Collard greens

[shirou]

This is a recipe for collard greens drawn mainly from Bottega Favorita. The original recipe calls for spinach, but I like collard greens better. I'm sure it would also work with any other kind of green.


Ingredients

• collard (or other) greens
• olive oil
• butter
• pine nuts
• raisins
• garlic
• juice of 1/4 lemon

Directions

1. Bring a pot of water to a rolling boil. Add the greens, let the water return to the boil, and cook for one minute. Remove the greens and immediately plunge them into a ready bath of ice water to stop the cooking. Remove and let dry.
2. Toast the pine nuts in a small quantity of olive oil.
3. Soak the raisins in water for 10 minutes. Drain and dry.
4. Melt the butter is a fry pan and add the garlic. After a minute or two, add the greens, lemon juice, pine nuts and raisin. Serve after the greens have wilted and everything has heated through.

The blanching (step one) helps reduce the bitterness of the greens and locks in the bright green color. It can be done far in advance of the wilting, so this dish is not only easy, it's also convenient as an accompaniment to something that requires more careful timing. The addition of the pine nuts and raisins is what makes this recipe a novelty -- the actual preparation of the greens is standard -- and they are what makes this dish stand out (in my opinion).

I toast my pine nuts in a fry pan with a little oil, but you can also spread them on a sheet pan and put it in the oven. I prefer the fry pan because it's easier to keep an eye on them; pine nuts have a tendency to burn when not carefully watched.

Pictures!

The boiling:



Toasted pine nuts:



Greens in the pan:



Greens on the plate, served with a pork chop and roasted red pepper:



[Cross posted to my personal journal.]

Comments

[feuervogel]

I bet that would be pretty tasty with escarole, too! I never eat collards in restaurants, because they've often got hambone in the stockpot. Welcome to the South, where even the vegetables have meat in them. -__-

[shirou]

Haha, I'm from the south too, so I know of what you speak. But, I have to confess, for this dish I sometimes use reserved bacon fat in lieu of butter: the smoky flavor actually complements the greens well. I decided to stick to butter for posting here, though, so that the recipe would be vegetarian friendly.

[feuervogel]

Most of us veggie types are accustomed to substituting $preferred_fat into recipes (or using veggie broth instead of chicken/beef, or putting in tempeh for cubed meat, or ...) :D

I'm a transplant to the south from a borderline-Yankee state (Maryland), so it took a bit of adjustment.

[boosette]

Mmmm, collards. I would totally make this with a hambone or lots and lots of bacon. (Not Southern by birth; my family is, though.)

I've also found that a good dose of celery salt and some ground cumin does a nice job of mimicking the smokey porky flavor collards love so much. (I was also vegetarian for about a year a while back.)

[damned_colonial]

Ooh! OM NOM NOM!