Maritime Hodge Podge - Creamy Summer Vegetables

Maritime Hodge Podge is a wonderfully rich dish from Eastern Canada, made with a variety of fresh summer vegetables, butter, and, of course, cream. And every family seems to have their own combination!

It was fun to delve into recipes for a dish I had never heard of prior to starting my search for Canadian recipes for this week’s Sunday FunDay post celebrating Canada Day. Hodge Podge caught my eye because: Fun name. But it took me down a rabbit hole with many tunnels, right, left and deeper. 

Side dish or main course? Add bacon or should it be strictly vegetarian? Sweet peas or sugar snap peas? Green beans, wax beans, cauliflower??? Little liquid (some called theirs a stew!) or enough to make it actual soup? So many questions came up and I found just about as many answers while researching this lovely dish that originated in an area of Eastern Canada called the Maritime, which is a collective term for the three small, neighboring provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island.

It's cooked in early summer when the vegetables are new and young with, apparently, whatever you have available to you locally. Lore says families don't actually follow specific recipes because the produce they might have varies. That said, I found a plethora of recipes shared online because Canadians are generous that way!

Sharp-eyed readers may notice that I wasn’t cooking this in my usual kitchen because we were on a week’s holiday on the west coast of Brittany at an Airbnb. The markets were fabulous and we were spoiled for choice in the fresh produce selection. I was delighted to find the yellow wax beans – haricots jaunes! They were in the ingredient list of quite a few of the recipes I found online for hodge podge and I hadn’t seen them at home. Score! I did bring the baby new potatoes with me so they are Jersey Royals. 

Maritime Hodge Podge – Creamy Summer Vegetables

As mentioned above, recipes had various combinations of vegetables so use what’s fresh, young and tender where you live. This is a dish where the vegetables should be the stars. Most recipes tended to have more potatoes and carrots than the other veg but I’m also leaving those amounts up to you. I’ll put my weights below, just as a guide. In the traditional spirit, I used what I had! 

Ingredients (Vegetable amounts are super flexible, see above!)

3 ½ oz or 100g smoked thick cut bacon, cut into pieces 

1 medium onion (6oz or 170g)

2 teaspoons fine sea salt

Baby new potatoes (6oz or 170g)

Cauliflower florets (4oz or 113g)

Young carrots (6oz or 170g)

Fresh wax beans (3oz or 100g)

Fresh peas or use either snow peas or young broad beans (6oz or 170g)

2 tablespoons butter, softened

2 tablespoons flour

½ cup or 120ml whipping or thick cream

Fine sea salt and fresh ground pepper – to taste

Method

Scrub your vegetables or peel as needed. Peel and chop the onion.

Cut the young carrots in halves or thirds. Trim the wax beans and, if using snow peas or broad beans, remove the string and cut into smaller pieces, diagonally. 

For the young broad beans, I use my sharp potato peeler to trim off the sides.

Cook the bacon in a skillet over medium-high heat until golden brown, about 10 minutes. 

Remove with a slotted spoon, leaving the bacon fat behind. If you end up with a lot of fat, you can take a tablespoon or so out and discard. Drain the bacon on a paper towel-lined plate. 

Reheat the skillet on medium heat and stir in the chopped onion. Cook until the onion has softened. Set aside.

In a large pot, bring 3 or 4 cups of water to a boil with the 2 teaspoons of salt.  Add in the potatoes and carrots. 

Boil for 3-4 minutes, then add in the cauliflower.

Boil for 3 minutes, then add in the peas, snow peas or broad beans. 

Continue boiling until the potatoes are cooked through. 

Meanwhile, mix the butter and flour together thoroughly to form a paste French chefs call beurre manié. I put the butter in the bowl first, then add the flour, using a spoon to press it into a paste. A beurre manié is ideal for thickening a sauce when you don’t want to risk lumps by adding in flour alone. 

Drain off all but 1 cup or 240ml of the water, leaving the vegetables behind in the pot. I find the easiest way to judge this is to drain all the water, catching the amount I need in a measuring cup. 

Add half of your water back into the pot in the middle of the vegetables. Add the beurre manié to the pot and stir gently to mix it with the water. 

Once the butter is melted, give the whole thing another gentle stir. 

Add in the cooked onions and pour in the cream and stir gently.

Simmer for 8 to 10 minutes. If it looks a little dry, add more of your reserved vegetable boiling water. That’s why we saved a whole cup!

Add in most of the bacon, setting a small handful aside for garnish. 

Add some salt, if you’d like, and a few generous grinds of black pepper. Stir gently.

I served this as a side dish so, as you can see, it came to the table in a serving bowl with the reserved bacon on top. 

Enjoy! 

It’s Sunday FunDay and today we are sharing recipes ahead of Canada Day, which falls on July 1st, the anniversary of the Constitution Act of 1867, which created the self-governing nation originally called the Dominion of Canada. Kudos to our northern neighbors and I hope you enjoy some of their regional recipes! Many thanks to our co-hosts, Mayuri of Mayuri's Jikoni and Amy of Amy's Cooking Adventures. Check out the links below. 

• Canadian Butter Tarts by Karen’s Kitchen Stories
• Cherry Chip Cake by Amy's Cooking Adventures
• Maple Banana Muffins by Sid's Sea Palm Cooking
• Maritime Hodge Podge - Creamy Summer Vegetables by Food Lust People Love
• Nanaimo City's Namesake Bars by A Messy Kitchen
• Pouding Chômeur by Mayuri's Jikoni
• Pumpkin Pie with Homemade Pie Crust by Sneha's Recipe
• Quick and Easy Poutine by A Day in the Life on the Farm

 

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