As I mentioned before, this year I have a newfound appreciation for greens because of a “cooking with greens” class I took at my CSA. Knowledge is power! For this dish I used collard greens and a few winter radish tops since that’s what I had jumping out at me from the refrigerator. Which reminds me, I need to get in there and do some freezing of the vegetables that I haven’t cooked yet and are in danger of going bad. That’s what happens when I end up traveling or too many late nights at work. I have gotten much better at keeping up on stuff this year, though.
So for this recipe, I co
oked a thinly sliced onion in a little olive oil until brown and crisp. When I first saw that I was like huh? I have never cooked onions long enough to become brown and crisp before, but it really works! I was really surprised they didn’t burn. So anyway then I removed them and set aside. Then I put a large bunch of collards/radish tops in the pan (chopped, of course) for a minute and then added some water, added the lid, and steamed for 10 minutes. It could have gone about 5 minutes longer. I normally don’t like mushy greens but I think it would have been OK for this particular recipe. Just a reminder, you can substitute any greens, as long as you adjust cooking time. Spinach cooks the shortest, then swiss chard, then kale and collards. Somewhere in there are the various beet greens, radish tops, kohlrabi tops, and carrot tops. Not a huge fan of the carrot tops but I feel bad throwing them away.
So after they’re soft, you are supposed to drain but mine didn’t need it. I added the onions back in along with a tablespoon of tomato paste, then cooked until it was heated through.
The verdict: Troy really liked it, but I wasn’t sold. They did set off the steak nicely but as I mentioned before they could have been cooked longer. I also think I would have preferred kale, but oh well. I will probably make this again as it doesn’t take the focus off the meat, which is what I was going for. So it’s a good side dish.
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