collard greens?

[endymion411]

hi!

i've only had collard greens a couple of times at a local restaurant and really enjoyed them. on a whim, i bought some at the store, and now i have no idea how to prepare/cook them.

help please! :o

[KarenS]

Oh collards are easy and so yummy. And amazingly good for you.

We usually make them after we have a ham because you boil the hambone with the bits of meat left on to make a really rich stock. If you don't have a hambone (and you can buy one for $4-$5 at Honeybaked if you want), you can use bacon or chunks of ham from the butcher at the grocery. I'll give you the changes for that at the end.

Bring your hambone to a boil n about 10 cups of water and then lower it to a simmer for about 2 hours. Strain the liquid off (and you can pick the ham through to add the bits of meat back in if you want or not) and reserve it. You should have 6-ish cups of broth, 4 of which you'll use for your average batch of greens.

Take your greens and rinse them WELL. Break off the thick stems. Stack the leaves in piles of 10 or so, fold them in 1/2 length wise, and slice them into ~ 1/2" thick strips.

In the bottom of a large pot, using just a little olive oil and butter, sweat a chopped onion. Add 4 cups of ham broth to the pot, bring to a boil and then lower to a simmer. Add the leaves a handful at a time, giving them a quick stir. As the first handful sinks, add another, until the leaves are all in the broth. If there's not enough broth to cover all the leaves, add some more. some people sprinkle pepper flakes in at this time - if you want spicy greens, add some pepper flakes and a clove of garlic, cut in half and bruised. Cover and cook for ~30 minutes, until the leaves are tender.

Remove from heat, and serve greens. I like to serve them in a serving bowl with the pot liquor, but provide a slotted spoon to drain them.

If you don't have a hambone and/or don't want to go to the trouble of making a broth, then use chicken stock instead, and add a few strips of bacon or some saltpork to the greens while simmering. Just be sure to fish out the bacon or pork before serving. (Alternately, you can chop the bacon and cook it with the onion in the bottom of the pot (w/out the olive oil and butter) and then continue the recipe as written with the chicken stock and so forth).

The recipe works for any kind of greens, collard, mustard, turnip, etc.

Karen

[endymion411]

thank you karen!!

[phoenics]

If you want southern collard greens (I know Karen lives in Atlanta, but I don't know anyone back home who cooks the actual greens for less than 2 hours - they're usually not tender enough for most of us - if you ate them at a local shop, they were probably very tender, right?), then you can take two hamhocks and a piece of salt pork and cover with water in a large pot. Add a little pepper and then bring it to a boil - simmer for about half an hour. The reason we do it this way is so that the water gets as much flavor as possible. Then you add your greens (chopped). If you don't like pork, my mom will substitute turkey neckbones.

Take your greens (you can find them in bags already chopped and cleaned - just clean them again yourself to be safe) and add them to the pot. Cook for at least 2 hours - until tender. If you like, you can add a little bit of sugar (not too much) towards the end of cooking. I usually cook my greens for about 3-4 hours, including the time to boil the meat.

Serve at the table with malt vinegar, louisiana hot sauce (texas pete is the best), tabasco sauce and hot pepper sauce. Some people also add a pickled sauce - my dad loves it.

Enjoy.

The recipe you use depends on how you like your greens. If you like them less tender - do it Karen's way. If you like them tender like a soul-food restaurant will do them, do it the above way.

[KarenS]

Oh totally yeah. I should have mentioned that. I like mine still a little crisp-tender. If you want them cafeteria style, cook 'em down. They're just as good ... just a different texture.

Karen

[phoenics]

Oh totally yeah. I should have mentioned that. I like mine still a little crisp-tender. If you want them cafeteria style, cook 'em down. They're just as good ... just a different texture.

Karen

LOL - I consider tender greens soul-food style greens. I don't know many cafeterias that can make collards right. Actually, I don't know any!! LOL! Most of them use frozen collards and those typically are pretty bad. The only good frozen collards I know of are the ones by Glory Foods (the frozen ones - I don't care much for the canned ones).

In Atlanta, the only places that make it right - other than my family - are places like The Beautiful, etc..

After I moved to CA, the cafeteria where I worked at IBM (we had our own cafeteria - very convenient) tried to make collards. They tasted like garbage - like they dipped it in a little oil and cooked them for like 10 minutes. I had half a mind to go back in the kitchen and show them how to do it right. They had the nerve to call the meal a southern meal - it was supposed to be fried catfish (they did not use cornmeal - not southern!), black-eyed peas (the insides were hard) and collards (tasted like grass).

I was not a happy camper, lol.

[endymion411]

the greens i had were definitely tender--i will have to give both ways a try and hopefully it will get me to eat more greens!

thanks ladies!

[kari]

Yea, I was going to say, I'm in California and have never had them.

[Adaya]

All I have to say is I'm getting hungry. I made some collard greens the other day and I brought some for lunch, but now I want them for breakfast. LOL!!

[Sha259]

I second phoenics recipe. I don't know if you eat ham, but a really good substitute that my family has always used is smoked turkey drums (which you can buy at the grocery store). You cook everything like phoenics described (add a little salt and/or chicken stock to the water if you like it salty), but the added bonus is some big really juicy chunks of turkey meat with the greens. When we cook it this way, I eat it like its a meal in itself. See, now I am in the mood for greens.

[phoenics]

Me too - I think I'm making greens this weekend, lol!

[pocket]

I cook them completely different!

I cut them into shreds and dry-saute them with garlic, red pepper, olive oil. Anything you can do to chard you can do to collards. You just have to cook them for longer.

[endymion411]

thank you all for sharing your cooking tips! i have never cooked with any kind of ham-anything before, so i will have to see what i find at the grocery store (otherwise, i will take the turkey suggestion, or maybe just use some sort of stock?).

thanks again!

[Dotsie]

Now, see I make mine differently.
I saute bacon until crisp and brown. I remove *some* of the grease. I then add the cleaned and chopped greens until they wilt (along with sliced onions and a chopped clove of garlic). I add chicken broth until the greens are covered. I add liberal amounts of Lawry's seasoning salt and 2 dried red peppers (spicy). I bring them to a boil and add a tablespoon or two of white vinegar. I drop the heat to medium low, cover and cook for several hours until tender. My next door neighbor growing up taught me this recipe. She was originally from N. Carolina.
People rave about them so I guess I'm doing something right;)