Cooking Allsorts On Tour part 1

It's not often that people say they're going north to find warmer climes but the week leading up to Good Friday in my town proved the exception to the rule; almost every day of the drive to work that week saw me drive on roads bordered by snowdrifts twice as high as the car. It was more like what I would expect to occur in the country I was heading to; Scotland and more specifically the city of Glasgow.

The purpose of my visit was to catch up with an old friend from uni and go to a hat themed house party he was throwing in honour of his recent birthday. Sure enough as the train headed north the snowdrifts disappeared, the sun shone and the temperature warmed slightly. As it did so my thoughts turned to the plan for the weekend and the fact that my friend would need some decent party food.

I knew from previous visits that the city had a wide range of interesting food shops and I was hoping that a trip to one or two of them would inspire some cooking projects to help add something extra to the weekend. This blog entry aims to give a little insight into the meals made did just that.

The first dish, prepared to cure a very slight hangover after a trip out to a couple of quality Glaswegian Bars on Good Friday night, was a Red Kale Frittata. I have to say that seeing Red Kale, together with a whole host of barely known vegetables, in a supermarket I visited shortly after arriving in the city on Good Friday certainly helped shatter a number of my erroneously held views about the culinary tastes of Glasgow. Previously I was of the opinion that it was the home of many stodgy, bland meat dishes and overly sweet puddings served with extra double cream. However, the range of unusual vegetables and selection of spices on offer changed all this.

I found the cleanest and deepest frying pan in my friend's cupboard and sprayed olive oil on the bottom of it before warming it through on a low light. In the meantime I took the two bunches of Red Kale and  sliced them up finely having first washed them thoroughly. I made sure to discard any thick stems that would not soften enough when cooked and then poured the Kale into the frying pan. I let it fry on a medium heat for around twenty minutes.

I took extra care to stir the Kale occasionally as it cooked to be sure it did not stick to the bottom of the frying pan and burn. So as to give the distinctive taste of it an extra edge I added three teaspoons of dried Marjoram to the pan and stirred it into the Kale.

Apparently Kale is part of the cabbage family although its shape and taste to me has a lot more in common with Broccoli and it has less of a bland and watery taste than many types of cabbage. Interestingly Kale was also a staple part of people's diet in the UK during the dark days of rationing during the Second World War.

There were no rations on the eggs needed for this recipe however when I added the yolks and whites of five eggs to a mixing bowl and stirred them hard until I had a golden yellow mixture in preparation for adding to the Kale. Once the Kale had cooked for twenty minutes and was soft enough to cut with the edge of a tablespoon I added the stirred eggs and pushed the frying pan gently from side to side so that the eggs spread evenly among the Kale and Marjoram.

I let the fast forming Frittata cook on the hob for around ten minutes while carefully running a wooden spatula underneath to stop it sticking to the pan and also to help the egg solidify and keep the food together. When the ten minutes was up I removed the Frittata carefully from the pan and served it. I noticed that the process of cooking had transformed the Kale from a rich red to a sea green colour.

The meal did the business to revitalise me in preparation for the evening's party and the protein in the eggs coupled with the fleshy taste of the Kale which was sharpened by the presence of the Marjoram made this dish something special.

To be continued in part 2...

Just about finished: the once red Kale had turned green by being fried continuously