VEGGIE-LITE In praise of kale!

Have they always had kale in supermarkets? I swear it’s one of those things that only appeared on the shelves a few years ago. Like broccoli. I’m certain there was no such thing as broccoli when I was a child. We certainly didn’t have it in my house. I don’t think I ever had it at school. I know I’d have noticed it on my plate. I’d have complained about it as almost every other child I’ve ever come across does. No, broccoli just suddenly sprang into existence one day. It didn’t even go through that ‘kiwi fruit’ moment of being fashionable. It just sneaked onto the supermarket shelves and pretended it had always been there.

But back to kale.

It doesn’t look that great, does it? It’s leaves and ribs are tough. Raw black kale feels kind of rubbery. I think they probably grew it to feed to animals until someone thought of trying to sell it to people. Now apparently it’s a ‘superfood’. The sceptic in me thinks that’s marketing talk for ‘something we want to push on you because we’ve got too much of it’. Certainly putting it in a smoothie seems far beyond the realms of reasonable.

However, kale does have a few things going for it. Because it’s tough, an open bag of it keeps in the fridge for much longer than spinach would. You can grab and handful to add to a miso soup with noodles for a quick lunch. Or steam it in the time it takes to poach a couple of eggs and dress it with lemon juice and chilli oil and salt, topped with the eggs. So good!

This week we had a mushroom and kale lasagne from Anna Jones’ book The Modern Cook’s Year. The mushrooms (fresh and dried) were the star of the show, giving all the rich meatiness of a regular beef lasagne, but the kale – roasted briefly in the oven before being added to the mushroom-heavy bechamel – was robust enough to give a contrast to the richness and also to add a firmness to the texture which otherwise might have been overwhelmingly slimy. Spinach wouldn’t have worked – too much irony flavour fighting the mushrooms and no help to the texture. Cabbage? Not robust enough. No, kale was perfect.

I’m not sure I’m ready for a pile of steamed kale as a side dish, but I’m more than prepared to marry it with strong flavours in all sorts of ways. And it’s British, so here’s hoping it stays cheap when the world goes to hell if Brexit ever happens…

Here's the menu for Week 3.

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Claire Watts and her family are cooking vegetarian for a year. You can find out why - and why 'cooking vegetarian' doesn't always necessarily mean 'eating vegetarian' here.

Claire Watts writes and edits books for children.

She's currently working on making something beautiful with fairy tales.
Find out about her Snippets project and how you can help on her Patreon page.