Monday, March 31, 2014

Fashions in Vegetables: Kale







I'm a little late to this, but here we go:  The "in" vegetable these days is kale.

In the past, I mostly encountered kale at cocktail parties, where it served as a colorful underpinning to cooked and peeled shrimp, next door (usually) to  a small dish of Bookbinder's sauce.

But kale has come into its own in the last year or so.  Juicers (people who swirl up healthy breakfast meals, not athletes who use banned substances) now pulverize kale with other fruits and vegetables to make super-healthy breakfast or post-gym workout drinks.

I try to eat a healthy breakfast, and I go several times a week to the gym.  I figured I needed to look into this kale stuff.

I read articles about kale that suggested serving it, (cooked, of course) as a side dish at dinner.  Alas, the Significant Other and the younger person were uninterested.   Previously they had refused many offers to sample delicious French lentils with onions and chard.  I will not discuss their reactions to dandelion leaves except to say that such greens are no longer in our refrigerator's crisper drawer.

So I understood kale was a non-starter at home meals.  

Meanwhile, kale had gone mainstream, appearing on the menus of many hip restaurants.  So, the first time I saw a kale salad on the menu at a restaurant, I ordered it. 

Such a mistake.   The kale was cut into the usual bite-sized pieces.  Chewing up each mouthful took about fifteen minutes. After about three mouthfuls, the evening was over.  The kale had won.  Declaring defeat, I sent most of the salad back to the kitchen.  Enough was enough.

Once home, I consulted a couple of vegetarian cookbooks to learn how to deal with kale. 

Both acknowledged that kale has a texture that is spiny and tough.  Nobody recommends eating kale raw, but serious vegetarians warn that boiling will rob kale of some of its nutritional benefits. 

What to do? 

Here is a recipe from Barbara Kafka's Vegetable Love, 2005, a fine book that I consult often.  I believe she would be comfortable with my sharing a single recipe.  


Braised Kale

Kale can be cut and eaten well into the winter.  It may be an acquired taste -- but once acquired, it becomes a favorite.

2 Tbsp olive oil

4 3/4 pounds kale, stems removed

1 head garlic (about 10 plump cloves) separated into cloves,
smashed, peeled and chopped medium

2 teaspoons kosher salt

Freshly ground black pepper to taste

Heat the olive oil in a 12-inch-wide pot over low heat.  Take a handful of kale leaves and roughly stack them into a pile.  With a large kitchen knife, cut across into approximately 1/2-inch strips.  Throw the leaves into the pot.  Continue until all the kale is cut and cooking.
Increase the heat to medium and stir the kale around in the pot.  Cook for 10 minutes.  At this point, the kale will have begun to shrink dramatically.  Lift and turn the kale so that the pieces on the bottom move to the top; it is easy to do this using tongs, or use a wooden spoon.  Reduce the heat to low.  Cook for 5 minutes.

Add the garlic.  Stir to mix.  Simmer for 25 minutes.  Add the salt and pepper.  Serve.

Makes 8 cups; serves 8 to 10 as a side dish.

My Remarks

This sounds great, really, but I can't do it in my kitchen.  First off, it requires almost five pounds of kale. 

 Five pounds! I would be eating it for days, which is a bit much for even the most fashionable of vegetable consumers. And, as I have discussed, I am the only person in my household who would eat the stuff.

(I know, I know.  I could just halve the recipe.  I threw in the above comments for comic purposes.)

My second problem has to do with cutting up the kale, While I have a few good knives, neither they nor I are up to the task of cutting large pieces of stiff, unwieldy kale into 1/2-inch strips.  Maybe a good pasta machine set to linguine could do it, but I do not own or want to own a pasta machine.

Third, imagine the pot size required to hold even two pounds of kale!  My big soup pot couldn't do it.   And I am not obsessed enough with fashion to buy any more kitchenware. 

I suspect the people best suited to cooking kale are folks in the American south.  For many generations they have passed to their children recipes that turn collard greens, which are at best a true challenge to cook, into a side dish that is not just edible but so tasty that people ask for second and third helpings.  Southerners know to how to wrangle with nutritious leaves that fight back.

Kale Recommendation

Here are my suggestions:  

If you are a juicer, go ahead and try kale.  Let me know how it works.  Then maybe I'll try it myself.

Order kale at restaurants.  Before ordering kale salad, be sure to ascertain that the kale will be cut into very, very small pieces that can be chewed and swallowed before the end of the evening.    This now is possible at many fashionable eateries.  Combined with some sweet and crunchy accents and an interesting dressing, kale salad can be quite delicious.

As to cooking kale, proceed with great caution.


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