In honor of Martin Negro King day coming up on Monday, I thought it would be nice to share my award winning recipe for collard greens with ham hocks and bacon. Substitutions for fats and proteins can certainly be made if you want to avoid all the fats, and you can eliminate the proteins all together for a flavorful veganfag version as well.
1 bunch of greens is about 1 pound and close to 5 servings
2 pounds / bunches of collard greens 3 cup chopped onion 2 cup chopped celery 2 cup chopped bell pepper 4-8 cloves garlic (to taste, basically) 2 sliced habanero or chilli of your choice (optional for the sensitive) 1/4 cup fresh chopped parsley sliced green onion for garrnish
1 tbs smoked paprika 2 tsp cayenne pepper (or to taste if you're a pussy) 2 tsp black pepper 1 tsp white pepper 1 tsp celery seed 1 tsp oregano 1 tsp garlic powder 1 tsp onion powder 1/2 tsp thyme 1/2 tsp basil salt to taste (you generally won't need it as even unsalted broth has 130mg's in it, and you get enough flavor from the smoked meat and spices)
...................Fats...................... Use just enough fats to keep the initial bacon from sticking while cooking and rendering, OR, use whatever fats suit your need.
Aaron Johnson
..............preparations..........
1. In a stock pot, toss in your ham hocks, cover with the 2 quarts of unsalted chicken stock, bring to a boil, and reduce heat to a simmer. Our goal is to extract flavor into the stock, and get the meat tender enough to fall off the bone. This will take about 1.5 to 2 hours total, which gives us time to prep our other ingredients.
Easton Thomas
2. While your ham hocks are simmering, inspect your greens, remove any that are nasty, and chop off the bottom of the stalks. Roll and cut them into 1-2 inch wide slices, or chop into the size of your choice. Uniformity helps them cook evenly. Some people don't like to leave the center stem in place, but I find that they add a nice texture to the greens, and they absorb broth, so when you bite into them you get a nice flavor explosion similar to celery in a vegetable soup.
Once you've chopped all your greens, place them in a pot, or in the sink, and cover them with water, a TBS salt, and about 1/4 cup of vinegar and allow them to soak for about 20 minutes. This will make cleaning and rinsing easier.
While your greens are soaking, we'll prep the rest of the veggies.
Grayson Nelson
3. Chop up your onion, celery, bell pepper, garlic, chilies, and parsely. Next, we'll prep the bacon.
Aaron Wood
4. Chop the bacon into small pieces for even cooking. Toss it in a pan to brown and render the fat, and once browned, remove and add to your stock pot with the ham hocks.
Cooper Cruz
Post faster you dumb honkey
Carter Morgan
5. Add your chopped garlic and chilli peppers to the rendered bacon grease, and cook only until fragrant.
Then add HALF of your chopped onion, and cook until lightly browned.
Add ALL of the dry seasonings MINUS any salt, and mix. Save salting for the very end so you don't over salt it.
Next add HALF of the celery and bell pepper and continue to saute until the mix becomes a soft, well caramelized near paste-like substance. When it does, turn off the heat, and add the contents of your pan to your stock pot with the ham-hocks.
William Taylor
6. Add 1/2 cup of white wine, 1/2 cup of apple cider vinegar, and 1 tbs of Worcestershire sauce to your stock pot, and your broth is now complete and can be left to finish. Check on the ham-hocks starting about an hour after you began to simmer them, and they should start to be getting tender. It usually takes at LEAST an hour and a half, but two hours is about average. You know they're done when the skin starts to split, and you can easily pull the meat from the bone.
While the broth is still simmering, let's finish prepping the greens.
Joshua Sanchez
7. Now that your greens have been soaking for at least 20 minutes, it's time to wash and rinse them. Take them out of the salt and vinegar solution and add them to a big pot, or the sink, and cover in water. Use your hand to stir them around in the water to clean them, then drain. Repeat this process 3 times until your greens are nice and clean and free of any grit.
Now we wait until the ham-hocks are done tenderizing in the broth.
Xavier Fisher
I'm glad to see you honoring him. There are few people that could fit the definition of Social Justice Warrior (SJW) better than King. Christ perhaps. Maybe Ghandhi. Buddha. Individuals that place themselves above selfish interest to help people, perhaps.
>But hurr durr, SJW's have done nothing to benefit mankind.
Levi Garcia
8. Once the ham-hocks are tender enough, pull them out of the stock pot, and separate all the meat from the fat, bone, and skin, and put the meat back in the stock pot.
Nathaniel Edwards
9. Now it's time to add our greens. Place them in the pot, press down, and start mixing them with the broth. As they wilt, add more greens until all of them are in the pot. Stir them into the broth, and once they have all wilted, add the remaining half of your onions, bell pepper, celery, and the parsley, and stir them into the greens and broth. Top up the pot with water so that it's at the same level as the top of the greens, partially cover with a lid, and simmer the greens until they're at the consistency you want.
Charles Ortiz
>not using smoked turkey tail
Joseph Roberts
10. It usually only takes about an hour for greens to become tender, so about an hour into it, start checking them for mouth feel. Some like their greens firmer, some like them softer, some even like them mushy, like spinach. I like mine firm, but not mushy, and that usually takes me about an hour and fifteen minutes to achieve on a low simmer.
Do a final seasoning check, and add salt if you need to, which you shouldn't.
Serve the greens in a bowl, with the meat and plenty of broth, and garnish with chopped green onion, and a side of corn bread for good measure. Rice, and or beans also make great side dishes.
This recipe gives you veggies, proteins, and fats, and can actually be very low fat if you sub olive oil and smoked turkey for the pork products.
Regardless, it's delicious and underrated as fuck, and can be frozen and re-heated as needed.
Let me know if you fuckers want a good cornbread recipe to go with this....
Parker Howard
When celebrating Martin Negro King, you do NOT skimp out on the pork products.
Zachary Martin
The greens I'm familiar with are a lot less involved: aromatics, smoked turkey tail, greens. 10/10 post OP. You've got the stomach juices flowing. Loves me sum greens. Please share cornbread recipe. Educate these fools on the gastronomic delight that is souls food/southern cooking.
Jayden Jackson
>Please share cornbread recipe.
This cornbread recipe is right in the middle of being sweet and savory. There's sugar in it, but not enough to make it sweet while still having a savory taste. This recipe is a great compliment to pretty much anything.
.............Cornbread:................
1 Cup Yellow Cornmeal 1 Cup All Purpose Flour 3 Tablespoons Sugar, granulated 4 Teaspoons Baking Powder ½ Teaspoon Salt 1 Egg, Beaten 1 cup plain yogurt mixed with 1/2 cup water (or 1 1/2 cup of buttermilk to sub) 3 Tablespoons Vegetable Oil 2 Tablespoons Butter at a liquefied temperature
Dominic Cox
1. Prep dry ingredients by simply adding 1 cup of cornmeal with 1 cup of AP flour, 3 tbs of sugar, 4 tsp of baking powder, and a 1/2 tsp salt. Mix thoroughly, and set aside.
Some like to sift the flour, but I don't think it makes much of a difference.
Aiden Bell
2. Preheat your oven to 425 and toss in either a cast iron skillet, pyrex, or whatever you're going to use to bake your cornbread to get it hot BEFORE you pour in your batter.
While you're waiting for your oven to heat up, go ahead and mix your wet ingredients together. I make my own plain yogurt and eat it for breakfast in the mornings, so I always have it around, and this is why I use it instead of buttermilk in this recipe. To try it out, measure one cup of plain yogurt in a cup, then add 1/2 cup of water and stir it into the yogurt. The consistency should be similar to that of buttermilk. Add 1 whole egg, 3 tbs of your choice of oil, and 2 tbs of liquefied butter, and mix together with a whisk. Add this to your dry ingredients and stir together. The consistency should be smooth, but not too firm, or runny.
For those of us out there that like chilies, you can add sliced chilli peppers into the batter for additional flavor. I use habanero's, but jalapeno's work too for those that don't like too much heat.
Liam Martinez
3. Once your oven and cooking vessel are up to temp, pull out your skillet / whatever, and butter up the bottom and sides so your batter doesn't stick. Then add your batter, smooth it out nice and level with the back of a spoon, and toss it in the oven for 30-45 minutes until golden brown and cooked through.
Noah Lewis
4. After 30 minutes, check on it to see if it's done so it doesn't overcook. When it's golden brown, stick a toothpick, or a knife, in it and pull it out, and if it comes out clean, then it's done.
Some people like to finish it by adding slices of butter to the top and letting them melt into the corn bread, but I don't find that's necessary.
Regardless, it's delicious, and goes with pretty much everything you'd ever want to eat.
Good luck.
Christopher Cruz
Were all the images you used taken from Google? Not complaining, just haven't seen a cookalong thread have that before.
Chase Price
Pretty much.
My camera is dead.
Anthony Roberts
>Yogurt instead of buttermilk I'm not sure how I feel about that but it's interesting enough that I kind of want to try it.
Gabriel Anderson
Don't be afraid.
1 cup of plain white yogurt to 1/2 of water. Mix it, and toss it right in.
Works for buttermilk pancakes AND biscuits as well.
Ian Anderson
what's funny is I completely forgot about MLK day but bought collard greens anyway, then came home and saw this thread.
Hunter Moore
Collards are under-rated as fuck.
Aaron Gray
Most of the recipes I see call for using collards as simply a side dish....fuck that. I like making them the foundation of a complete meal. LOTS of proteins. LOTS of broth.
The stuff is the BOMB over rice, too.
Collards are truly under-rated as fuck as they can serve as the foundation for a spectacular, comfy, healthy meal.
Kevin Sanchez
>over rice
You've become a favorite person of mine.
Luis Evans
>garlic >onion >garlic powder >onion powder Idiot. Too much much all around, I feel, but I bet it's pretty good anyway. Love collard greens.
Samuel Gutierrez
+ fried chicken & mac & cheese and its over. Get the lights.
Dylan Butler
>Too much much all around
Nah...between the caramelized veggies, the veggies tossed in toward the end, and the powders, you're getting 3 different taste profiles that work in harmony together with the smoky flavors of the proteins and the rest of the ingredients. Makes for a spectacular broth that permeates the greens, and the rest of the veggies.
110% maximum deliciousness.
Regardless, try it out, adjust it as YOU want, and make the recipe that best fits YOUR needs.
