From Alice: Indian style collard greens

Annalena will confess, collards are a vegetable she had not done much with.  She was familiar with very old school, southern cooking, which involved a long, slow cook of these greens, usually with a piece of smoked pork of some kind.  And she love it.  She really does.  But when Annalena starts cooking southern (other than Italian), it always turns out... WRONG.  Have you wondered why there are no recipes for fried chicken here?  Or shoo fly pie?  Or hush puppies?  Or any of the other wonders of southern cooking?  It's not for lack of trying, or lack of respect:  it is, rather, for lack of competence.

Enter Annalena's muse, Ms  Alice Waters.  We go to her most recent cookbook again, for this one.  Her recipe, plus a trend in the type of collards one can get, make this possible.  It is SO good, and if you are looking for leafy greens, to serve at Christmas, which no one will have had before, this is the one to make.
You need one somewhat unusual item, but you should be able to get it.

The trend of which Annalena speaks, is the availability of younger collard greens.  Early in the season, the young, smaller leaves are available, and they do not need, and should not be, cooked for a long period of time.  You cook them just like swiss chard, or any other tender, leafy green.  As the year progresses, they get bigger, and tougher.  Well, somewhere along the line, someone realized that you could plant collards sequentially, rather than all at once, and get the younger ones for a longer period of time.   And that, ragazzi, has made Annalena very happy.

She is told that collards are eaten fairly regularly in India.  This may very well be the case.  Annalena has not verified this ; however, the spices here are Indian, and the dish is simple. SO simple.  So, ragazzi, if you are in the midst of a complex preparation for Christmas (as Annalena is), this one will make your life easier, and will get some good vegetables into you and your guests, between the ridiculous surfeit of richness that is coming your way.

The recipe multiplies.  To Annalena, one bunch of young collards is enough for two people. So increase as your needs require.  Cut the stems of the collards where they join the leaves.  You won't be using these.  Now, get the leaves into some boiling salted water and let them cook for, oh, 5-7 minutes, max.  Drain them, and when they are cool, roll them up in to cigars, and cut a "chiffonade"  (strips) of the leaves.  Squeeze them, along the way, to get out water.


The size of your frying pan will depend on how many bunches you are cooking.  Annalena is making four, so she needs her big one.  For every bunch of collards, get a tablespoon of olive oil hot, in the pan.  Have ready, again, per bunch, a teaspoon of ground cumin, and a teaspoon of brown mustard seeds (Black mustard seeds are truly Indian.  If you have them, or can get them, use them.  Brown mustard is what Annalena had, and it's what she used).  

Note that we have NO garlic, and NO onion in this recipe.  There is a reason for that.  Indian cooking very much is an aspect of religion, and since all food is offered to Vishnu, (in the school from which this recipe comes), what is repugnant to Vishnu, may not be used.  Garlic and onions are (presumably, because they grow underground).

Clearly, Vishnu would not make it in Italy.    Ok, enough of a digression.  When your olive oil is hot, add the greens, and stir them to coat with the oil.  Add the spices, stir for a minute, and if you need to (you very well might), add a few tablespoons of water.

And... you're done.  Unless you want some salt.  

Now, as another of Annalena's gurus, Ina Garten once wrote "how easy is that?"

So, carissimi, enjoy your holidays.  If you don't make this, hold it, perhaps for New Year's, perhaps for after, when you need something "clearing" and delicious.

If you do not see Annalena over the next couple of days, worry not. She will be in the kitchen... Baci.