school me on some new greens! esp. collard greens, kale, etc.

a very basic way to cook collards:
wash well & remove the stems. if you eat meat, put some ham hocks on to boil for about half an hour then add the greens and cook for a further hour. when they're tender, remove and chop. salt, pepper, and cider vinegar are good seasonings. omit ham for a veg version, obviously.

n.b. - collards STINK when you cook them.

a very basic way to cook kale:
parboil (it's tough, like collards), then saute with lots of chopped garlic. at the very end, toss in some golden raisins and pinenuts before removing from heat.

Kale and collards in my mind need long slow braising with fatback or bacon and some cider vinegar. I wonder if some red miso would flavor it up for a vegetarian version? Or some lapsang souchoung tea, something to give it smokiness.

Some other greens to try are sea veg, things like nori and whatever it is they make that seaweed salad from at sushi bars.

A trick my mom told me recently regarding washing greens: for some reason, salting the wash water makes that last bit of grit let go and fall to the bottom of the sink.

My wife's family was too poor to add fatback or any kind of salt pork to their greens, so they added a dab of vegetable shortening and plenty of salt. Sometimes I wonder if the greens would be just as good without the fat.

After all the greens are gone, if the pot liquor is not too bitter, a decent snack is a piece of cornbread with a ladle of hot pot liquor over it. BTW, pot liquor will keep you reguar better than anything short of castor oil.

Perfect with roast chicken, poussin, pheasant, partridge etc

YO! i had phooi leaf aka Malabar spinach aka flowing water vegetable earlier tonight. it was awesome . but then, i love all greens.

British Spring Greens are pretty much my favourite food in the universe, I could eat them all year round.

Picked a huge bunch of chard from the garden - sweated sweet onion in bacon fat with some crushed red chiles, threw in the chopped stems and then the leaves. Really good.

so you cooked it in bacon fat and it was good

Yeah, I know. Doh. Normally it's with garlic in olive oil. Also good.

eat collard greens everyday

I agree about mustard greens, they have that tartness. You need them for saag paneer - yum. I substitute tofu because dairy products gave me bad gas and bloat.

I had some really good mustard greens last night. (Also had sweetbreads for the first time.)

mustard greens are amazing

yea love all those spicy greens. broccoli rabe could easily be my favorite vegetable. dandelion is great, too. i love all kinds of arugula from when it's tender and young and good for salads to when it's older and hot and mustardy as fuck.

i don't want to be that farmers market elitist but kale has to be one of my least favorite greens. either that or it's just too easy to fuck up. so many times i've had it in restaurants and it's either chewy and burnt or its mushy and overcooked.

best way to ensure good kale texture imo is to dunk it in a pot of boiling water and then saute lightly in a skillet (w/ garlic & olive oil obviously, sesame oil is good too)

i bought some callaloo (amaranth greens) from the market the other day. not sure what to do with them besides my standard greens treatment.