So I've mentioned a few times now that I've been harvesting kale for the past few days. Walt took and posted a picture of the kale plants as they looked in the garden just before I started cutting them down.
We planted this kale 9 or 10 months ago. Attacked early on by little black "flea" beetles, and then by extreme drought and weeks of high temperatures, it suffered through the summer.
The kale plants survived and started to recover in November, when the winter rains began. It began to look very pretty only in January. We let it keep growing. It's called kale or chou kale in France, where it is not yet very well known. I did see some curly kale in the produce department at our local SuperU store recently, but it was pretty neglected-looking.
This is a variety of kale called Red Russian or Siberian. It is about the tenderest kind of kale you can eat. It more resembles spinach in taste and texture when cooked. I see it called kale rouge de Russie on French Wikipédia.
There were 8 plants, I believe, or maybe 10. I cut all but two of them a few days ago, pulled the leaves off the stems, which went into the compost pile, and cooked the leaves. I ended up with about two kilograms — 4½ lbs. — of cooked kale.
I cut the last two plants yesterday. One of them was very different in appearance from the others. The leaves it produced were rounder and less ragged looking that those on all the other plants.
Red Russian is a flat-leaf kale, and that makes it much easier to wash than the better-known curly-leaf variety. It's also very different in texture from the "meatier" kale called Dinosaur or Black Tuscan (kale noir in French), which I've grown in the past and really like too.
Yesterday I blanched the leaves of the last two kale plants. Today I'm going to cook some kale with garlic, olive oil, and lemon juice for our lunch, alongside half a smoked chicken.
Another recipe for you, from Kenya. It's called irio. Usually it's made with a kind of collard green called sukumawiki, or "push the week," so named because it was introduced as cattle fodder but people started eating it as well to get by.
ReplyDeleteMake mashed potatoes.
Sauté some onions. Add to the potatoes, along with a can of drained red beans (or cook up a batch) and a can of corn.
Finely chop the greens, whether spinach, kale or collard greens. You might need to cook the kale if it's tough (add it to the onions), but usually with spinach or collard greens, you mix in it raw. When the greens are raw, the chlorophyl comes out and tints the potatoes a brilliant green, very pretty with the red beans. Eat with a clean right hand. In many countries the feel of the food is as important as the look, smell and taste.
Unless they are baby leaves, collard greens normally need longer cooking than kale. The Red Russian kale is very tender, so it seems it would be good in this dish, which sounds delicious. It reminds me a little of this greens and beans dish, which doesn't however include potatoes but rice, millet, or bread crumbs. It can be made with garbanzo beans or red beans.
DeleteI was going to say: I used to enjoy eating collard greens in Ethiopian restaurants in Washington DC with, as you say, my clean right hand. One such restaurant was The Blue Nile, on 16th street not too far from the White House.
DeleteGood news, you came back to the former settings. Now, you can answer directly a commenter, if you want and that is very convenient. Now, I think would be commenters whose comment do not appear will have to try different browser depending on the nachine they use to see what sticks!
ReplyDeleteI usually write my comment in Notes on my iPad mini, copy it and paste it in Duckduckgo. Whenever I am at my laptop, I use Firefox. When Puffin was still supported by Apple, I never had any problem. Never use Chrome and very seldom Safari. All these giants work against each other, not together for the good of all.
I also like white on black so much more than black on white. So much easier on the eyes!
DeleteI like white text on a black background too. A white background on a computer screen is blinding.
DeleteI used to love harvesting parsley and kale when there was snow on the garden. I'm glad your plants had this comeback after the horrible flea beetles. And your way of cooking it sounds very satisfying. Garlic, olive oil and lemon juice are the best.
ReplyDeleteJust finished lunch — kale with lemon and garlic, roasted chicken — and the kale was really good.
DeleteYes, as others have said glad to see the old format! I like the "less meaty" kales. My sister makes kale chips by taking out the spine, brushing them with olive oil and sea salt and under the broiler for a minute.
ReplyDeleteYour comment towards the end about the difference between this flat leaved Red Russian and the curly, or parsley leaved kale is so true.
ReplyDeleteWe started at our Leeds allotment by growing Redbor and Showbor, both parsley leaved kales and extremely "frilly".... Red Russian hadn't come onto the market... our allotment was on an extremely sandy soil. That meant, whenever we picked either variety, we took home half the allotment!!
And, even the most vigorous washing and rinsings never seemed to get rid of all the grit... your teeth would find some during the meal!!
Then Red Russian was one of the Gardening Which [a UK consumer magazine] growing trials and Pauline received some free seed.... we never planted Redbor and Showbor again.
That soil was also the reason we only grew flat-leaved Italian parsley.....
I've just read that France is to be locked down from Tuesday midday: 'All residents have been ordered to stay at home, and can only leave for essential reasons'. :((
ReplyDelete