime is a good time for this kind of thing. You’re going to sprinkle some of those petals over your plain, old, boring mixed green salad and you might be thinking, sure, it’s pretty but they probably taste like flowers. No. They have a delicious peppery—they taste like lettuce. If you like watercress, it will remind you of that. It has a very subtle peppery flavor, very mild. It’s not floral. It’s not perfumy. There’s nothing to be afraid of. In fact, if you were blindfolded, you wouldn’t know there were Nasturtiums on here. So it’s 90% for the amazingly beautiful color but hey, why not? At the same time, we’re getting a little bit of flavor, some extra nutrients. You know that stuff has got some amazing nutrients in it.
By the way, if you’re not sure what flowers you’re picking, be really careful. You don’t want to poison someone. So if you’re not sure, have your roommate test it first and then you’ll know.
On to the salad, there we go, really pretty except for my horrible editing and out of focus shots, but you get the idea. Really, really nice, real simple demo today. I know those are in your neighborhood. Your neighbors have got them. They are at the farmers market, even the supermarkets sell them. You could grow them yourself, so easy. And they are so beautiful it inspired me to paint this watercolor.
This is Chef John’s still-life with Nasturtium. So you guys didn’t know I was such a good painter, did you? Anyway, go find some Nasturtiums and as always, enjoy!
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