Rucola at The Schoolhouse... And a quick update on the garden

Rucola is coming up very well in our Roadhouse Spring Garden, and it is the next plant we are going to use in our restaurants – actually, we are going to harvest some of it today. Rucola is one of the vegetables we were most eager to have our own, because we use it in relatively small quantities and thus it is possible and easy for us to grow all the rucola we use by ourselves. It is always a great feeling to be able to actually grow all of some vegetable needed, that really is what sustainable food is much about. To be honest, rucola is really expensive to purchase and that is – no need to deny it – one of the reasons we really want to grow it ourselves. It is great news for us that the rucola turned out to be one of the most successful plants in our garden. We still have two bags of rucola seeds left and we should plant some more of it soon, to guarantee continuous supply of fresh rucola. To harvest rucola, we are ought to just pick the leaves and new ones will generate for months. The leaves should be used within two days, or wrapped tightly in plastic bags with cool water. Rucola goes bad quicly, unfortunately. When to pick the leaves is more or less a question of taste - the older the leaves, the more intense the flavour. Younger leaves have a milder taste and therefore are best for salads, while older leaves may be slightly bitter. As we are going to use it mostly is salads, we’ll try pick the young leaves. Rucola is relatively easy plant to grow at home, the best time to grow it is spring and early summer. Later when we are going to grow it, in the middle of summer, a plastic cover should be placed on top of the planting to protect it from too much direct sunlight.

So, what is this plant we call rucola? It is a bitterish and somewhat pungent salad plant with a peppery and mustardy flavour, which has a bit of a “elitist” reputation for some reason and is widely used in kitchens especially in Italy and other parts of southern Europe. Actually, although I called it a “salad leaf”, rucola is an annual leafy herb plant belonging to the mustard family. It is mostly used in salads, usually mixed with plenty of other greens, because by itself it is rather strong. Other popular uses for it is to make rucola pesto or pasta sauce, or serve it slightly sauteed. It is also, like most herbs, used for some medical purposes. Rucola is actually the Italian name of this plant, which is widely known also as arugula and rocket in English language. Rucola has long traditions in the Mediterranean and has been used there since Roman times. However, what’s unusual when it comes to rucola is that it has traditionally only been collected from the wild and hasn’t been grown commercially until recent decades. It still grows wild around Asia and Mediterranean. In Roman times, the seeds of rucola were also used to give flavour to oil. Like most salads, rucola is low in calories and high in vitamins such as A and C as well as magnesium, which again serves perfectly our purpose of serving healthy food. Rucola is still most widely used in southern Europe, but it has been getting increasingly popular in other parts of the World since the 1990’s – indeed, some even call it the national vegetable in USA today. In Chinese cuisine, on the other hand, it is still largely overshadowed by other vegetables, although it’s getting trendy now, at least among the rich folk.

As I said, we are going the harvest the first rucola leaves today or tomorrow. At this point, we are going to use it only in The Schoolhouse restaurant. Our chef is going to use it for two purposes:
- Fresh rucola as an ingredient in special salads
- Pureed rucola as part of the pasta (yes, the actual pasta, not as sauce)

And then a quick update on The Roadhouse Spring Garden. Earlier I said that, to our big misfortune, herbs and lettuce are not growing at all, but during these few days me and Randhir noticed that there are actually right plants growing up, slowly but steadily. So, maybe these plants just need lot of time and we haven’t failed after all? The only plants we do not see growing at all are flat parsley, rosemary and thyme. Maybe we should buy young plants of those, but give the other ones chance to grow from the seed. Today, I actually tasted our own dill – there are not much coming out yet but it definitely was dill. We asked the gardeners to take out all the wrong plants growing (yes, there are plenty of things coming out but not the right ones) so that the herbs could grow in peace. Strawberry plants have generated some strawberries already, but the plants are suffering and dying in the sun. We should get some cover on top of the strawberry way as soon as possible, as well as something to cover the outcoming lettuce, as the sun is getting too srong for it. We have already tried to ask for it but… Well, hopefully we’ll get it done soon.

Sorry for not posting pictures here, I can’t do it now for some reason becouse of the "blog block". However, I have made a public photo gallery of the garden and it can be found here: http://picasaweb.google.fi/msrpublicphotos/TheRoadhouseSpringGarden#. Note that each picture has a date written below, so you see when it’s taken. I am updating (adding new pictures) the gallery on a weekly basis at least, so keep on checking on it. There you can see, for example, how the rucola is growing and the first pictures of the slowly upcoming lettuce.