daidoji_gisei (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
daidoji_gisei) wrote2006-10-19 07:21 am
daidoji_gisei) wrote2006-10-19 07:21 am
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How I Cook: Red-Cooked Kale with Chicken
I work in a grocery store and in the grocery business there are times when the store has to write off food that is perfectly edible but no longer, for a variety of reasons, sellable. I don't know what other stores do with such food, but ours hates waste and so if it's a small quantity it goes in the free-box for employees and if it's a large quantity we call one of the local food-redistribution charities to take it. I'm always interested in the contents of the free-box because it frequently holds stuff that I would never think of buying and is thus inspirational--I love to cook, but after 20-some years the question of "What do I make for dinner tonight" can get a little tedious.
Yesterday the free-box was filled with bunches of kale--Produce had gotten a box that was aphid-infested and promptly written it off (after filing a pointed complaint to our produce supplier). This excited me to no end because while I like kale (though I like mustard more) I had never tried to cook fresh kale--my mom never cooked greens at all, and so when I first experimented with them a few years back I got mine from the freezer section. The thought of aphids was kind of a downer, but I knew from gardening that they do wash off with some effort. And besides, as an ex-Girl Scout leader I know I've eaten worse things, like french toast cooked on a campfire by an 8-year-old.
Arriving home with my prize I dug out my greens cookbook (Leafy Greens, by Mark Bittman; a cookbook I recommend without hesitation) and started looking for ideas. Eventually I found Red-Cooked Collards, a recipe that I'd tried before and liked. Soy sauce, star anise, fresh ginger, garlic--what's not to like? I didn't have sherry but I did have a good fresh chicken stock in the fridge so I was good to go. Also, I had kale not collards, but they are the same species and any recipe that works for one will usually work for the other.
After some minor drama in tracking down my star anise supply I set to work cleaning and chopping the kale and quickly developed a sympathy for the offending produce supplier: the leaves were so stiff and frilly that small woolly mammoths could have hidden successfully in them. Eventually I triumphed and was ready to put the chopped leaves into the simmering soy sauce mixture, and discovered a new source of drama: The leaves were twice the volume of my cooking pot. After a moment's contemplation I reasoned that since greens cook down a lot there probably (hopefully) was no need to drag out another pot, I'd just add the kale in stages. That's what I did, and it worked, though I did have to stir very carefully.
While it was cooking I chopped a handful of roast chicken into bite-sized pieces and added them to the pot to heat and soak up some cooking juices. I also boiled up some Chinese egg noodles, because the only bread I had in the house was challah and I didn't feel quite up to that particular adventure in fusion cooking.
In the end it turned out wonderful. I had seconds on the kale and even thought about thirds but decided that I didn't need that much sodium at one sitting. I cook with low-sodium Kikkoman, but still.... But I've decided that it's worth the effort to clean and chop fresh kale. I'll still keep the frozen stuff on hand, though--frozen vegetables are a guilt-free convenience food. Also, I need to buy a larger supply of star anise and stop storing it is a little plastic bag--those things are near-impossible to find in my spice cabinet.
Yesterday the free-box was filled with bunches of kale--Produce had gotten a box that was aphid-infested and promptly written it off (after filing a pointed complaint to our produce supplier). This excited me to no end because while I like kale (though I like mustard more) I had never tried to cook fresh kale--my mom never cooked greens at all, and so when I first experimented with them a few years back I got mine from the freezer section. The thought of aphids was kind of a downer, but I knew from gardening that they do wash off with some effort. And besides, as an ex-Girl Scout leader I know I've eaten worse things, like french toast cooked on a campfire by an 8-year-old.
Arriving home with my prize I dug out my greens cookbook (Leafy Greens, by Mark Bittman; a cookbook I recommend without hesitation) and started looking for ideas. Eventually I found Red-Cooked Collards, a recipe that I'd tried before and liked. Soy sauce, star anise, fresh ginger, garlic--what's not to like? I didn't have sherry but I did have a good fresh chicken stock in the fridge so I was good to go. Also, I had kale not collards, but they are the same species and any recipe that works for one will usually work for the other.
After some minor drama in tracking down my star anise supply I set to work cleaning and chopping the kale and quickly developed a sympathy for the offending produce supplier: the leaves were so stiff and frilly that small woolly mammoths could have hidden successfully in them. Eventually I triumphed and was ready to put the chopped leaves into the simmering soy sauce mixture, and discovered a new source of drama: The leaves were twice the volume of my cooking pot. After a moment's contemplation I reasoned that since greens cook down a lot there probably (hopefully) was no need to drag out another pot, I'd just add the kale in stages. That's what I did, and it worked, though I did have to stir very carefully.
While it was cooking I chopped a handful of roast chicken into bite-sized pieces and added them to the pot to heat and soak up some cooking juices. I also boiled up some Chinese egg noodles, because the only bread I had in the house was challah and I didn't feel quite up to that particular adventure in fusion cooking.
In the end it turned out wonderful. I had seconds on the kale and even thought about thirds but decided that I didn't need that much sodium at one sitting. I cook with low-sodium Kikkoman, but still.... But I've decided that it's worth the effort to clean and chop fresh kale. I'll still keep the frozen stuff on hand, though--frozen vegetables are a guilt-free convenience food. Also, I need to buy a larger supply of star anise and stop storing it is a little plastic bag--those things are near-impossible to find in my spice cabinet.