Red Swiss chard roll

The leaves of the red Swiss chard are distinctively large and strong. It's comparable to savory cabbage in softness, and is highly foldable. So, it dawns on me that it could be a great wrapper material. Therefore, I decided to test it out one day. Considering the strong characteristic taste of the chard, I thought it'd match with something like beef. I would like to have a filling that somewhat cakes together when cooked. So I tried a beef, chili and eggplant filling.


Recipe 1: Red Swiss chard roll of beef chili (6-8 rolls of 2.5" long)


Ingredients:
- 2 oz lean minced beef
- 1 clove garlic, finely chopped
- 1 tablespoon (TB) leaves of celery chopped
- 1/4 cup Hormel chili
- 2 TB Dijon mustard
- 6-8 large leaves of red Swiss chard, stems removed
- 1/4 small Chinese eggplant, sliced
- 1 TB olive oil
- 3 TB mushrooms chopped
- 2 TB onions chopped
- 1/2 teaspoon (tp) basil flakes
- 2 TB oil to cook baking pan
- water


Procedure:
1. Cook Chinese eggplant, mushrooms, onions, basil flakes in 1 TB olive oil and 1/4 cup water until the mixture is very soft. Set aside and let cool. 
2. Brown beef. Add garlic and celery. Cook for a few minutes, then add Hormel chili and Dijon mustard. Mix warm. Turn off heat when mixture boils. Set aside.
3. Turn to the back of each red Swiss chard leaf, cut thin stripes on the red stem part perpendicularly to the flow of the vein. The cut should be about half the depth of the stem. Do not cut through the stem. Flip to the front of the leaf. Place 2TB beef mixture and 1 TB eggplant on the leaf at the stem end. Roll towards the leaf end, then fold both left and right sides to close the wrap. Use a wooden toothpick to secure the closure.
4. Set each wrap, with the toothpick side down, on a baking pan coated with oil. Cover pan with foil. Bake at 375F for 30 minutes. At this point, the leaf should have shrunk to the size of the filling, and the top side of the leaf should be dry while the bottom side soft. The oil helps prevent sticking. Very carefully detach the roll from pan and flip. Carefully remove toothpick. The wrap should stay intact without the toothpick. Then bake at 375F uncovered for 10 minutes, at which point the top will become crispy. Remove from oven and let cool in room temperature. Rolls will harden a little. Serve warm.

I really like vegetable rolls cooked this way. The wrapper is cooked, but crispy, while the filling cakes together. The taste of the chard matches well with the beef chili. A variation of the beef filling is to use chicken/turkey. The filling recipe is as follows.


Recipe 2: Red Swiss chard roll of turkey


Ingredients for turkey filling to replace the beef, celery and Hormel chili:
- 6 oz cooked turkey meat, cut into small pieces
- 2 TB mayonnaise
- 1 tp Italian Pesto paste
The remaining ingredients of the filling are the same:
- 1/4 small Chinese eggplant, sliced
- 1 TB olive oil
- 3 TB mushrooms chopped
- 2 TB onions chopped
- 1/2 teaspoon (tp) basil flakes
- 2 TB oil to cook baking pan
- water
Use 6-8 large leaves of red Swiss chard, stems removed


Procedure:

Cooking the eggplant as described in step 1 above. Then mix turkey meat, mayonnaise and pesto separately, without using any heat. Then make the roll as described in step 3, using the turkey mixture with eggplant instead of the beef. Both the beef and the turkey rolls take about the same time to cook.