Savoy

Kale is a cabbage that is very easily obtained fresh in the Netherlands. In Germany however it is available, but it needs a bit of luck finding it fresh instead of canned or frozen. Sometimes it’s there, mostly not. So when I asked the husband to bring me some kale from the market it wasn’t really a big surprise he brought back a huge savoy.

I do like savoy, used it quite often back in Amsterdam. It was a vegetable my organic box contained every now and then in winter. The problem for me with the savoy is the size, if you purchase a savoy you’ll most likely be eating it for three to four nights in a row. So that is what we’ll be doing this week: A week of savoy

First night: Green Kitchen Table 

Savoy leafs filled with a mixture of mango, canelli beans, avocado, and corn, seasoned with coriander, cumin, cayenne and paprika powder. I blanched the leaves a little bit, not enough though: they stayed a bit too crisp for my liking. It felt a bit rabbity to be honest. My four year old ate the whole thing, the twins didn’t like it. At all.  I could only get them to eat their avocado and some of the beetroot and goats cheese salad I made. Too bad. Maybe giving this one another go when summer is here again and mangos are a bit riper

Second Night: Jamie Oliver

Savoy as a side dish. Stir fried savoy with accompanying one of the best Chickens I ever made. The trick here is to add another kind of cabbage, in our case Brussels sprouts, bacon for the salt and green peas to sweeten it a bit. At the end adding a bit of butter makes it an easy to eat dish, also for the girls, but nothing innovatory here. 

The chicken we had, however, was one to remember. The new thing for me in this recipe was adding fresh herbs by stuffing them between the breast and the skin. Difficulty is carefully tearing the skin loose without damaging it, but once you succeed it really is delicious. I for one will always use this technique roasting chicken from now on.

Third Night: Yvette van Boven

With the leftovers of the savoy we made a colcannon from the Home Made Winter cookbook by Yvette van Boven. Like any other hotchpotch it’s potato mash mixed with 10 minutes cooked, sliced cabbage. What makes this one particularly tasty is adding sliced leek that has been boiled in milk fot a couple of minutes. It’s an easy but tasteful recipe and we accompany it tonight by vegetarian sausages, which actually are not tasty at all. If somebody knows where to get tasty, non-dry veg sausages, please let me know. I have not been successful finding those yet.