Sautéed curly kale with garlic & Parmesan – and lunch for a new mum

One of the first bloggers I met back in 2005 (confidence buoyed by my successful meeting with Johanna a month or two previously) was Jenni of Pertelote.  But if you follow her blog, you will have noticed that she’s been awful quiet lately.  Has she moved to an internet-free corner of the world?  Given up this blogging story for a joke?  Well, no, she’s been busy with her newest creation – a very special bun that had to bake for 9 months and is now the Littlest Pertelote! 

So adventurous cooking and blogging have given way to new adventures.  Johanna and I figured she could do with some adult company and a slap-up home-cooked meal, so a couple of weekends ago we knocked on her door and proceeded to produce just such a meal – and we cleaned up afterwards.  Not so much domestic goddesses as domestic fairies 🙂

Here’s what we had:

As snacks while we were preparing the meal, we had some fabulous chicken liver pate with pistachios (from Nicky’s cookbook), and as a starter we had a salad of endives with smoked mozzarella cheese, chestnuts and Parma ham (sublime flavours!)

The main course came courtesy of Skye Gingell’s wonderful cookbook, but was adapted to use venison, accompanied by mashed sweet potato and sauteed cavolo nero with Parmesan.  And dessert was my self-saucing apple-caramel pudding with added chopped pecans – mmmm.

It was a wonderful afternoon of good friends and good food and I found myself thinking back to it s I stood in the supermarket recently looking at the curly kale.  Cavolo nero… curly kale… not a million miles apart, are they?  And so I used my curly kale to recreate the cavolo nero we had at Jenni’s.  Easy, quick, healthy and delicious – and who can resist cheesy vegetables?? So stop pushing the kale in your organic veg box to the back of the fridge – put it in the spotlight with this delicious dish.

SAUTEED CURLY KALE WITH PARMESAN & GARLIC

Ingredients:

about 250g curly kale, washed and chopped
1 large clove of garlc, crushed
olive oil
salt and pepper
1/2 a cup of finely grated Parmesan

Method:

In a large fryng pan or wok, heat about 2 Tbsp olive oil.  Add the garlic and sautee until it starts to sizzle.

Add the chopped kale, making sure it it as dry as possible, otherwise it sizzles and splatters.  Over medium heat, sautee the kale until it has softened but retains some crunch and its brillliant green colour.

Add salt and pepper to taste and stir in about half the Parmesan.  Serve with the remaining Parmesan sprinkled on top.