Friday, January 12, 2024

A New-To-Me Green

My neighbor who has the chicken, sheep and cow also has wonderful raised beds and she grows lots of veggies. Recently she asked if I'd like some spigarello leafy greens because she had a lot of them. I had to look up what kind of greens spigarello are. Turns out they are like a combination of arugula and kale, although they are members of the broccoli family. 

Broccoli spigarello, or spigarello for short, has the bluish-gray hue of its cousin cavolo nero (Italian black kale). Its leaves are like long, thin broccoli leaves with ruffled edges that twist and twirl upward from the stem.

She brought over a produce bag full and we enjoyed them for a couple of meals.



Never having cooked these greens, I decided to go with a method that would allow the greens to shine. I sautéed a half onion in a little olive oil, turning the heat to low after a minute, then stirred frequently until they were translucent and a little bit golden in color. I rinsed the greens briefly in cold water and then threw them into the pot where I stirred them quickly to coat with the onions and oil. In just minutes they wilted. I sprinkled in a bit of good balsamic vinegar, about a 1/2 teaspoon, stirred that in and served the spigarello greens as a side dish to the hunter's style chicken.



They made a great contrast to the mellow chicken and tomatoes and mushrooms since the greens were slightly bitter but flavored with the slight sweetness of onion and vinegar.



If you don't have access to this particular green, try arugula, chard, kale, broccolini...all of them would be great prepared this way.



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