Food is among one of the many ways I explore and experience culture, cooking and eating traditions including a range of newer unknown ingredients, produce and spices. This helps me create unique and exotic recipes and improve the meals and eating habits picking best practices.
Kale is one such thing that I have discovered lately eating
at some American friends home and seeing them being sold plentiful at grocery
stores.
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| Sauted Kale topped with toasted pine nuts |
Kale is a cruciferous vegetable from the Brassica family, Brassica oleracea is the name used for; cauliflower, cabbage, kohlrabi, Brussels sprouts, Chinese broccoli, and collard greens. However instead of forming heads, Kale are loose leaves growing from stems.
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| Sauted Kale and cherry tomatos flavoured with garlic and salt served with sunny side up makes a healthy breakfast |
Kale holds the reputation for being
one of the
healthiest leafy vegetable on the planet. Its nutrition profile made it
extremely popular among health conscious people and placed it on the top list
of super foods. Kale has been the most eaten vegetable in middle ages specially
in Europe, it is a vegetable for colder regions, however is highly adaptable
and hardy.
Source: Plant Based Dietician
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| Kale Chips makes great snack and appetizer |
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| Kale Chips-Rub some olive oils and salt on washed and dried Kale, bake them at high heat for 15 minutes or untill crisp |
I have experimented sowing the
Kale seeds early November last year. I sowed Kale Lacitano, and Red Russian
Kale, after a good 7 weeks, looks like the experiment worked, they are growing happily in several big
and small terracotta
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| Red Russian Kale at 4 weeks |
pots, almost 8-12” tall now. The soil mixture I used
contained 2 parts soil,
1 part compost and 1 part organic fertilizer. Seeds are
thinly raked into the soil and cover with a ¼” layer of compost. The sprouts
show up within a week, and in 5-6, weeks time the plants are fully grown ready
to harvest. During the growing season, all we need is to to side fertilize it
with some good quality organic fertilizer or some liquid or granular commercial
vegetable fertilize.
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| Full grown plant of Red Russian Kale |
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| Kale Lacitano also called Dinasaur Kale |
I keep harvesting the bigger leaves and the new leaves keep growing. The
plant in general produce for two years before it bolts. Kale is a cool weather
crop, however it is hardy and have abilities to acclimatized in most weather,
just the taste varies with the weather conditions, sweet in colder weather and
gets stronger and bitter with the rising temperature. I yet have to see its
growth pattern in the scorching heat of Karachi summers.
The super vegetable can be cooked in to a range of healthy and sumptuous
dishes by sauting, stir frying, steaming or baking. The taste is tremendously
enhanced with the use of onion, roasted or fried garlic flakes, lemon, herbs and
tomatoes. I don’t use much of spices with kale besides salt, pepper, and some
fresh red/green chilli flakes. 15 great Kale recipes
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| Stir fried Kale with roasted tomatoes |
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| Kale and Orange Juice drink |
Kale also makes great drink, simply blended in health drinks like
chilled smoothies, and fresh fruit cocktails. I experimented blending it with
fresh orange and or grapefruit juices, adding apples, or making smoothie with
low fat yogurt and berries of your choice. Adding some honey to your Kale
drinks help mellow down the bitter after taste of chlorophyll of these greens.
It is time home gardeners and commercial farmers begin growing Kale for
market consumption. We should not miss out on this goodness of nature.
