An Irish classic: colcannon

Whenever someone says, of a dish, ragazzi, that "it's a classic," be warned:  you will  soon have at least a dozen different recipes for the "classic."  Undoubtedly, each of these dishes, dubbed "classic" has a codified recipe, somewhere, be it  "The Silver Spoon" for Italian food,  "Brillat -Savarin" for French,  "1008 recipes" for Iberia, and so forth.  Yet, what you learn, in studying the "classic" dishes of different cuisines,  is that ultimately, while there are some principles behind them which do not change,  everyone has his or her own view on how to make it.  Sometimes, this results from circumstances:  you don't have "X," so you use "Y," because it's similar.  Sometimes, it's taste:  you don't like "A" so you use "B," or your kids won't eat "C" so you use "D."  And so on and so forth. 

Colcannon is one of those dishes.  When Annalena worked at the large law firm where she spent a good 13 years, she had a gal pal named Sara.  While not a vegetarian, Sara ate very little meat.  Sara also embodied "IRISH," and she loved Irish food.  One day, she told me of the two or three DOZEN different ways she had eaten colcannon  - and how she loved them all.

Annalena does not know much about Irish food, beyond colcannon and soda bread.  What she knows of the former, however, is that it always contains potatoes, greens, and dairy.  Most of the recipes Annalena has seen, use cabbage.  And most of them boil the cabbage.  

Here comes a bit of a food anthropological digression:  much more of one than usual, ragazzi.   Claude Levi -Strauss, who has written on hierachies of cooking,  has theorized that in terms of status, boiling foods sits at the bottom of the standard preparation methods.  It requires the least equipment,  and costs the least to do, since water, especially if you don't have indoor plumbing, is free.    Irish,  especially those who came to the United States, were poor.  Annalena will leave the historical reasons for this to those much better at history than is she,  and state simply that people bring the recipes with them that they have.  When moving to a new country,  she cannot imagine anyone rummaging around to get new recipes to teach the people where he or she is going, to cook. So , as the majority of colcannon dishes used boiled potatoes and boiled cabbage in Ireland, so they did here. 

Annalena found herself confronted with a bunch of kale which, as her gal pal Nora would say  "was giving her the stink eye."  Kale... Ah, yes, kale, the mainstay of winter greens, the curly stuff in every box of CSA vegetables.  The vegetable which caused her gal pal Jim W to state "I gave up my CSA when they started sending ten pounds of kale a week."    Recently, of course, kale has become fashionable, for kale salads, kale chips, and so forth.   No one seems to have picked up on the standard way to cook kale:  put it in salted water and boil  it to death, and then when it's ready to eat, chew, chew chew.  Well, there was that:  but Annalena also had a whole bunch of potatoes that were "giving her the eye."

There's a cooking joke in there for all of you:  the potatoes were getting old.  So, she made the sort of connection that cooks do:  what could she do with potatoes and kale?  What resembles kale in the greens field?  And yes, there it was,  right in front of her:  colcannon with kale.  BUT:  Annalena being who she is, was not going to boil this stuff to death.  So, she did some research, and found a wonderful recipe, in which you saute' the kale.  

BRAVO.  It works, and it's delicious.    And if you happen to have finicky children, or a finicky partner, you can call this green mashed potatoes, and perhaps they will eat it.  If not, more for you. 

We start with a pound to 1.5 pounds of potatoes, peeled.  You can use any type of potato here, as long as it is not a red skinned potato.  The red skins, ragazzi, are "waxy," and do not mash well. They make wonderful boiled potatoes, and potato salad, but here, go for yukons or russets, or carolas:  something along those lines.  

After you've peeled the potatoes,  cut them into small pieces, and put them in a pot.  Cover them with about an inch of water, and add a big tablesoon of salt.  

Please note the water instructions ragazzi:  many people make a mistake in boiling potatoes in too much water.  When you do that, the flavor of the potato dissipates into the water.  You may wind up with wonderful tasting soup, or bread (we use potato water to make bread around here, ragazzi), but your potatoes will not be as tasty as they might   be.  So bring that to a boil, and begin to simmer them.  You want them to cook until they fall apart when you hit them with a knife.

To the kale:  pull the leaves off the stems, and chop the leaves roughly, and on the small side.  In a big frying pan, add a tablespoon of olive oil, and the kale.  Keep this moving, so that the kale doesn't burn (which will happen if you are not careful, and/or if you use too high a temperature).  When the kale has begun to soften, get a half cup of water (from the potatoes, if you like), add it to the pot, cover it, and let the kale steam for about five minutes. 

When your potatoes are ready, draw off about a cup of the water.  (Don't omit this step), and then drain the potatoes.  Put the drained, hot potatoes into a bowl and now decide what dairy you plan to use - because you should use dairy.  Buttermilk seemed right to Annalena, and she used this.  About a third of a cup.  And a tablespoon of butter. No more than that.    Combine the butter, the milk, about a third of the water you drew off, and the potatoes, and mash them with whatever you use to mash potatoes.  If they seem thick to you, and somewhat not to the texture  you want, add more water. Do so carefully, ragazzi, because you could easily go from mashed potatoes to potato soup.  

When you have the texture you want,  then stir in the kale.  And... you are done.  Very nourishing, very easy, and using what winter has given you.

Piled up against a portion of fish, one has: 

It tastes as good as it looks.  Get your greens on,  lads and lassies.  Make it today.  And if you vary the recipe, share it with us all.