Thanksgiving Flavours: COLLARD GREENS w SMOKED TURKEY
Collard greens in a flavourful turkey broth and chunks of smoked turkey
Welcome back! It’s the festive season and it was only right with issue #12 of Unfiltered Flavours I shared my collard green recipe with you all. I’m going to be sharing a few recipes between now and Monday ! When it comes to collard greens, I like mine heavy on the meat! You can always use less meat, but I find the flavour that’s built can’t be beaten with less!
I’m from the uk and if you’re also from here you’re probably wondering how and where to get greens. I always get my greens from Sainsburys (labeled as “Greens”), they’re available all year round in there and they’re cheap. Greens are a leafy vegetable. Very similar to kale texture wise, but less rich in flavour. They’re like a mix between spinach and cabbage. That’s the best way to describe them.
When it comes to making collard greens you need to build serious flavours. You want to make sure you’re using a good chicken stock, if it’s not jiggling then it’s not a good stock. Of course you can use stock cubes, but they tend to have more salt and this means you’ll have to play around with the seasoning.
I prefer using smoked ham hocks, but I know a lot of people aren’t lovers of pork so today we’re using smoked turkey. I live in London, south to be precise and there’s no shortage of this stuff. I’ve made greens this way my whole life, I haven’t deviated away from either of these meats so I wouldn’t be able to tell you how to achieve the same flavours without them!
Ingredients
Collard greens
1.5 tbsp chicken fat
2 medium onions
5 cloves garlic
5 sprigs of thyme
1kg of smoked turkey ( I used 2 necks, 1 drum)
1 tsp chilli flakes
2.5l chicken stock
500- 1l water
800g greens chopped (stems removed)
2 tbsp dark brown sugar
3 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 tbsp chicken stock paste
2 tsp all purpose seasoning
1 tsp smoked paprika
salt and pepper to taste
Method:
To a pan with some oil on medium heat, add your diced onion, let this cook for 1-2 minutes then add your garlic and the thyme removed from the stem . Allow this to cook until softened (2-3 minutes)
Then add your smoked turkey and cover with chicken stock, chilli flakes. Top up with water if needed, the meat should be submerged.
skim away any impurities before braising for 2-2.5hrs (covered) or until fall off the bone tender (or pressure cooker on high for 1hr)
wash your greens with salt and vinegar then remove the stem. Slice and chop into bite size chunks.
Chunky bite size pieces are my go to for the greens! Once your meat is tender, carefully remove from the pot and shred. I like to remove the turkey and pop to the side. Then add your greens into the braising liquid along with apple cider vinegar, paprika, all purpose seasoning and brown sugar .
Let this cook for 30 mins on low-medium heat, then add your meat back in and let this cook for a further 10 minutes
Your greens should look like this, theres no need to cook the greens for hours and hours! .
