Collard Greens

I have a similar recipe for collard greens and wrote about making it in my memoirish and topical food blog called cooking the kitchen. Here is a preview of what I wrote:
I had a lot of left over collard greens after preparing the recipe for Lasagna with Collard Greens, that had recently been featured on this web site. Always the girl scout, in that I like to be prepared for all possibilities, I bought a bit extra of those big, leafy green fronds. This was in case some of the leaves in the bunch to be used for the lasagna recipe, turned out to be less than stellar. As they say, necessity is the mother of invention. Thus this recipe for easy peasy, cheesy, saucy, collard green casserole was invented.
Check out more at
http://www.cookingthekitchen.com/cheesy-saucy-collard-greens-casserole/#

Collards, yum. Oil of roasted sesame seeds – now that’s unique and does not appear in any known Shakespeare witch scene. But even if I cared not a bit about greens I’d have been delighted to stumble upon Elise’s serendipitous prose. I have a pot of collards concatenating as I type.

Now where’s that Threadgills recipe for chicken fried steak….

Cooked this recipe with chinese sausage and my family loved it. The use of sesame oil inspired me to do that (plus I did not have bacon then). Thanks for posting it.

Best recipe for down home good collards YUM YUM GOOOD. In a Lg stock pot cover 4 lg hocks with water, dice a lg. onion very small add salt& pepper.Cook the hocks about 3-4 hrs till meat starts to fall off the bone, clean collards well and cut small. Roll your collard tight and cut. Add collard to stock pot and cook another hour and a half. key is to let them cool and then eat! I like to serve the next day(better the 2nd day)

My taste ffers a little. I merely steam the collards for five or six minutes ( this is for a steamer basket full of greens up to the top of a 4 quart stainless steel pot). I then dress them with a variety of simple things such as butter with salt and pepper, olive oil with a touch of vinegar and salt and pepper, and at times just plain. Hot sauces are good as well as the variations of the above recipes. The main thing is to have good fresh greens to start with. This applies to turnip, mustard and kale greens as well. Nothing is like a healthful food that tastes good too.

Here is a more traditional southern recipe:

Wash the collard greens well and pull the leaves off of the stems.

Fry bacon or fat back in a large pot until done, then remove the meat. Add a half cup of black coffee to the hot grease and scrape the bottom of the pan, in effect making red eye gravy.

Fill the pot with greens and cover. Cook on medium low so that you do not burn the greens. In this method, the greens are steamed, with most of the water provided by water in the greens themselves.

As the greens collapse place the left over bacon or fat back on top and sprinkle about two table spoons of sugar over it all. The greens will be bitter without the sugar. Place more greens on top of this to fill the pot. Cook for two hours or so on low to medium low until done.

The greens are good as cooked and should not need a topping. The liquid in the bottom should be delicious and is called pot liquor.

Serve with corn bread, black eyed peas and pork roast.

Definitely enjoyed these. My greens must have been tender because they were good after 10 -12 minutes. This was my first time to try collard greens – courtesy of my local CSA. I’ve loved your bacon, brown sugar & vinegar recipe as well. This way you add all that in the sauce.
Thanks again!!

Just made this for our New Year’s day good luck and prosperity fest and we LOVED it! Followed directions mostly, skipped bacon fat, no bbq sauce, added some ginger and black pepper, in 10 minutes we had tender delicious greens! My young kids even loved them. This is a keeper, not just for new year’s day!

Okay, regarding cooking tough collards, first, it’s better to wait until after the frost hits after October. Second, pre-boil your greens for about 20 to 30 minutes [in the meantime have your seasoned meat boiling in another pot]. Remove the greens from the pre-boiled water and discard water. Place the greens in the seasoned water and cook until tender. Season with salt and red pepper flakes, a dash of onions, garlic season, 1 tbls apple cider vinegar, and 1 tea sugar [optional]. After greens have cooked until done, but remain tough, add a very, very little [dash of] baking soda to cooking pot. Enjoy!