The Aftermath: Kale and Spinach Side Dish

Dawn's Kale and Spinach Side Dish

So, we made our Kale and Spinach Side Dish on Saturday. It was pretty good all in all. I want to thank all my friends who posted comments on Facebook about the dish.

I learned some things that I want to share with my blog readers. Special nod to Deb, who pointed out a basic fact. We were using something called lacinato kale. It is firmer and less curly than regular kale. It is also sometimes called Dinosaur or black kale and its leaves are darker, sometimes even blue. When raw, ours looked pretty dark, but as you can see from the photo above, it cooked up a nice deep green.

Lacinato (Dinosaur) Kale
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Kale
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Apparently not all kale is created equally. The kale we prepared is of the lacinato (or dinosaur) variety (left). It is firmer than typical kale (right).

Here are some side-by-side pics so you get an understanding.

The stuff on the right is like the stuff you might see used as garnishes. Who knew that stuff was edible? 

I think the recipe we followed intended that we use regular kale, so of course we will have to try again and post those results at a later date. I think the lacinato kale we used was pretty tasty, though I was surprised at how firm the veins were even after cooking for 7 minutes. Apparently this variety is frequently used in soups and other dishes where the extra firmness holds up to long cook times, so the fact that this was even edible after 7 minutes of sauteeing in a wok is pretty amazing to this novice green eater and one with 8-day old braces to boot! 

But it begs the question... what would the dish be like with traditional kale. Stay tuned to find out!