19 July 2011

Braised Tuscan Kale

I had potted some Tuscan Kale seedlings on the balcony which did very well until the plague of white butterfly caterpillars pillaged them to the stem. As is my way, I chopped off their heads and left them there to see what would happen. Lo and behold each stalk bore two new mini-kale heads, but unfortunately, mini is where it stopped as the winter frost and lack of sun stunted their growth to a rather sad point.




The first time I ever had Tuscan Kale was on a photography camp, where one of the lecturers happened to also be an amazing cook, and he made a dahl/curry/chickpea/tuscan kale extravaganza one night that will always be stuck in my head.

Margaret Fulton's Encyclopedia of Food has a pretty good generic recipe for dealing with all the leafy greens (which I will have to dig out to post here) which I vaguely remembered and re-used:

Melt butter in a pan
Add (tiny half cm squares) chopped onion and garlic, heat until onion is translucent
Add thinly sliced bacon, heat until cooked
Add sliced tuscan kale, heat until wilted and cooked through
Add pinenuts
Nom.

Unfortunately with such a tiny harvest (both in leaf size and number) I got the ratios a bit wrong as you can see, but was a good excuse to have an excessively buttery bacony side dish to go with the bangers and mash Chris was making!


2 comments:

  1. I don't think I've ever had kale, tuscan or otherwise. I can't see any problem at all with buttery bacony side dishes.

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  2. It's really quite delicious...but I am one of those weird people who loves silverbeet, brussel sprouts and sauerkraut... so kale is just delish...cabbagey nutty awesomeness!

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