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FOOD STUFF; Add a Dash of Green and the Dish Is DoneBy FLORENCE FABRICANT A finishing touch on a dish in a restaurant is often a scattering of tiny leaves, or microgreens, packing intense flavor. Now home cooks can add this same professional grace note with fresh snippets of baby plants direct from the refrigerator. Lauri Roberts, an entrepreneur in Warwick, R.I., has started a company called Farming Turtles (''I wanted a name that was funny and memorable,'' she said) to grow nine kinds of microgreens. They are sold in plastic tubs, growing in soil. Tuck them into the refrigerator and cut with scissors to use on all sorts of dishes. They are called salad toppers, but they have other uses, like garnishing fillets of fish, dressing up sandwiches and wraps, floating on soups and showering on pasta and risotto. Basil and cilantro are deeply flavorful. Arugula and a blend called Firecracker Zest pack plenty of spice. The onion, with its tiny black seeds, tastes richly oniony. Amaranth, carrot, baby red cabbage and an Asian blend are the other varieties, all $4.99 each and available at D’Agostino supermarkets in New York City and Westchester County. Dave's Marketplace stores in Rhode Island and Eastside Marketplace in Providence also sell them. |
