True Greens Recipe

ok. As I have virtually (get it?) nothing tech to offer, I humbly submit my recipe for collard greens w/ true red eye gravy.

Ingredients:
A mess of collard greens, enough to cover about a square foot of counter space.
One to two heads of garlic. Heck, I use four.
Mustard seed, cumin, cayenne, black pepper.
Thick, raunchy, dredge-like coffee from this morning. (city folks will make espresso fresh for this recipe; turkish would be better)
Either real molasses (thick) or the dredge-y/almost burnt set-aside goo from maple sugaring. If you do not have this in your cupboard, make friends w/ a farmer who sugars, show up at 2 a.m. when he is burning off the last few gallons, and ask for the dregs. Be sure to bring liquor of some sort. Use store bought maple syrup if you must.

Cut up the collards in strips. They will bite back. Beware.
Take your garlic heads and smack em with something hard: the bottom of a rough mug or a hammer. This will squash the juices out of em. Remove the skins. Do not cut in neat little squares. Ever.

heat up a cast iron pan or a wok. If you find a tupperware pan, chuck it out the window.

toss in a handful of mustard seeds, dry. Roast em. When they start to pop and smoke, ladle em out and set aside.

put some oil in your now hot pan. My gran used to use lard, but nobody eats it anymore, so use olive oil, which everybody eats. If you still want a country flavor, chuck in some of this mornings' bacon fat or a piece of ham. (I know, everyone is either kosher or vegan these days; how about some veggie bacon strips?)

when the oil is clear, thin, and has transparent little strings in it, chuck in the garlic. It should sizzle back at you. Turn and brown for just a minute and then...

Chuck in the collards strips. Move em around with big wooden spoons. Hike the garlic up and over the greens as you stir so it does not burn. Collards like to be abused: high heat tames em.
They will shrink. Add more.

Make a swill on the side. (some call it a roux, of the cajun variety) Take the dredgy coffee, about a 1/2 teacup will do, a palm of cumin, a dash of cayenne, a bunch of black pepper, a dollop of molasses or maple syrup and a dash of salt. whisk it. taste it. Oh, swill the mustard seeds back in too. Your brew should be a little sweet, a little salty, with a rough top note. the flavor of your roux/swill is very important, it is your signature, so play around until you get it where you want it.
(Note that the burnt-sugar flavor of the dredgy maple and the raunchy flavor of molasses are different. Choose well.)

Dump it in and watch the whole thing hiss and spit in a big billow of steam. Add a little water, enough to make sure you get a good simmer. Cover the whole mess w/ a tight fitting lid. leave the heat on a bit if the collards are not bright green yet, or, turn it off right away. Either way you will ultimately turn heat off to let the flavors marry for a while.
Now's a good time to dump in a can of drained hominy, should you feel the need.
Set aside. Rest.

Serve w/ real buttermilk cornbread. (make the buttermilk, as the stuff in the store is not real buttermilk, or use yogurt) and a very serious brisket, recipe available upon request.

This, and all my recipes, are for cooks with enough instinct to play around with measurements and time. Cooking is not for the fainthearted..... and I never can find my measuring gadgets.

Tess

 

My gran used to use lard, but nobody eats it anymore

I use it all the time.
make a pie crust with lard
make a pie crust with shortening
difference is astounding
so much better, taste and texture---wise, using lard
peach(the best) apple(grreat) berry(no matter-------pie over cake, hands down; sorry TIM W)
a happy fridge contains:
real butter
heavy cream
a can of rendered bacon fat
yeast
berries, of some kind