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daidoji_giseiYesterday when I came home from work I noticed that my mustard greens had grown enough to allow a second harvest, so I decided to make the greens with cornmeal recipe that yhlee had introduced me to some time ago. I bought some cornmeal at work (mmmmmmm...polenta grind cornmeal), came home, and realized that with as much bread as I had in the house, making a grain-heavy dish for dinner was not the brightest thing in the world. So I put the cornmeal aside and started thinking.
What popped into my mind first was that Bittman's greens cookbook has a recipe for curried greens of some sort that had always sounded good, and I had onions and a new kind of curry powder I'm making friends with, and this was starting to sound like a plan. I could have gotten the relevant cookbook out at this point, but I'm not really that kind of a person. I've made curries, I've cooked greens; having given me the idea the cookbook had done its job and could put its feet up and relax.
I put one of my big Visions pots on the stove (some days you just need a pot you can see through), added 2 tablespoons of oil and started it heating over a low flame. Then I chopped a really big onion into chunks (I think it must have been 2 or 3 cups), added them to the pot, put the lit on, and let them sweat/braise until they were soft and almost starting to brown. Meanwhile I chopped the mustard I had picked (it was already washed; I'd done that as soon as I had brought it in from picking) and when I was done I had about 12 cups. This was slightly depressing, because I knew from experience that this would end up as an absurdly small amount of greens once it was cooked.
Anyway. My new brand of curry powder was one I picked up in a Middle Eastern grocery I had visited for the first time last week. It comes in a green metal tin with a ship on the front and it proudly proclaims itself as being "Arabia's best selling curry powder". Really, how could I resist it? And truthfully I am liking it so far; it seems to be better balanced than the kind we sell at the store. The onions being soft and almost-brown I added a quarter-teaspoon of salt and a teaspoon of the curry powder, stirred it up, and let it cook a bit in onion mess before adding the greens. Then I put the lid on and waited for the steam to start cooking them. After about 10 minutes they had begun to shrink, so I stirred them up a bit, distributing well the leaf-clumps that hadn't started to wilt yet, and then put the lid back on. In another 10 minutes they and all cooked down nicely, so snagged a bit with a clean fork and tasted. It was a little too sweet (hello, onions!) and not quite spicy enough, so I added another quarter-teaspoon of salt and another teaspoon of curry powder. Then I let it all cook a bit longer until it looked "enough".
I dished some out for my dinner and it was wonderful. It was just how I like my veggie curries, with the spice zinging up the flavor without masking the taste of the greens--odd as it sounds, I like the flavor of mustard greens and I want to be able to taste them. I could have eaten the whole pot, but I restrained myself--while cooking I had this great idea of, when reheating the leftovers, poaching a few eggs in the brothy greens and having an almost-instant dinner. I can't deal with poached eggs straight up, but a few years ago I discovered I liked cooking (and eating) them in something saucy.
In conclusion, I will be making this again.
yhlee had introduced me to some time ago. I bought some cornmeal at work (mmmmmmm...polenta grind cornmeal), came home, and realized that with as much bread as I had in the house, making a grain-heavy dish for dinner was not the brightest thing in the world. So I put the cornmeal aside and started thinking.What popped into my mind first was that Bittman's greens cookbook has a recipe for curried greens of some sort that had always sounded good, and I had onions and a new kind of curry powder I'm making friends with, and this was starting to sound like a plan. I could have gotten the relevant cookbook out at this point, but I'm not really that kind of a person. I've made curries, I've cooked greens; having given me the idea the cookbook had done its job and could put its feet up and relax.
I put one of my big Visions pots on the stove (some days you just need a pot you can see through), added 2 tablespoons of oil and started it heating over a low flame. Then I chopped a really big onion into chunks (I think it must have been 2 or 3 cups), added them to the pot, put the lit on, and let them sweat/braise until they were soft and almost starting to brown. Meanwhile I chopped the mustard I had picked (it was already washed; I'd done that as soon as I had brought it in from picking) and when I was done I had about 12 cups. This was slightly depressing, because I knew from experience that this would end up as an absurdly small amount of greens once it was cooked.
Anyway. My new brand of curry powder was one I picked up in a Middle Eastern grocery I had visited for the first time last week. It comes in a green metal tin with a ship on the front and it proudly proclaims itself as being "Arabia's best selling curry powder". Really, how could I resist it? And truthfully I am liking it so far; it seems to be better balanced than the kind we sell at the store. The onions being soft and almost-brown I added a quarter-teaspoon of salt and a teaspoon of the curry powder, stirred it up, and let it cook a bit in onion mess before adding the greens. Then I put the lid on and waited for the steam to start cooking them. After about 10 minutes they had begun to shrink, so I stirred them up a bit, distributing well the leaf-clumps that hadn't started to wilt yet, and then put the lid back on. In another 10 minutes they and all cooked down nicely, so snagged a bit with a clean fork and tasted. It was a little too sweet (hello, onions!) and not quite spicy enough, so I added another quarter-teaspoon of salt and another teaspoon of curry powder. Then I let it all cook a bit longer until it looked "enough".
I dished some out for my dinner and it was wonderful. It was just how I like my veggie curries, with the spice zinging up the flavor without masking the taste of the greens--odd as it sounds, I like the flavor of mustard greens and I want to be able to taste them. I could have eaten the whole pot, but I restrained myself--while cooking I had this great idea of, when reheating the leftovers, poaching a few eggs in the brothy greens and having an almost-instant dinner. I can't deal with poached eggs straight up, but a few years ago I discovered I liked cooking (and eating) them in something saucy.
In conclusion, I will be making this again.
