Maybe I just haven’t been looking hard enough or in the right places, but my experience in London has been that mustard leaves (on their own, not as part of a mixed leaf salad) aren’t that easy to come by. So I was really pleased to be able to snag a couple of bags of them via my Food Assembly shopping trip and then cook ‘em up like I used to have them when I was a kid back in the States.
The leaves were grown biodynamically and “organic in conversion” at Brockmans Farm near Canterbury. They were tasty to be sure and ideal for the recipe I was craving to create. However, pretty much any sort of bitter greens – collard greens (good luck finding them here), turnip greens, cavolo nero, bok choi even – could be used as a more than suitable substitute.
For my batch of greens, I also used a few other key ingredients that I picked up from Food Assembly producers: gorgeously full flavoured raw cultured butter from Bermondsey’s Kappacasein, and streaky bacon and chicken (for chicken stock) from Marsh Produce in Kent. I was particularly impressed with Marsh’s chicken as even a thigh simply boiled had considerably more flavour to it than most supermarket chicken.
My mustard greens recipe is easy to follow. It’s designed for one person (as that’s how I had it and to show how this is a great dish for solo home dining), but scaling it for more than one serving shouldn’t cause any headaches.
When making this dish for yourself, it’s worth keeping in mind that the Food Assembly ingredients I used were especially yummy and – I reckon – made the greens that much better than they might have been otherwise.
MUSTARD GREENS Yum
Ingredients (single serving)
- A generous pat of butter;
- Salt to taste;
- 1 finely diced garlic clove;
- 100g mustard leaves with stems and course ribs removed;
- 1 strip of streaky bacon (I prefer smoked) finely chopped;
- Chicken stock to taste (I’d say about );
- 1 tablespoon of cider vinegar;
- 1 tablespoon of mustard seeds.
Method
- Place a pat of butter in a pot and set to medium heat;
- Add the garlic and some salt;
- Throw in the greens;
- Cover with cold water and stock;
- Add the bacon;
- Turn up the heat and bring to a boil;
- Give the greens a couple of stirs and taste if they require more salt before covering with lid and allowing to simmer;
- The longer they can simmer the better, but they’ll be plenty tasty enough after 15 to 20 minutes;
- Drain in a colander giving them a light press to squeeze out excess moisture.
Serve
Place in a bowl and eat while they’re hot. I like mine with a few dabs of Tabasco.
Find out more about Food Assembly and producers at thefoodassembly.com and keep an eye out for future My Food Assembled! posts and more tikichris recipes.
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