Sunday, April 28, 2013

Fumbling Toward Culinary Talent: Mustard Greens

I was in my local supermarket the other day, and I thought about how I like collard greens and turnip greens. But then I thought about how I don't make mustard greens much because I only had them once because they had a funky taste to them for some reason. 

I thought I'd do mustard greens myself. 

So I did. Here's the recipe.

Ingredients:
1 bunch of mustard greens from your local supermarket or farmer's market, cut into medium-size pieces, large stems removed
half of a slab of bacon, cut into smaller pieces
Smidge of red pepper flakes
Smidge of Penzey's Cajun seasoning
Salt and pepper to taste
4 cups of water

Process:
I fried up the bacon in a Dutch oven till they were little golden brown nuggets of porcine goodness and then transferred/drained them on a plate with a paper towel. After getting rid of the excess bacon grease, I dropped a good bit of the mustard greens into the Dutch oven on medium-low heat to let it mop up the crustiness on the bottom of the pan. 

After the greens had cooked a bit ~ maybe five minutes ~ I put in the rest of the greens and added four cups of water into the pot. Then I added the drained bacon nuggets, red pepper flakes, cajun seasoning, salt, and cracked black pepper. Partially cover on low heat for about an hour and a half, and you have tasty mustard greens with smoky, spicy potlikker. 

2 comments:

Babe Runner said...

I love love love greens, but yeah, never tried mustards because of their reputation. This recipe seems like it would work well to counter the funk - peppery and porcine-y. Win-win!

Quintilian B. Nasty said...

Yes, the first time I had them they had a funky, sour taste, which I guess is why lots of people use mustard greens as part of greens medley with collard and turnip. The bacon smoothed out the funkiness.

See, I'm learning.