Kale and Potato Soup with Red Chili

This recipe came from The Greens Cookbook by Deborah Madison. A wonderful book that all veggie lovers should own. The recipes in this book are from the Greens Restaurant when it was in it's hey-day. We usually make a double recipe.

The Stock
The ingredients of this soup supply plenty of flavor, so use water to prepare a simple stock using the stems of the kale.

The Soup
1 bunch kale
3 Tablespoons virgin olive oil
1 medium red or yellow onion, diced into ½ inch squares
6 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced
1 small dried red chili, seeded and chopped, or ½ teaspoon chili flakes
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon salt
4 medium red potatoes (about 1 pound), scrubbed and diced into ½ inch cubes
2 teaspoons nutritional yeast (optional)
7 cups water or stock
Pepper
Creme fraiche or sour cream (optional)

Update: Replaced onion with 2 thinly sliced leeks, sweated down in 2Tbs butter - reduced olive oil to 2 Tbs; replaced kale with collards. added 1/2 cube bouillon. Oh my, this was the BEST!

Using a sharp knife or kitchen shears cut the ruffled kale leaves off their stems, which are very tough and take a long time to cook. Cut the leaves into pieces roughly 2 inches square, wash them well, and set them aside.

Heat the olive oil in a soup pot, add the onion, garlic, chili, bay leaf, and salt, and cook over medium-high heat for 3 or 4 minutes, stirring frequently. Add the potatoes and the yeast, if using, plus a cup of the water or stock. Stir together, cover, and cook slowly for 5 minutes.

Add the kale, cover, and steam until it is wilted, stirring occasionally. Pour in the rest of the water or stock, bring to a boil, and then simmer slowly, covered, until the potatoes are quite soft, 30 to 40 minutes.

Use the back of a wooden spoon to break up the potatoes by pressing them against the sides of the pot, or puree a cup or two of the soup in a blender and return it to the pot. This will make a unifying background for the other elements.

Taste the soup for salt and add a generous grinding of black pepper. If possible, let the soup sit for an hour or so before serving to allow the flavors to further develop. If desired add a spoonful of creme fraiche or sour cream. Serves 4 - 6.

Mid-Century Potato Salad

We made a salad plate with potato salad, poached salmon, for a mid-century potluck dinner. The recipe came from a 1957 USDA pamphlet Potatoes in Popular Ways. My parents didn't have cookbooks. Maybe people just knew how to cook back then, perhaps we were poor. The ingredients were arranged in typical 1950's style in lettuce cups with lots of parsley for garnish, but the potato salad was not chilled so it didn't mold into nice rounded shapes. It was still good enough that I might try it again. We replaced the canned salmon with the very trendy salmon from a local butcher shop.

Salmon & Potato Salad (1950's style)
1 lb salmon - poached w fennel seeds
Potato Salad (recipe below)
Lettuce cups (this would be iceberg lettuce)
3 tomatoes - sliced
1/2 cucumber, peels & sliced
1 lemon
curly leaf parsley

Arrange 4 molded hemispheres of potato salad on lettuce cups.
Decorate with the other stuff. The fussier, the better.

Potato Salad

4 medium potatoes
2 Tbs finely chopped scallions
1 cup hot dressing (see below)
2 eggs
2 Tbsp finely diced green pepper
1/4 cup finely diced celery
1/4 cup diced cucumbers

Hard boil 2 eggs. Peel & chop.
Peel, dice and cook potatoes. Drain and add onions.
While the potatoes are still hot, add hot dressing to potatoes and onions and stir gently. Allow to cool for 10-15 minutes.

Add remaining ingredients.
Chill for several hours - or consume warm. - up to you.

Dressing

2 Tbs flour
1 Tbs sugar
1 Tsp dry mustard
1 tsp salt
dash cayenne
1 cup milk
1 egg, slightly beaten

Prepare dressing:
Mix flour, sugar, mustard & salt in top of double boiler over heat.
Gradually add milk, stirring continuously untill thickened.
Continue to cook, stirring occasionally for 10 minutes.
Add a small amount of hot liquid to egg, then add egg into hot liquid.
Cook for another 3 minutes.

I recently made the potato salad for a 4th of July potluck, doubling the recipe, using red, un-peeled potatoes and substituting red bell peppers for green.  It fit nicely in grandma's old brown bowl with a sprinkling of paprika instead of the fussy presentation.

Discovering Bitter Melon

We happened to be on Clement St. earlier this week and stopped at one of the big Chinese markets. I picked up 2 vegetables to try, a bitter melon and a silk gourd which was not a silk gourd, but that is another meal.


I spent a few minutes on internet looking for recipe ideas but started getting hungry so I went with a variation of one of the simple dishes. Next time I'm going to try some of the tasty looking dishes on the Hare Krsna website. Come for the chanting - stay for the food.

After trying a few more methods of cooking bitter melon, I believe this is my favorite. The spices work really well with the bitter flavor and the potatoes provide a comforting backdrop to the pungent bite of the squash. The last coking I doubled this recipe (3 medium bitter melons & 4 yukon gold potatoes) and 3 people consumed the entire pan.

Potato and Bitter Melon Hash Browns
This is somewhat reminiscent of the potato and onion hash browns typically served with eggs. In fact this would be really good with eggs.

1 bitter melon (made about 2 cups diced)
fingerling potatoes (also about 2 cups diced)
2 Tbs ghee
turmeric
salt
asafoetida
1 Tbs mustard seeds
1 sprig of fresh curry leaves
red chili powder
1.5 square inch of ginger finely diced
sliced jalapeño peppers

Slice and dice the bitter melon into 1/2" cubes Remove the seeds from the bitter melon when you slice it. I toasted the seeds and thought they were good. I've also left the seeds in when they were young and moderately tender. If the squash is more mature and there is a bit of red around he seeds, remove the seeds and the center pulp. Put the bitter melon into a glass bowl and toss with turmeric and salt. Let it sit while you clean and dice the potatoes.

Heat the ghee in a skillet, add the mustard seeds, ginger and curry leaves. They will sputter and pop if the oil is hot enough. Add the bitter melon and potatoes, sprinkle with a pinch of asafoetida, cover and cook on fairly hight heat. While cooking, turn the veggies to brown on their sides, scraping the skillet as you go. The combination of frying on the bottom and steaming should cook the potatoes and bitter melon till they are tender and nicely browned. Sprinkle with red chili powder about 5 minutes before the dish is finished.

We served this with assorted papadum and chutneys and wished we had eggs.