A quick and easy way to give kale a kick from ever-reliable BBC GoodFood. Use the kale in Camel CSA’s veg boxes this week along with our homegrown garlic and chilli.
Serves: 4
Preparation: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 8 minutes
Ingredients
200g curly kale
1tbsp olive oil
2 garlic cloves, finely sliced
1 red chilli pepper, deseeded and sliced
Method
Heat the oil in a large wok or frying pan, then add the kale and a couple tbsp water. Season, then stir-fry for 5-8 mins, adding the garlic and chilli for the final 2 mins. When the kale is tender and a vibrant green, remove from the heat and serve.
I first came across this nourishing national dish when exploring north Portugal on the back of a motor bike. We were on a tight budget, so cooked this soup often on our camp stove.
Every village market had a stall heaped with dark green leaves of couve galega (collard greens) – an open, flat-leaved cabbage that’s not dissimilar in texture and flavour to spring greens or kale. Behind this stall a woman was cutting the leaves into fine strands using a hand-operated shredder, ready to cook.
How do UK cooks make a reasonably authentic version of this traditional poor man’s soup? Answer: with kale. So here’s my own version, with thanks to food writers Jamie Oliver and Nigel Slater. For advice on how to make a proper Portuguese caldo verde, go to Azelia’s Kitchen.
Serves: 4
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 25 minutes
Ingredients
2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
3 or 4 large potatoes, peeled and diced
1 litre water or stock
300g red Russian kale or Tuscan kale (cavolo nero) or spring greens, finely shredded
150g chorizo or spicy sausage, sliced (optional)
black pepper
Method
Cook a finely chopped onion and clove of garlic in a little olive oil for 2 minutes. Add 3 or 4 large potatoes, peeled and diced, cook them for a minute or two, then pour in a litre of water or stock. Simmer for 20 minutes until the potatoes are soft then crush them gently.
Meanwhile prepare the kale. Cut out the stalks and roll the leaves up tightly like a cigar before cutting them into wafer-thin strips. Thickly slice the chorizo or spicy sausage.,
Stir the kale into the soup and simmer for barely five minutes. Fry the sausage briefly in a nonstick pan. Remove it, leaving the fat behind, and drop it into the hot soup. Serve immediately with a small pool of olive oil floating on the surface.
The winning ‘remedy’ recipe in a recent Guardian ‘Cook’ supplement was this quick and easy dal – ‘spicy enough to cut through a cold, and healthy enough to feel medicinal’. Recipe and photo by Helen Best-Shaw, fussfreeflavours.com
Preparation and cooking 40 minutes
Serves 2
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 tsp curry powder
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp nigella seeds
100g red lentils
250ml vegetable stock
juice of a lemon
1 large handful of kale, shredded
salt and black peppeer
Method
Fry the onion in the oil for a couple of minutes until softened, then add the spices and the lentils. Fry for a few minutes until the spices are fragrant.
Add the stock, simmer over a low heat, stirring from time to time for about half an hour, until the lentils are soft but still holding their shape. Add more stock if needed – you want them to be quite soupy.
Add the lemon juice, stir in the kale and cook for a few more minutes until it is wilted. Season to taste.
Angela Hartnett in the Guardian recommends this as a good substitute for a meat sauce for pasta – ‘loads of flavour and sure to satisfy’. For a seasonal twist, you can shave some chestnuts on top.
Serves 3-4
Preparation 5 minutes
Cooking 10-12 minutes
Ingredients
200g kale
370g dried egg tagliatelle
30ml olive oil
1 small onion, sliced
2 cloves garlic, finely sliced
½ red chilli, chopped
2 tsp capers
salt and pepper
grated parmesan
1 tbsp pine nuts
Method
Prepare the kale by tearing the leaves from the stems and cutting them into strips. Blanch them in a large pan of boiling salted water for four minutes, until just cooked. Drain the kale using a slotted spoon and bring the water back to the boil.
Add the pasta and cook as instructed on the packet until al dente. Meanwhile, add the olive oil and onion to a pan and saute for about three minutes. Throw in the garlic and chilli for a further minute. Add the kale and capers, season with salt and pepper and toss everything together.
Remove the pan from the heat and leave to one side while your pasta cooks. Drain the tagliatelle and add it to the kale and onion. Toss well together and finish with the pine nuts and parmesan.
Photo: Sarah Lee for the Guardian
This incredibly simple dish from BBC Good Food comes via the Grow to Love campaign at Horticulture Wales. (Thanks to Tony Little of Canolfan Organig Cymru/Organic Centre Wales for the tip-off.)
You can use any kind of kale to make it. This year at Camel CSA we’re growing two varieties – red Russian and Tuscan (cavalo nero), which are much superior in taste and texture to common curly kale.
Serves: 2-3
Preparation: 5 minutes
Cooking: 10 minutes
Ingredients
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 large garlic clove, sliced
200g kale,chopped
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp oyster sauce
Method
Heat the oil in a large wok or frying pan, then tip in the garlic and cook for a few secs. Throw in the kale and toss around the pan to coat in the garlicky oil.
Pour over 100ml boiling water and cook for 7 mins more until the kale has wilted and is cooked through. Stir in the soy and oyster sauces and heat through to serve.
Try with… Grilled chicken, pork or beef and a bowl of aromatic steamed rice.
From Sarah Raven’s Garden Cookbook. Serve with basmati rice and cucumber raita (yoghurt, garlic and chopped cucumber). It’s really tasty.
Serves 8
Preparation and cooking: about 40 minutes
Ingredients
1 large onion, finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
a little vegetable oil
1 heaped tsp medium curry powder
25g fresh grated ginger
2 green chillies or 1 red, finely chopped
salt and black pepper
25g chickpeas, soaked overnight and cooked till tender, or 2 x 400g tins
400ml tin of coconut milk
250g button mushrooms, halved
juice of 1 lime
2 lemon grass sticks
15 medium kale leaves
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp Thai fish sauce
large bunch of coriander
Method
Fry the onion and garlic gently in the oil until soft. Add the curry powder, fresh ginger, chilli, salt and pepper and stir.
Next, add the cooked chickpeas (drain and rinse tinned ones if using), coconut milk, mushrooms, lime juice and lemon grass sticks, and simmer for 30 minutes.
Remove the stems from the kale and chop the leaves into strips. Steam them for 5 minutes and then add them to the chickpea mixture. Add the soy and fish sauces.
Scatter with coarsely chopped coriander. This is best served warm when all the flavours seem to sing out.
A recipe from Nigella Lawson’s How to Eat. She claims it’s one of her ‘regular fast hot lunches’. Quantities are for one, so double, treble or quadruple etc as necessary.
Serves 1
Preparation 15 minutes
Cooking 15 minutes
Ingredients
175g kale
approx. 100g chorizo (the fresh or semi-dried sausages – rather than the salami type – half of one of the horseshoe-shaped linked sausage loops is about right)
1 egg
1 tbsp ordinary oil
Method
Remove the curly leaves of kale from the stems and tear the leaves into smallish pieces. Cut the chorizo into slices about 5mm to 1cm thick and then cut them into quarters. Bring a pan of water to the boil and add salt. Put the kale in the boiling water and cook till tenderish (about 5-7 minutes).
Put 1 tbsp oil into a heavy-bottomed, deepish frying pan and cook the chorizo pieces for a few minutes, stirring and pressing with a wooden sppon – 3 or so minutes should be fine. While this is happening, as well as keeping an eye on the kale, put a pan of water on to poach the egg. Drain the kale well when cooked and then stir into the chorizo. Put the egg in to poach and when it’s ready, turn the orange-spliced kale on to a plate and put the poached egg on top.
In last weekend’s Observer magazine, Nigel Slater sang the praises of kale – especially after a touch of frost. As well as using it as a side dish with a seasoning of crisp garlic and red chillies, he also cooked it with chorizo. For his recipe for a “less rich version of the classic cauliflower cheese” and other ways of using your winter greens, see his Cold as brassicas page.
Serves 2 as a light main course, 4 as a side dish
Preparation 5 minutes
Cooking 15 minutes
Ingredients
250g curly kale
250g cooking chorizo
a little groundnut or sunflower oil
50g skinned whole almonds
a clove of garlic, peeled and crushed
Method
Wash the kale thoroughly. Put several of the leaves on top of one another and shred them coarsely, discarding the really thick ends of the stalks as you go.
Cut the chorizo into thick slices. Warm a non-stick frying pan over a moderate heat, add the slices of chorizo and fry till the pieces are golden. Lift them out with a draining spoon on to a dish lined with kitchen paper. Discard the oil that has come out of the chorizo and wipe the frying pan clean. Add the almonds and cook for 2 or 3 minutes till pale gold then lift out and add to the chorizo.
Warm the oil in the pan, add the crushed garlic and shredded greens and cook for a couple of minutes, turning the greens over as they cook, till glossy and starting to darken in colour. Return the chorizo and almonds to the pan, add a little salt and continue cooking till all is sizzling, then tip on to hot plates.
From Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers’ River Café Cook Book Easy. They add this note, ‘All bean soups are made more delicious with a generous addition of the spicy-flavoured newly pressed olive oil poured over each serving. Tuscan olive oil is pressed at the end of October, which is also when the frosty weather starts and cavolo nero is ready to be picked.’
Serves: a generous 4
Preparation: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 45 minutes
Ingredients
500g cavolo nero
4 garlic cloves
2 red onions
4 carrots
1 celery head
1 dried chilli (or good pinch of dried chilli flakes)
400g tin borlotti beans
extra virgin olive oil (see note above)
½ tsp fennel seeds
200g tin tomatoes
500 ml chicken or vegetable stock
¼ sourdough loaf
Method
Peel the garlic, onion and carrots. Roughly chop 3 garlic cloves, the onion, pale celery heart and carrots. Crumble the chilli. Drain and rinse the beans.
Heat 3 tbsp of olive oil in a thick-bottomed pan, add the onion, celery and carrot and cook gently until soft. Add the fennel seeds, chilli and garlic and stir, then add the tomatoes, chopping them as they cook. Season and simmer for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the beans and stock, and cook for another 15 minutes.
Discard the stalks from the cavolo nero and boil the leaves in salted water for 5 minutes, drain and chop. Keep 4 tbsp of the water. Add the water and cavolo to the soup. Stir and season.
Cut the bread into 1.5cm slices. Toast on both sides, then rub with the remaining garlic and drizzle with olive oil. Break up the toast and divide between the soup bowls. Spoon over the soup and serve with more olive oil.
