Green Leafy Vegetables in US

Hi Ladies
I stumbled across your thread and though I would share recipes and habits from Western kitchen. Don't know if you will like and please feel free to Indian-ize any recipes...I would be interested to know how they might change.

watercress: we never cooked it in my family...it was always eaten raw and fresh in tea sandwiches by my aunt (I never do it). My memory is that you take a thin soft good quality white bread and butter the bread and cut off the crusts. Put watercress in and put between two buttered slices, then you roll this with a rolling pin (medium pressure? light pressure?) to make them thin and fused, cut in triangles and serve at tea luncheon in summer

chard: we used to take directly from the garden, washed and cooked quickly in the water sticking to the washed leaves until just cooked....just a few mins. then served with salt, black pepper and lemon juice. Have you perhaps thought of doing some masala dressing with lemon juice and oil over the lightly cooked chard?

collard greens (southern style recipe) (you can also do broccoli rabe this way use whole thing):
1 bunch collard greens
take the collard leaves and strip off the stem, wash and roll up and cut in 1 inch strips...don't need to chop a lot
a big onion sliced
nutmeg powder
black pepper powder
red wine salad vinegar (don't worry if you don't drink...it is not wine)
sugar
salt

cook the sliced onion in oil until it is translucent, then throw in the collard greens, 1/2 tsp nutmeg powder, cranks of black pepper powder to taste, little salt, and 3 or 3 tablesppons of vinegar. cook the collards until they are done, then you can add a little more nutmeg or pepper if it gets too mild during cooking. sprinkle in 1/2 tsp sugar and see how it tastes. (the classic way is as step one you cook some chopped bacon and leave the fat in the pan and don't use oil but I am telling veg version.)

Beets:
this is for the Russian soup called borscht:

wash 3 or 4 good sized beets really well, cut off the top about 1 inch above the beet, and boil them in water. take the beets out and peel them and cut in pieces and put back in the water. Slice a big sweet onion and put in. you can also put in the beet greens at this point. Salt to taste. Now this soup is sweet/sour and you decide how much. If you want it just a little bit then use lemon juice, or you can use a little vinegar....I use citric acid crystals 1/2 tsp or less...go slow when adding. Then you add sugar to balance...all this you have to do to taste. You can serve this hot in winter or cold in summer with a big spoon of sour cream on top when you serve. Variations of this can be additions of cooked carrot, cooked meat, cooked potato cubes.

In winter back when I was a kid we never got good green vegetables due to our short growing season... now they are shipped in from South America, California, etc. but are not seasonal. (Non-seasonal vegetable eating is a controversy right now.) For fresh vegetables in winter you ate the root vegetables such as Hubbard, acorn, or butternut squash, cabbage, carrots, onions, celery, potatoes, sweet potatoes and yams, parsnips, dried peas and beans. These vegetables keep you warm in winter. The green leafys were the joys of summer. BTW, for those of you who grow spinach, when it starts to go to seed, my Dad's trick was to mow it down with the lawn mower and let it grow back....this way you don't need to replant and have a nice second crop.

Interested for your feedback......

Tina

 

**** In the borscht you cook the onion and beet leaves.....

 

Chinese markets, like Ranch 99 in CA, are one of my favorite places to shop for greens! Yu Choy is one of the healthiest greens and is so quick and simple to cook and tasty! You don't need to add any masala since the leaf has it's own flavor. I make a quick stirfry and really eat these as an appetizer/salad before any meal. filled with nutrition and fiber. You can make similar stirfrys with snow pea leaves, bok choy etc.

 

Hi eegirl,
I usually make my green with some spices and lentils. I would like to learn to enjoy their natural flavor.
Could you please share the details of how you make the stir fry with yuchoy, snowpealeaves and bok choy ? Do you add any seasoning ? Any oils? Any other veggies with them?
Thanks for your time.

 

I don’t really have a recipe I keep experimenting and changing it up. but the basic method I use is very similar to the one at steamykitchen[dot]com. Search there for yu choy and you will see a simple stir fry. I do not use the vegetable broth which they suggest. I just add a little water+salt for the steam cooking [notw: yu choy stalk requires a little more cooking.] The secret is to not overcook the greens. then they loose their flavor. You can also add ginger and/or thinly sliced red pepper. I usually use peanut oil for cooking and I think it adds some flavor to this dish.

If you are serving this with Chinese cuisine you could add a little soy sauce or a dash of seasame oil. I am vegetarian and found a mushroom fake-oyster sauce in the Chinese market which you could also use to flavor the stir fry. You can follow this method will all other greens just vary the cooking time. boychoy and snow pea leaves do not require as much cooking.
Hope this helps

 

As per me u shud try all the greens available....try receipes from good network