kale, conquered

the other night, we finally decided to cook up the bunch of kale i’d picked up at the farmer’s market a week or so ago.  we have this one kale recipe that we’ve tried and liked from martha stewart’s everyday food magazine.  it involves whole wheat spaghetti, bacon and fontina cheese in addition to the kale.  the first time i made it, i thought, ‘hmmmm….. this is good, but it feels somehow not quite like a main dish.  needs a little something extra.’  so we tried chicken.  chicken was okay, but didn’t really add anything to the flavor of the dish and maybe actually blah-ed it up a little.  so the other night when i was cooking it up, i just couldn’t bring myself to add the plain shredded chicken we keep in the freezer to add to dishes.  i had pretty much resigned myself to eating the dish as-was, and then i remembered this recent blog post from orangette. a fried egg?  perfect!  i combined the two recipes into my dinner and ended up with something like spaghetti carbonara with kale.  and fontina cheese.  and garlic.  i have to say that i will probably not eat this dish without an egg ever again.  the yolk smooths out the bitterness of the kale and binds the whole dish together in the most delicious sort of way.  i’m actually looking forward to the leftovers.

for convenience sake, and because i did some tweaking, here’s the new recipe:

kale carbonara serves 4

4 slices of bacon

3 cloves garlic, chopped

1 lb. kale, stemmed and chopped

1-2 cups chicken broth

1 lb. whole wheat spaghetti or angel hair pasta

1 c. fontina cheese, finely shredded (could substitute another cheese if preferred.  fontina is a bit like parmesan, maybe slightly less sharp?)

4 eggs

1.  fry bacon and crumble into a small bowl.  pour out at least half the bacon fat into a small bowl.

2.  saute chopped garlic in remaining bacon fat until golden.  add chopped kale (in two batches if necessary) and saute until wilted.  season with salt and pepper.  add enough chicken broth that the kale won’t burn and cook until soft (about 10 minutes), stirring occasionally.

3.  meanwhile, cook and drain pasta.  toss with kale mixture to combine and add about half of the cheese.  portion into 4 shallow bowls or plates and top with more shredded cheese and crumbled bacon.

4.  fry an egg for each bowl and place it on top of the pasta to serve.

extra delicious served with a thick slice of toast and a glass of apple cider.