This is my favorite way to prepare dark leafy greens, and I do so at least once a week, to eat either on their own, as a side, or in a larger concept like a soup or a stew or a farroto. I really like my greens to have a bit of bite, not be totally mushy, yet it’s important that they’re fully cooked and soft. This method will allow you to achieve that. This will work well with any variety of dark, tough, leafy greens, including, but not limited to kale, mustard greens, and some kinds of chard. It will work with collards, too, but there are other ways to go about preparing those. Spinach as well, sure, but I’ve got another preparation that I prefer. This is really best when made with kale, and if you’re cooking kale, this is the best way to do so.
One of the most important things to know about preparing greens is how to properly wash them. Greens are naturally dirty or sandy, and unlike lettuce or arugula or spinach, they’re not often sold pre-packaged and triple washed, so you’ve got to do it yourself. One single grit of sand is one too many, so be thorough. What you’ve got to understand is that holding the greens under running water will never properly do the job – there are too many crannies where a recalcitrant deposit of caked mud can hide. You’ve got to plunge your greens, and you’ve got to plunge them several times. The old adage about collards holds that you should soak them – that’s not a bad idea if your greens have been grown in mud that won’t even loosen after a could quick plunges. Soaking them allows anything clinging to the greens to soften up so that repeated plunging in water will allow them to swirl free. Repeated plunges in cold water have the wonderful ancillary effect of refreshing the greens, so even if your greens are feeling a little tired when you take them out of the fridge, you can expect to revive them a bit through the washing process.
Ingredients:
- 1 large bunch of greens
- 1 large shallot
- 2 TBSP olive oil
- 1 TBSP red pepper flakes
- ¼ cup chicken stock
- Salt and pepper
Directions:
I usually begin by preparing the greens themselves. I trim away the tough ends of the stems first and discard them. Then I cut out the center stem by holding each leaf upside down over a large metal bowl and running my knife alongside the rib on one side, then the other. You can do this on the cutting board, but if you’ve got a sharp knife, it’s very satisfying to do it over the bowl. If you don’t have a sharp knife, you’d be better served spending your time here. I discard the stems, unless I’m cooking chard, whose stems are delicious, but need to be cooked first, since they’re much tougher. I do so in the same pot I’ll do the rest in, just in some olive oil with salt and pepper over medium heat for about 5 minutes until they’re thoroughly wilted. Otherwise, although kale stems etc can be delicious, I don’t really bother with them.
Once all the leaves have been separated from the stems, I generally remove all the leaves and pack them into a tight ball on the cutting board, then slice into roughly 2 inch bands. I don’t bother to stack them up so that I end up with exact 2 inch ribbons throughout; this is a rough chop to make things manageable when they’re cooked, and some unevenness is perfectly acceptable – one of the few times in this whole collection that it is.
Next, I wash the greens. To do so, you’re going to need two large bowls or one large bowl and one colander. Place the cut greens back in the bowl and fill with as much cold water as the bowl will allow. When it is full, and after allowing to soak for a few minutes if desired, plunge the greens with mostly up and down motions with your whole hand. Then, inserting just your fingers, wag your hand vigorously from side to side. Next remove the greens in handfuls to either another bowl or a colander. I like to use the latter, since in this case you want some water clinging to the greens when you start cooking them, but not too much and the colander helps them drain. Either way, lift the greens out and place them in the 2nd vessel – do not pour them out, or all the sandy, silty, dirty water will just pour right back over them.
When the 1st bowl is empty of greens, check the bottom and note how much sand, mud, or dirt is there. Pour the water out in the sink and check out the bottom. Depending on how shocking the amount of dirt and sand is, you’ll know what kind of farmer and purveyor you’re dealing with. Rinse the bowl until it is pristine, swirling water around the inside until you are certain that not a single grain of earth is left, then replace the greens in the bowl and repeat the process. You should have to do this three times – never less, sometimes more. The last time you do it should be the time when there is zero particulate at the bottom of the bowl.
At this point, your greens are clean as can be and feeling refreshed and your hands are numb and freezing. You don’t need to go crazy with drying the greens and a salad spinner is unnecessary, but I like to shake off the excess water in the colander by giving the greens three or four sharp shakes from side to side and up and down right after they’re rinsed and then again, after leaving them in the colander while preparing the rest of the dish, right before adding them to the pan.
Remember to either rinse off your cutting board or wipe it off with vigor before using it again. Your pre-washed greens have come into contact with it, however briefly, and they may well have left some grit behind that you don’t want brought back in after all the work you’ve done to wash your greens. Chop your shallot by slicing in half perpendicular to the equator (south pole to north pole), then slice off the root and the tip and peel away the skin. Slice thinly the long way (again, north to south) so you have long thin strips.
Place the largest, heavy bottom skillet with the highest sides you own on medium high heat and add the olive oil. If you’ve got a huge bunch of kale, it may not fit when raw, so if that’s the case, or you’re making a double or more batch, you can use a stockpot, but generally I prefer the skillet because more of the kale comes into contact with the high heat of the bottom.
When the oil is shimmery, add the shallot, salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes. Stir and shake to break up the shallot and distribute everything evenly in one layer. Cook for about three minutes, until the shallot is totally wilted and just starting to crisp here and there. Turn the heat to high – you don’t want the shallots to burn, but when you add the greens and all the cold water that’s clinging to them, the pan will cool significantly so we want to raise the heat to get it going so that the cooking process doesn’t slow down. Shake the greens as dry as you can shake them (but don’t go to greater lengths to further dry them) and add them to the pan in large handfuls (again, don’t pour, just because you don’t want any excess water to make it). When the last handful is in, carefully turn the greens a few times with your tongs, to try to get everything at least a little contact time with the oil in the bottom of the pan. Cook this way on high heat, turning every 30 seconds or so, for about 2-3 minutes, until the color of the greens has darkened and the volume has reduced by about a third.
Add the chicken stock, reduce the heat to medium low, and cover.
Cook, removing the cover only once or so to stir/toss and check on the level of liquid, for about 15 minutes, until the greens are totally soft and retain none of their chalky, chlorophyll-like flavor, but still have a bit of a bite to them. They shouldn’t be total mush. While they’re cooking with the cover on, steam should be escaping out the sides from under the lid, but it should be doing so lazily, not frenetically – curling upwards from the sides, not shooting straight out. Just like an experienced cook can evaluate the thickness of a sauce by the size, frequency, and character of its bubbles, the same cook should be able to judge how quickly something is cooking even with the lid on by the trajectory that escaping steam takes – if it’s got some arc to it and seems more concerned with moving up than out, it’s in good shape, and if it’s bulging straight outward like a throbbing dick, something on the bottom of the pan is going to burn. In this case, you want the greens to braise in their liquid and the stock, so there’s no reason to try to burn off the liquid before they’re cooked.
When they have cooked, however, you do want to try to get rid of excess liquid. I like each bite of these to be juicy and moist but for them not to arrive on the plate swimming in their own liquid. I often find that the perfect amount of liquid – a combination of how much of their own they contain, how much was left clinging to them after washing, and how much stock you’ve added, so rather impossible to judge unless you’re familiar with the greens themselves and have cooked those specific ones (from that farm and in that season) several times before – burns off with the lid on just as they’re done. If they’re finished braising and there’s a veritable soup at the bottom of the pan, most likely you’ve added too much liquid or not dried them enough.
More frequently, however, there are a few tablespoons of liquid still present, which I think it will serve us well to reduce and/or evaporate. So, with the lid off now, I turn the heat to high, and stirring just frequently enough to avoid anything sticking or burning, and cook for another few minutes, until the liquid has mostly disappeared. These greens should be quite forgiving, and cooking an additional few minutes doesn’t seem to bother them at all.
These are delicious cold, at room temperature, held and incorporated into another dish, but it is perhaps best to serve and enjoy at once.
The Grumpy Gastronome 
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