Cooking with Kale

Autumn is the time of the year when deep leafy green vegetables hit my weekly fruit and vegetable delivery.  I love leafy vegetables.  Probably because my mother was a big fan and grew her own.  There is nothing that beats fresh chard, steamed with just a little butter.  The perfect side for a warming meal.

This week’s food box included some wonderful fresh kale.  I posted on Twitter that I was on the lookout for some ideas on how to use the kale, and got some great replies.

There were a lot of suggestions to use kale in a soup… Caleb sent a link to a Ribolitta Italian soup recipe from Real Simple , adding that his family substitutes kale for the chard, and also adds sweet potatoes.  Sometimes he says they also add sweet sausage.  Sounds delicious, and it also looks similar to the minestrone I make which means it is not a difficult soup (a bonus).  The Holisticguru Christine Lynch suggested white bean soup with kale.  Definitely worth trying out…

My friend Dan suggested one of his favourite meals.  Coating a white fish in dijon mustard, dipping the fish piece in oatmeal, lightly frying – served with a side of kale with a dijon white sauce.  Another mouth wateringly good idea – but I was hunting for a side dish for beef… File that one away for later…

Jessica suggested kale chips, which basically are made by taking kale (discarding the stalks), chopping it up, tossing in olive oil and salt, and baking in a hot oven until crispy.  Depending on how large you make the pieces, this turns out like chips, or like the “seaweed” you get in a Chinese restaurant (if you shred the kale small enough).

My friend Tim suggested one of my favourite ways to serve kale – blanche the kale, then stir fry in olive oil with a bit of garlic.  I also do this occasionally with red chili flakes.  Khara suggested something similar, but tossed with a warm vinaigrette, a la Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall .  She says the key is the cider vinegar.  And Chris suggested a twist on the stir fry using soy sauce, anise and sesame seeds – I think you could probably use sesame oil instead of the seed and with the soy sauce.

Ian suggested risotto with kale and bacon (subbing kale for the greens in this recipe ). I love risotto and I think this is a good idea.

Grant suggested a twist on this – rather than blanching the kale to serve it raw (washed well) – the trick being to shred the kale finely, and then to dress with a raw garlic, extra virgin olive oil and lemon dressing.  The key being the fine shredding of the leaves – making sure to discard the stalks.

Other kale ideas include adding to mashed potatoes, mashed turnips/swede (I always add carrots when doing turnip mash for a bit of sweet), or mashed white beans. 

But the recipe that caught my eye was one from Jeannie . I met Jeannie when she was travelling through London and I know she adores food as much as me. The recipe she sent was for braised Italian style kale (cavolo nero) but I figured that I could sub out cavolo nero for regular kale.  Also, I did not have stock to hand, and wasn’t planning to make it, so instead I used the water from blanching the kale to braise it.  A good way to hold onto the nutrients.

This was the perfect warming side dish for the meat I was cooking.

Ingredients:

Kale – the leaves, discarding the heavy stalks
Pancetta cubes – bacon would also work
Half an onion
Butter

How to:

1.  Blanche the kale (boil the leaves in water for about 5 minutes)
2.  Heat the butter and in a heavy based pot, brown the onions.
3.  Add the pancetta / bacon to the onions and cook well.
4.  Add the blanched kale, and about an inch of the water used to blanche the kale.
5.  Place in a warm oven for about 30-45 minutes, keeping an eye on the water level (do not let the kale burn / stick to the pot!

Enjoy!