Collard Greens Stir-Fry with Cabbage and Carrot

Ventured out to Collard Greens only recently, after dealing with kale (recipes include Stir-Fry Kale, Kale Pasta, Kale and Potato Soup and even Kale Ice Popsicles!) a couple of times.

So, what can I do with collard greens? Chinese home-cooking is my comfort zone, so I fall back to stir-fry, in this first attempt on collard greens. At home, I don't control a high-heat wok like in a professional kitchen, thus I am usually into low-medium-temperature cooking, to minimize the destruction of nutrition faced in the process of high-heat cooking. There are also a couple of techniques used in food prep. to ensure even cooking of the ingredients especially for winter greens such as kale and collard greens.

Stems and leaves separated, is the way to go. Rather, thin shreds of stems and leaves, separated. Cooking Tip: Fry the stems first and when they are half-cooked, add the leaves, then cook the entire dish to completion.

I have not tried the Southern way of cooking collard greens, though I have seen it quite often on TV. To me, it just seems OVERCOOKED. Maybe it tastes good? I don't know. But (1) I do not like my greens turning yellow. And (2) I do not like it overcooked. Or perhaps, I am too used to the Asia way of home-style cooking. Here, my collard greens in a home-style stir-fry with cabbage, carrots, mushrooms and a little spices: Stir-Fry Collards with Cabbage and Carrot


Stir-Fry Collards with Cabbage and Carrot
Ingredients: 2-3 cloves garlic, finely minced; some tiny thin slices of ginger; 1/4 cabbage, into thin shreds; 1 small carrot, into thin shred; 4-5 collard greens; some mushrooms; 1tsp curry powder; salt and white pepper to taste

Directions: Fry the garlic and ginger till fragrant. Add the carrots and fry till slightly tender. Add the curry powder to exude the fragrance with the presence of oil and heat. Add the collard stems and combine well with carrots. Turn down heat, cover the pan and simmer till stems are half-cooked. Add collard leaves and cabbage, combine well in the pan, then cover the pan and simmer till everything is cooked. If too dry, just add a little water to moisten up. Salt and white pepper to taste


I am sharing Collard Greens over at Weekend Herb Blogging #270 hosted by Lynne from Cafe Lynnylu. Similar to kale, collard greens is also part of the  cruciferous vegetables family just like broccoli. Collard green is nutrient-dense with high amounts of Vitamin K, A, C and minerals such as folate. These greens acts as detox support, offers antioxidant and anti-inflammatory benefit (Source: Whfoods.com.). In the same source, I read that when collards are cooked, they show much greater bile acid binding ability than raw collards.



So, knowing how to cook your veggies properly does affect their nutrition outcome. A classic example will be carrots - where a little oil (and heat) is required to render the fat-soluble vitamins more easily absorbed by the body. Yet another example are tomatoes - in which if lycopene is what you are after when you eat tomatoes, a little oil (and heat) is also required. Raw tomatoes are high in Vitamin C, yes but the unique presence of lycopene is not extracted from tomatoes in its raw form.

Have you tried Collard Greens? How did you cook it?

Tag: cruciferous , collard greens, stir fry

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