BEAUTIFULLY BITTER CREAMY KALE

1 cup (2-3 servings as a side), 20 minutes

INGREDIENTS

• 2 bunches of fresh kale (this is around 4-6 cups, I use lacinato/ Tuscan kale)

• 1-2 green onions (white part), roughly chopped

• 1 tbsp ghee for cooking

• 2 tbsp - 1/4 cup olive oil for blending

• Salt to taste

DIRECTIONS

1. Remove the kale leaves from their stems and place them in a large bowl of cool water to wash (you can save the stems if you'd like and add to a sauté or stew for later). Then wash the kale and drain.

2. Heat the ghee in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the chopped green onions - white parts only, you can save the green parts for garnish if you'd like. Heat the onion for about 1 minute, then add the kale, cover, and allow to cook for a few minutes (until bright green - you don't want to over cook it).

3. Add the kale and onion mixture to a blender with salt. Begin to blend on high for 1 minute, adding the olive oil as it is blending to catch the ingredients.

4. Once blended, scrape down the sides, and blend on high again until you have an emulsified, creamed, green-type of consistency. Add to a serving dish and set aside.

5. Extra 2 minutes and fun - fill a large mixing bowl of ice water. Add your serving dish full of the creamy kale to the bowl of ice water - so you have a bowl of creamy kale inside of bowl of ice water (this is called an inverted bain-marie technique and will gently cool down the kale mixture, ensuring it keeps its chlorophyll). Stir the kale around in the serving dish submerged in the ice water for 30 seconds - 1 minute, then serve. Enjoy warm as a side dish or condiment.
   

Recipe adapted from Chef Xavier Pellicer

#winter #summer #fall #spring #pitta #kapha #vata

Notes

• If you want to spruce up your "steamed kale" or "steamed bitter green," without complicated ingredients, this dish is for you.

• This dish results in a perfectly bitter, restaurant-quality tasting green side dish.

• You can substitute spinach for the kale - this will result in a creamier and less fibrous sauce. BUT keep in mind that spinach is interesting energetically in Ayurveda - raw, it is astringent, cooling, and reducing to the body, and cooked, it is heating, astringent, sour, and building to the body. It can be difficult to digest for some body types, such as a sensitive vata. Kale is better tolerated by most body types - even vatas - hence why I use it here. Spinach is not "bad" by any means - but if your gut is more sensitive, opt for kale.

• Onions? - if you haven't noticed, we don't use a lot of onions in Ayurvedic cooking since they are rajasic (stimulating energy that disturbs the mind). But, cooking them does ground their energy a bit, just not all the way. Green onions are generally considered less rajasic than other onion types. Use less for heated body types - although their heat is balanced nicely here with the kale and olive oil.